VxRail Reviews

I use VxRail with VMware VCF. The requirement is to have a private cloud to provide services for users.

VxRail has improved the way we function because everything is centralized. There is no need to be going to many different places. it's all in one pane of glass, making it easier to manage.

The most valuable features are ease of management and ease of applying updates. It provides centralized management.

In the version that I was working with, the integrations are in need of improvement.

The technical support is in slight need of improvement.

I have been using VxRail for several years, and am just starting a brand new project with it. This will be a fresh deployment.

VxRail is pretty robust and steady.

VxRail is very easy to scale. It is simple to add nodes, scale-out, or scale-up. We have more than 2,000 users. There are many different people in people in many different departments, going from regular day to day administration, helpdesk, cybersecurity operations, forensics, virtualization administrators, VDI administrators, and so forth.

I have been in contact with technical support and they are excellent. I would rate them a nine out of ten on support because there is always room for improvement, but they do a good job.

Sometimes, when passing on tickets to other techs because people leave on vacation or for other reasons, they don't follow up quickly enough in my opinion. I have found that sometimes, I've had tickets open and two days later, I don't hear anything and it's because the person was out and nobody else took over the ticket. Other than that, they are on point.

In my previous organization, we were using a regular blade chassis. We were not using HCI solutions. Rather, it was just the normal virtualization environment deployment using fabric switches. We were also using Dell servers, only it was M540s and 840s on a Dell M1000M chassis.

It was different, and HCI is something that I like.

The initial setup is pretty easy and straightforward.

At about $200,000, this solution is a little bit pricey but it is more economical than others such as Nutanix or Cisco Hyperflex. Dell is more economical.

In my previous deployment, there were a couple of things that I identified as needing improvement. I believe they were addressed on the new version of their software because, in the previous deployment, I wasn't using the latest version. Apparently, VMware came out with VCF 4.1, and Dell came out with a newer iteration. At this point, I'm hoping that the stuff is fixed. Once I start working with the newest version, I'll see what new features I would like to see in the next one.

My advice for anybody looking into implementing VxRail is to read the documentation and do the virtual labs that they have. Repeat them over and over before deploy it on the actual system that they are going to deploy to avoid having to take everything down and redo it.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

Normally customers are looking to move to data centers that are modern. We have a request for upgrades from old storage and media to something new. We consolidate old solutions and simplify the way the client manages their data center. 

We have a customer, for example, that has a factory. Before they used the VxRail solution, tasks would take hours. With VxRail, a comport starts working in 30 minutes. It saves so much time. It's a competitive gain for the organization.

The solution allows a user to plan how they will be able to organize their data over the course of many months.

It's very easy to upgrade.

Simplifying network configurations is very easy.

The policies are very good.

The licensing needs to be improved upon.

For example, when we need to move your Oracle databases to VxRail solutions, we need to license the processor core and the solutions. This comes at a high cost to customers.

There needs to be better integrations with other products.

I've been working with a variety of Dell products for a while.

The stability is excellent. We don't have any issues with reliability. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's not buggy and we don't have to deal with glitches. We're happy with it.

We haven't had any issues with scalability so far. It should be pretty easy for a company to expand it out if they need to. We haven't received any feedback to make us assume otherwise. You can scale up on many things, including processors, discs, and nodes.

We don't sell to many large companies. typically we deal with small and medium-sized organizations.

Their technical support on offer is better than other products on the market.

As resellers, we don't just deal with Dell. We also resell products from HP, Nutanix, and Lenovo, for example.

The initial setup is not too complex. It's pretty straightforward, in fact. 

In terms of deployment, it typically takes less than a week, in some cases. Of course, it depends of the customers, however, in many cases it takes about a week.

The solution is pretty reasonably priced. It's not too expensive, and often less than the competition.

We're a reseller of the product.

We work with different versions including CEs, PCEs, FCEs.  What we use depends on the customer's needs. In most cases, we have sold VxRail to clients as it is cheaper than other options on the market and it's also a good way to consolidate support to one vendor.

I'd advise that those considering the solution make sure they size everything appropriately. 

We've been quite pleased with the product. On a scale from one to ten, I'd give it a perfect ten.

It is used for consolidation, modernization of infrastructure, and simplification. That's what most customers are looking for with this solution.

I am using its latest release.

Our clients value being able to upgrade with one click or a few clicks. 

