VxRail Reviews

We use it for our database, all in Flash. So we have excellent performance, and it has resolved all our issues. No issues at all. And the support is very fast.

This solution is very good. It's a product from the other line, and it's very efficient for us. It has worked very well for us, and we haven't encountered any critical issues with it.

The solution is very expensive. And it's not scalable for small businesses, just medium to large enterprises. The pricing could be cheaper. 

Another area of improvement is support. It could be faster. 

We have been using this solution for about four years.

The solution is really stable.

It is a scalable solution. It handles big data of our database, about three or four million customer services.

Overall, the support is good. But sometimes, it takes a long time for the support to respond. 

The initial setup is very complex. 

Our partner also provides us with implementation and deployment support. We're not capable of troubleshooting it ourselves. We need technical support to handle it, and sometimes, it takes a long time to get the support.

Deployment takes a long time, but three people are enough. One admin, one manager.

The license is very expensive. 

Overall, I would rate the solution an eight out of ten. It's a very good and effective product, though somewhat expensive. But in terms of performance and stability, it's worth it.

We have four to five clusters, and one of those clusters is an OT environment. We work in the oil and gas sector. We have deployed VxRail in three sites, mainly as a DMZ zone. We have another cluster for our internal network and a new VxRail cluster is going to be deployed and dedicated to SAP HANA.

The major advantage is the blueprint. You do not need to separately manage the sand or network part because it all gets virtualized.

The upgrading and virtualization of VxRail are easy to use. Compared to some of the other technology we use which requires a 32 GB memory minimum for one VM, VxRail does not require this additional memory. 

The SCL database sends out a warning and you have to download the adjacent file from the Dell website. You have to upload and retest it. We cannot always connect our systems to the internet which means we sometimes miss these important updates. 

I have been using this solution for five years. 

This is a scalable solution. 

The support for this solution is really good. I always use the chat medium because it is easy to open a ticket and get assistance. 

I would rate the support for this solution a ten out of ten. 

Positive

We previously used the initial generation of VxRail but experienced some issues. We went with another vendor but faced hardware-level stability issues and so we returned to VxRail.

The main issue during the initial deployment is if there are any errors, you have to completely re-image the nodes. There is no option to fix the issues and resume from where you stopped. This adds many hours to the process. 

We always follow what Dell recommends and their best practices.

We evaluated Nutanix for Discover FLeX and Dell. The Nutanix hardware is really stable and they still follow the chassis architecture. 

Dell changed from the chassis form factor to different nodes, so installing different nodes each time is easy, but when you have too many nodes it needs more space.

I would recommend VxRail because after using the solution for many years, I still prefer VxRail.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten. 

VxRail is allowing us to solve a problem that we've had for quite a while, as far as having distributed computing, networking, and storage. VxRail has a combined HCI environment. As a result, all of our resources are together, and life cycle management helps us with sustainability in deploying and managing the environment.

It helps us to consolidate a lot of our legacy, storage, and other computing environments.

What I find very valuable is VxRail's life cycle management. The life cycle management takes care of everything from firmware to the actual upgrading of the hypervisor and keeps everything up to level.

They need to keep upgrading the environment and improving automation so that the solution keeps getting better and better.

I've been using VxRail for about eight months now.

VxRail's support is excellent. I would give them a nine out of ten.

Positive

Our previous environment consisted of HP, Dell, and VxBlock. We switched because HCI is our new environment/ecosystem. There are a lot of supportability improvements, and it is much easier to manage with VxRail.

The more difficult part of it was the planning. The actual deployment was not as difficult.

The deployment didn't take more than a month from doing the actual planning to having it shipped, brought inside, and then brought online.

VxRail is deployed to data centers and globally as well.

The maintenance is sustained within supportability, so it has to be updated whenever leases come out.

We used Dell ProDeploy and had a combination of engineering and facilities staff for the deployment process.

As far as our consolidation ratios are concerned, we have seen a return on investment.

Pricing is competitive.

Definitely look into VxRail. Plan for your needs and utilize the services from ProDeploy.

On a scale from one to ten, I would rate VxRail at nine.

VxRail is a simple, efficient solution. It's easy to upgrade and scale the solution. If we increase our user base, we can easily scale it out. We have several thousand using it now. 

When we have a vulnerability or we need to upgrade VxRail, it takes a long time. It takes eight hours each time we upgrade. 

I've been using VxRail for six or seven years.

VxRail is stable. However, it's not a central solution, so we can lose some information, logs, and data when we remove a node. The efficiencies must be improved. For example, in Nutanix, when you move or remove a node, you get any errors or warnings, and you can work as well. But removing nodes in VxRail could cause some issues. You have to put the node in maintenance mode then reboot the rest.

I haven't used Dell EMC support. My colleagues made a ticket with Dell EMC one year ago, but it's a strong solution. When we have an issue, it's usually not a problem with the hardware solution or the infrastructure. We more often have issues with the system close to the baseline solution, like the VMware app or Zoom. When we have trouble with those solutions, we make a support ticket with VMware support, etc., not Dell support.

You don't have to be an expert to install VxRail. To install the node, you just follow the steps from Dell EMC, and you can install the solution in one sitting. It only takes one person to install. We have 30 engineers on my team, but only three are responsible for maintaining VxRail. 

We have a three-year subscription.

I rate VxRail seven out of 10. Maybe when they put out the new version, I'll rate it eight. I would recommend it to others. 

We have VxRail for Hyperconverged infrastructure for our Windows and Linux VMs. We have the vRealize Suite which helps us with lifecycle management and forecasting our environments.

VxRail has high performance and has great efficiency. There is a single place for us to manage all of our virtual machines. The ability to right-size instead of overcommit VMs is a large benefit.

We do not use the storage part of VxRail, we use Pure Storage to map out the VxRail because the disk performance from Pure Storage was far better than the performance of the disk on the inside of VxRail.

I have found that Dell sales are the worst part of the organization or the blemish of their solutions. When they tell you, you are receiving something, and then down the road, you find out you actually have to buy something else in order to have the intended functionality it can be frustrating. We should have been told when purchasing this solution that we needed to purchase VMware Tanzu for private clouds.

I have used VxRail within the past 12 months.

VxRail is highly stable. I would rate VxRail a ten out of ten for stability.

The solution is scalable, it has the ability to scale up but if you go and you add clusters it can get a bit difficult. If you are adding everything new, you only add it, and then it becomes a part of a cluster, but if you started off with a small four-cluster and then you have a 12-node cluster then you want to move those machines, it can take some work.

The installation is straightforward we have never had a problem. They could improve on the process of adding clusters. For example, when you want to add a four-node cluster to a 12-node cluster, there is a whole lot of resetting we have to do on that cluster and put it back on. We do not understand why you can not add a cluster into the same management interface. This is something they should look into.

The only advice that I would give to those wanting to implement VxRail is to make sure that they look at what comes with the VxRail package. For example, Dell offers vRealize, which is not private cloud. They mistakenly will say that it is for private cloud but all vRealize offers are lifecycle management, the ability to do costing, and everything between public cloud and a private cloud. They will tell you that you have to buy VMware Tanzu in order to get the private cloud features. When they initially sell VxRail as hyper-converged infrastructure, they also sell it as your private cloud but there is no private cloud functionality. You have to build that on.

I rate VxRail a ten out of ten.

The general use case for VxRail was to deal with the obsolescence because the current infra was not adequate to deal with the licensing and the support as we were running on the older hardware and the ESX version, and being a manufacturing site we didn't have a good level of redundancy.

We have two server rooms there. But if we lose one server room, we will not be able to run all our workload from the existing server room. So we deployed the V Service cluster during this deployment, wherein we have four modes in total in each room, and in the corporate data center.

We also deployed a backup solution with the Data Domain application. Then even if we lose one server room we have all the backup data in the other server room. So now at least we have local redundancy.

So the main use case is redundancy, obsolescence, better architecture, better throughput, and better back up time. Pfizer was not very responsive after we did the VxRail with the vCenter architecture with the upgraded styles. So we got feedback that Pfizer was responding well. Their help was good.

Also the backup time is good. Pfizer has the 1.5 PV. It used to take five to six hours on the back up but now it takes almost half of the time. So we are saving back up time and throughput is good. After deploying we have been getting some good benefits. Even the local businesses are happy with this solution.

So we are now deploying VxRail to more manufacturing sites.