The ability to manage everything from a single console is one of the key advantages that our clients see. They don't have to worry about how to manage the storage, how to manage the servers, and how to manage the virtualization layer. Everything comes in a single platform. As a result, IT teams are shrinking, and very often, the budgets are no longer for people. They're more for automation.

They're getting better with their one-click upgrade. The success factor is now between 85% to 87% with the latest release. They should just continuously improve on that one-click factor and make it more seamless.

It has been about a year, but previously, I have worked on the Fujitsu equivalent for many years.

It is very reliable.

Scalability is a misunderstood notion in the hyper-converged environment. Very often, people misunderstand what and how things are being scaled within a hyper-converged environment, and this is applicable to every solution out there. So, from a scalability point of view, in terms of the technology itself, it is fairly easy, but in terms of dollars and what it means, very often, people are a little bit surprised about it. If you want to upgrade your storage, you don't necessarily upgrade just one hard drive. If you're in all-flash storage, every node has to be upgraded. There are rules around disk groups and things of that nature, so it becomes a bit of a challenge, and sometimes, it is at a price that customers do not expect. The pricing and how things are evolving over a period of time are very often misunderstood by customers.

I don't deal with them. I am more on the presales and delivery side. I'm sure there are challenges around that, but I'm not aware of any concerns at this point.

It is very straightforward.

It varies. It could be $100,000 at the smaller end and millions and millions of dollars at the higher end. 

It is a very reliable and simplified solution. If you're looking for simplification of operations, this is a great solution to implement.

I would rate it an eight out of 10.

It's somewhat hard to speak about specific features, but I like VxRail's simplicity and ease of use. It's a decent solution for customers with a small footprint. If you're operating a big data center, it's not easy to position VxRail or HCI solutions, but when you have a small customer managing many different components, it's easier to work only with one solution.

If VxRail could also offer file services in addition to virtualization, that would be nice because sometimes people want to complement their environment with file services, and you don't have that in VxRail.

I've been working with VxRail for several years.

VxRail is stable.

VxRail is not an easy tool for selling big projects or a lot of services.

VxRail is comparable to vSAN, which is the same product but more integrated. 
Nutanix offers more services, and it can behave as object storage, file server storage, or Sun storage, whereas VxRail is more of a virtualization solution. Also, Nutanix can work independently of VMware. That's an advantage for some customers because VMware is costly, so it increases your budget if you go with VMware and VCF. However, I can't say which is better for HCI. If something works with VMware, it works on VxRail. It's in the scope of VMware, so I don't see any restrictions.

Setting up VxRail is straightforward. 

I rate VxRail eight out of 10. I'm very satisfied with the product. 

We primarily use the solution for general computing. We have everything on it and anything that's licensed is on it. We have our file servers, database servers, applications servers, web servers, etc., on it. Anything that fits on it basically.

We were able to commission an old center and provide more computing to the environment.

I like the managed updates. They are really nice in VxRail. Everything comes packaged and the updates are much easier than with other solutions that I've had to work with. 

The fact that it's presenting you validated the design. Anything through the update manager will be guaranteed to work as VMware is integrated into the hardware side of it as well to validate that the patches that they're providing will work. There's less risk there. 

The storage, the hyper-converged storage, is a nice boon. We have a sort of isolated storage from our main sandbox so that we can put things on there if the sandbox is having problems or it's basically another fault domain. It's another place where things can be protected. 

The requirements need improvement. Some of the managers of VMs are a little sensitive to where they need to be placed in the environment and what names they need to have. I would like a little more control over that so that it fits into our naming scheme and it fits our organizational structure within vSphere. That's cosmetic, however. It's not a functional problem. It's just slightly disorganized. We have to put exceptions into our rules in order to check our rules.

I've been using the solution for less than six months. I don't remember the exact day, things have been blending together. I recall that it was right at the start of the pandemic. That was when our order was supposed to come in and things got delayed. We got it sometime over the summer.

The stability is good. We haven't had any issues. We don't suffer from bugs or glitches and it doesn't crash or freeze. It's good.

We have not needed to scale up. It is less than six months old, so we have not needed to scale it, however, I have scaled other VSN clusters and it was easy.

My department is kind of interesting. We are the central IT provider for the university, we provide IT services for other IT departments. I can't actually answer how many people are on the solution at any given time. We're essentially an MSP for on campus, but that's sort of our role. Therefore, I am so far removed from what the end-user is doing with it. 

I haven't had a need to call tech support. One of my coworkers has, and it seemed to go well. I was not the one who took lead on that call. I can't advise on if they are knowledgeable or responsive. I don't have direct experience.

We also have a pair of Nutanix clusters and we didn't switch from it. They're running concurrently. They run different workloads. We wanted to make sure that a false in one hyper-converged did not bring down all of our environment. We wanted to make sure that we were not putting all of our eggs in one basket.

Our Nutanix runs some of our core services. Things that can never go down. That is why we have a pair of Nutanix clusters. They're essentially isolated from everything else. They don't rely on stories. I didn't realize they have their own hosts. They are as isolated as they can be from the rest of the environment so that a fault in one environment won't bring down everything.

As part of a VxRail deployment, you have to get professional services. It's an assisted install. I have experience with all of the components of VxRail. In terms of the VSN, the hyper-converged, some of my coworkers did not. That actually was a learning experience for them. They were able to learn from the documentation and that made it easier, however, it was still a learning curve. That was the only difficult part in terms of implementation -  the learning curve.

We're just a customer.

We're running an ESX 6.7. We're running the latest version of VxRail manager, but we're not running the latest version of ESX or V share. It can do for us. We want other people to find the bugs first.

My advice to other companies is to learn and ask lots of questions. Make sure that you understand the solution at the outset. Make sure the networking team is solid. Any hyper-converged solution like VxRail should rely on the network more than a traditional environment. You need to make sure your networking team is involved from the beginning.

I would rate the solution eight out of ten. VSN has come a long way, which is what the shell is based on for storage and the rest of the components are standard vSphere. You manage everything through the same vSphere interface. You're not using a different interface and it's fairly easy to maintain when you have problems. If you have problems, you will need to call tech support. They will have to walk you through it because it is a new thing for most people. That's why I recommend learning about the solution straight away.

Our primary use case is company growth, where storage an compute is growing fast. VDI is due to be deployed imminently

We are opening new properties. This product has given us clear visibility into what we need technology-wise to grow.

ESRS: This gives us the confidence that when we are not monitoring our environment, then Dell Tech is, and can make us aware of any failures/pending issues before those issues impact us globally. We do not have the manpower to monitor 24/7, so this saves us significant costs on support contracts.

RecoverPoint: It give us peace of mind knowing any corruption or server issue can be rectified very quickly, making sure the business impact is minimal. It has also allowed us during our setup to failover an entire cluster. This is a significant improvement for our system availability.

Expansion: Our business is growing rapidly with new hotels being built and acquired. We need to scale our data centre quickly and easily. There is no in-depth config involved nor third-party needed, saving us time and money.

Support - fantastic! as we try to automate the business and the mundane processes , the support element with VXrail has helped us along this journey. We are having to make fewer calls chasing different Storage /Server / VMware / Network vendors , we now make 1 call!

The initial setup between the different Dell departments is fragmented (ESRS Team, onsite deployment team, RecoverPoint team, etc.). The engineers who come to rack/stack and do the initial config should be trained on all the areas and work with the different Dell departments whilst they are onsite to give a smoother install and better experience for customer.

At present, VxRail is a hyperconverged state of the art product being installed in a legacy way. We need hyperconverged install teams.

Before we had VxRail, we had stability issues. After installing VxRail, we did not experience issues.

Before we had VxRail, we had scalability issues. After installing VxRail, we did not experience issues.

I would rate technical support as a 10 out of 10.

We switched from converged to HCI for the ease of management and business growth.

The initial setup could have been easier. There were too many cooks with all the Dell departments.

Compare it to what you spent on your last solution. Look at other costs: Power, IT staff, time to manage the system, cost of expansion for the future versus current (all costs: human/power/kit).

We evaluated Nutanix, Nimble, Cisco... We went with Dell VxRail, as Dell were already a trusted partner, and it has great support and products.

• Look at your pain points.
• Look at where your business is and where it is going.
• Look at the time currently invested by IT personnel to carry out mundane firmware and software upgrades.
• Look at how you currently log support calls for different entities.

The computing achieved by the solution for more than 100 VMs with less storage is very good. The software integration is easy, like plug-and-play. Compared with other products, the IT administrator or IT integrator doesn't take much time to get the tool up and running.

The solution should facilitate the separate expansion of computing and storage.

I have been using VxRail for ten years.

The solution's stability is very good. The failure ratio and errors are very low. The solution gives us fast pre-alerts for main upgrades.

I rate the solution an eight out of ten for stability.

As per the current scenario, we can scale up to 64 nodes, which is enough for normal workloads.

The solution's technical support is very good. We get very good support from Dell in the Middle East, but L3 access is a bit tough.