The feature that I have found most valuable with VxRail is its upgrade. Because if you talk about the normal ESX process you have to upgrade the firmware, the bios, and you have to manage the compatibility. You have to do a lot of things. But in the case of VxRail, it's a single upgrade, end to end. You simply upload the bundle, click next, it will do some pre-checks, if those pre-checks pass, it will update everything one by one. It will put one ESX in the maintenance and move other VM's to another mode. There is no downtime to the VM's.

It will upgrade end to end infra, including bios from there, your ESX host, everything. So this is a really good feature. Then in new mode feature, they only have to configure it from the network standpoint and it can listen on a second mode. If they see a new mode in the network, the cluster will automatically have that mode as a new member.

VxRail has helped us with the automation. So we are happy with that.

As I said, one place for improvement would be the automated update for VMware Tools. Additionally, better integration with ServiceNow because if there are some issues, we could directly get the notification through IPS and Tools, so that integration is missing.

Somehow they did it, but it was not a very smooth integration because we have to use email features since they are sending emails. We contacted someone at ServiceNow at our end and we sent emails to ServiceNow and they converted it to some incidents or something. If we could have some out of the box ideas in integration, I think that would be a great feature.

VxRail provides more automation. For example, the process going from VMware to Tools is still a manual process where we have to manually update the VMware Tools. There should might be an option to upgrade VMware Tools automatically. We know that we need some downtime, but still, there should be a possibility to do this as an automated process.

I have been using VxRail for about six months. We deployed it back in September and did the migration, so it's been three or four months in the company.

I think we're using version 4.7 because we had some limitations with respect to vCenter and Vserver costing because ESX was the older version. So we went with VxRail 4.7 rather than going with VxRail 7, which is the latest.

We are maintaining this solution ourselves. We have some level of support from Dell, as well, but they are not directly responsible for the support. We are the ones who are supporting it.

Initially, it had some issues. As I said, the version we deployed had some known issues. But the stability is pretty good. There were some issues here and there, but that was not due to ESX, but due to some network fluctuation we had.

VxRail is especially useful for a manufacturing site. I can't really know many end users are there, but I know that they are participating in the manufacturing process. This is a pharma company and for us, VxRail is critical in our process.

So far, looking at its specifications, it looks good. It's scalable.

In general cases, technical support is good. They're pretty responsive. But besides that, there have been some issues with the cluster. For example, the version that we deployed had some bug which was a known bug. Later on we were advised to get this upgraded. But that advice came to us after two or three reassignments within their own IT section because one person evaluated it and they collected multiple logs. Then he transferred the case to somebody else, then she then collected some further logs and did some analysis. I'm not saying they were not good. They were pretty good. They had some good technical skills. They did all the analysis. Then they assigned it back to the IT guy. But as soon as the IT guy came in, he saw the version. He immediately said we have to update it because this version is having some known issues.

I would say they are pretty good. I'm not complaining about them, but this is the feedback that I personally have - that technician should have come in the very first place by just looking into the VxRail version and told us there is a known bug in this version and we should upgrade it. But that took almost two or three weeks to identify.

But still, I'm happy with the Dell services. No complaints. But just constructive feedback. The rest are good.

They are always helpful. If we join the call, they are very polite and knowledgeable. They bring more people as required, so overall, it's good.

We did not have a complete HCI product, but we had storage-defined software, like Datacode and EqualLogic. Now we are replacing Datacode and EqualLogic with this VxRail because we are using it in vCenter.

In terms of the initial setup, only the network part was a little complex for us. Maybe because we were doing it for the very first time because there is a very strict firewall applied there, being a manufacturing site. We had multiple firewalls there, so we had to open each and everything one by one. That was the only thing.

Once the network part was done, everything was smooth and we had a product life support from Dell. It was Dell who basically deployed it from a remote session with our presence. We only give them some input around the infra set up and they actually did the end to end deployment.

It took one day for rack and stacks and then two days for its set up, installation, and configuration as per our department. Later on we did the migration on our own based on the downtime that we received because we had to update the VMware Tools. We had to configure the backup, et cetera. We did it slowly, one by one, three, four servers a day.