Positive

The solution’s initial setup is very easy.

Since VMware is detached from Dell, the solution's pricing is a bit higher than before. After the detaching of Dell and VMware, VMware's licensing pattern has changed and has become a bit expensive compared to other hypervisors in the market.

We do not pay for each Dell product but for the whole Dell bundle. We purchase a license for three to five years, which includes maintenance and support.

VxRail is utilized in our data center operations depending on multiple types of workloads. VxRail can be used by any company, including small and medium-sized or enterprise businesses. Once implemented properly, the solution works smoothly, and we don't need to maintain it. VxRail is easy to scale, use, and manage.

I would not recommend the solution to small companies. Small companies with less than 15 VMs won't be able to afford the price, and traditional tools will be better for them. I recommend VxRail to small and medium-sized businesses with more than 15 to 20 VMs.

Overall, I rate the solution seven and a half out of ten.

We have a good mix of everything. There are terminal servers, routers, firewalls, and customer servers, and all are on VMs. We are replacing our old hardware servers. We have virtualized those as well.

By implementing VxRail, we wanted scalability. We wanted to be able to easily add a server and configure it. We wanted the simplicity of configurations for the team so that I do not need to extensively train the team. They know immediately what to do.

VxRail has improved our availability. This means we no longer stress when a server fails. It immediately switches VMs to another machine. I can update without having to set a maintenance window. I have become more independent.

Because everything happens in one window, it is absolutely easy to handle.

VxRail has the ability to consolidate infrastructure from multiple locations, but we are only at one location.

VxRail has had quite a positive effect in terms of energy consumption. I can compare what individual hardware is needed. I can also see which hardware and what capacities are being used. When the VMs move themselves to work evenly on all computers or servers, it is an advantage.

VxRail has helped to reduce unplanned production downtime because we now have a cluster, and the VMs move themselves. We have had two outages in a year. One was a hardware failure, and the other was an update problem. Only two or three VMs were turned off because a component was defective. Otherwise, there was no major outage. They moved everything to other machines as planned, and we could work with it.

With VxRail, the flexibility is very high because we can scale it without any problems for new projects. For example, we have a larger project coming up where many associations will be involved. I can simply plug in additional devices, set up the initial configuration, and let the service configure itself immediately. I am very flexible.

For sustainability, we can recycle them. We have not done it, but we had the option to do it as a lease purchase. That is also advantageous for the future.

The assurance that my systems would not suffer a performance drop no matter where they are is valuable. I do not need any extra hardware.

They should have better compatibility with other processors, such as AMD processors.

I have been using VxRail since the beginning of 2023.

It has broken twice now, but everything still ran, so I would rate it a nine out of ten for stability. It is great that things can fail without a major impact. 

It is scalable. Scalability is given by the fact that we can simply add more servers.

Their support is superb. Because of CloudIQ and the proactive approach of Dell, the support for customers is top-notch. We had new hardware or replacement parts on-site within three hours. 

I would rate their support a nine out of ten. I do not have a problem with English, but if you want to get support in German, it is a bit more difficult. It used to be easier. It is not a dealbreaker, but it would be nice to have. We are doing great with what we have, but it would be an advantage if from 9 to 10, there was a German-speaking support person. For example, when we were upgrading from version 7 to 8, it would have been nicer to be able to converse more fluently with someone, but that is more of a problem on my end and not with the support.

Positive

We have not used any other similar solution.

If I had done it without the help of the person from Dell for the first time, it would have been more complex. Because he showed me once, it was very easy. If I want to change something now, it is just easy. There is all the automation behind it. When I have a new server, I slide it into the rack, connect all the wiring, give it an IP address, and click a button to bring up the server.

We had someone from Dell who helped us with the installation and configuration.

There is an advantage for those who have a good deal with Dell. Its price is good. From a company's perspective, it is always too expensive, but it is about value for money.

We did not evaluate other options. We had other Dell servers, but we did not have VxRail. We did not need any alternatives. We like working with Dell. The colleagues offered it to us and sold it to us.

We did not consider a public cloud infrastructure before choosing VxRail.

Overall, I would rate VxRail a ten out of ten. I am satisfied with it. Once you get the hang of it, you can just work on it. If you need support, they can help you configure something.

Foreign Language:(German)

Gute Leistung, viel Flexibilität und erstklassiger Support

Was ist unser Hauptanwendungsfall?