In terms of pricing, I would say it's reasonable, not cheap and not too costly. If you compare it with some other HCI solutions, for example, there were a lot of discussions around Cisco UCS for one of the manufacturing sites. The local ITP had a preference for Cisco UCS because they had some prior experience working on it. We had already successfully deployed VxRail in some of the manufacturing sites and we found that Cisco UCS is much too costly. 

In the deployment, all the softwares were included, only the vCenterv was excluded because we were using an external vCenter, so we had to manage an external vCenter license. All the rest was included.

Some licensing, like vRealize was not included, so we have not taken it.

I would definitely recommend VxRail. But again, it depends upon the use cases. If they have a big data center, then you have to look for some other version of VxRail, maybe VxBlock, but for normal sites, for a small manufacturing R&D site, or for remote sites, they may go with VxRail.

On a scale of one to ten, I would give VxRail a nine out of 10.

We are implementers of this solution. We have deployed this product in many Middle East regions. We are also customers and an IT service.

The last time I installed the solution, we were using version 4.7 and we are planning to upgrade to version 7. The solution is deployed on-prem.

We installed the upgrade and migrated from a traditional solution to the virtual machine.

It's a good product based on the features. You can upgrade the solution with only one click.

You cannot install another operating system such as Microsoft or Hyperflex or Nutanix. We have also had a hardware problem.

Hopefully, it can be installed with another stable solution, but I doubt that because it's based on VMware.

I have been using this solution within the past year.

The solution is very stable.

The solution is scalable.

For deployment, we used a consultant. We needed auto recovery because we faced a hardware problem. It was a board problem. That's why we engaged DNC to replace the board, and it was very easy to discover the node and deploy the process.

An organization can get ROI because the solution is scalable. It's cheaper to expand and add more resources than the traditional solution.

I would rate this solution 9 out of 10.

Before proceeding with any configuration and implementing the solution, you should prepare the prerequisite. Prepare the VLAN, the prerequisites, and the IP requirements before proceeding with any installation.

Most users have experience with VMware, so they will find VxRail familiar and straightforward. Shared storage is a common use case, and compact rack units save space. VxRail offers ample capacity to run systems, which also helps reduce the network's footprint. Additionally, it's easy to upgrade existing deployments or set up new systems in testing environments.

The installation process is very quick. When you purchase it, it's up and running without much delay. Adding any additional components is simple, allowing for easy and fast scaling without adding complexity. The centralized management portal makes it easy to manage the entire system.

Support could be enhanced.

We have been using VxRail as a service provider.

VxRail is known for its stability, supported by a responsive support team that addresses any issues. Regular updates ensure that the hardware and software components remain optimized, minimizing disruptions to business operations.

I rate the solution’s stability an eight out of ten.

When a company scales its operations, such as expanding its business reach or adding more users, it often needs to integrate additional applications and computing resources. VxRail provides the necessary computing infrastructure to support such growth scenarios. It also ensures that the company's IT environment can efficiently handle increased demands while maintaining security. As the company grows, it becomes imperative to secure its infrastructure, making VxRail a crucial component for ensuring both scalability and security.

The solution is suitable for individuals, government companies, and the financial sector as they can purchase it.

I rate the solution's scalability a ten out of ten.

We encounter challenges, which we escalate to our internal support team and engage for resolution. The process seems seamless as most issues are resolved within 24 hours, and even quicker for feature requests.

The support for VxRail is excellent. Anytime there's an issue, they create a support case and contact them. They can remotely manage system support and quickly resolve the issue. They need to address some bugs, such as occasional system glitches where certain details, like platform controller services, may crash, requiring a reboot. These issues can arise during power outages or unplanned shutdowns, causing system recovery and operation difficulties.

Positive

The initial setup is easy and takes a few weeks to complete. 

I rate the initial setup an eight out of ten, where one is difficult and ten is easy.

The solution is expensive. 

I rate the product’s pricing a nine out of ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive.

If there's a power outage, it's a big problem. Accidental reboots pose a challenge as well. The screen management and the flow machine get stuck during restarts.

I recommend the VxRail solution because it updates itself, minimizing the need for manual intervention. This makes deployment smoother and requires less support. Additionally, its user-friendly management interface simplifies operations, enabling businesses to focus on their core activities without disrupting their IT infrastructure.

Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.