Wir haben eine gute Mischung aus allem. Es gibt Terminalserver, Router, Firewalls und Kundenserver, die alle auf VMs laufen. Wir sind dabei, unsere alten Hardwareserver zu ersetzen. Auch diese haben wir virtualisiert.

Wie hat es meiner Organisation geholfen?

Mit der Implementierung von VxRail wollten wir Skalierbarkeit erreichen. Wir wollten in der Lage sein, einfach einen Server hinzuzufügen und ihn zu konfigurieren. Wir wollten, dass die Konfigurationen für das Team so einfach sind, dass ich das Team nicht ausgiebig schulen muss. Sie wissen sofort, was zu tun ist.

VxRail hat unsere Verfügbarkeit verbessert. Das bedeutet, dass wir keinen Stress mehr haben, wenn ein Server ausfällt. Es schaltet die VMs sofort auf einen anderen Rechner um. Ich kann Updates durchführen, ohne ein Wartungsfenster festlegen zu müssen. Ich bin unabhängiger geworden.

Da alles in der gleichen Ansicht geschieht, ist es absolut einfach zu handhaben.

VxRail hat die Möglichkeit, die Infrastruktur von mehreren Standorten aus zu konsolidieren, aber wir sind nur an einem Standort.

VxRail hat sich in Bezug auf den Energieverbrauch sehr positiv ausgewirkt. Ich kann vergleichen, welche Hardware im Einzelnen benötigt wird. Ich kann auch sehen, welche Hardware und welche Kapazitäten genutzt werden. Es ist von Vorteil, wenn sich die VMs so verschieben, dass sie gleichmäßig auf allen Rechnern oder Servern arbeiten.

VxRail hat dazu geführt, dass wir weniger ungeplante Produktionsausfälle haben, weil wir jetzt einen Cluster haben und die VMs sich selbst verschieben. Wir hatten in einem Jahr zwei Ausfälle. Bei einem handelte es sich um einen Hardwareausfall, bei dem anderen um ein Update-Problem. Nur zwei oder drei VMs wurden abgeschaltet, weil eine Komponente defekt war. Ansonsten gab es keine größeren Ausfälle. Sie haben alles wie geplant auf andere Maschinen verschoben, und wir konnten damit arbeiten.

Mit VxRail ist die Flexibilität sehr hoch, weil wir es ohne Probleme für neue Projekte skalieren können. Wir haben zum Beispiel ein größeres Projekt vor uns, an dem viele Verbände beteiligt sein werden. Ich kann einfach zusätzliche Geräte anschließen, die Erstkonfiguration einrichten und den Dienst sofort selbst konfigurieren lassen. Ich bin sehr flexibel.

Im Sinne der Nachhaltigkeit können wir die Geräte recyceln. Das haben wir nicht getan, aber wir hatten die Möglichkeit, sie als Mietkauf zu erwerben. Das ist auch für die Zukunft von Vorteil.

Was ist am wertvollsten?

Die Gewissheit, dass meine Systeme keine Leistungseinbußen erleiden, egal wo sie sich befinden, ist wertvoll. Ich benötige keine zusätzliche Hardware.

Was muss verbessert werden?

Sie sollten eine bessere Kompatibilität mit anderen Prozessoren, z. B. AMD-Prozessoren, aufweisen.

Wie lange nutze ich die Lösung schon?

Ich verwende VxRail seit Anfang 2023.

Was halte ich von der Stabilität der Lösung?

Es ist jetzt zweimal kaputt gegangen, aber alles lief noch, also würde ich es mit neun von zehn Punkten für die Stabilität bewerten. Es ist toll, dass Dinge ohne größere Auswirkungen ausfallen können.

Was denke ich über die Skalierbarkeit der Lösung?

Es ist skalierbar. Die Skalierbarkeit ist dadurch gegeben, dass wir einfach weitere Server hinzufügen können.

Wie sind Kundenservice und Support?

Der Support ist hervorragend. Aufgrund von CloudIQ und dem proaktiven Ansatz von Dell ist der Support für Kunden erstklassig. Wir hatten innerhalb von drei Stunden neue Hardware oder Ersatzteile vor Ort.

Ich würde den Support mit neun von zehn Punkten bewerten. Mit Englisch habe ich kein Problem, aber wenn man Support auf Deutsch haben möchte, ist es etwas schwieriger. Früher war das einfacher. Das ist kein Hindernis, aber es wäre schön, wenn man es hätte. Wir kommen mit dem, was wir haben, gut zurecht, aber es wäre von Vorteil, wenn es von 9 bis 10 einen deutschsprachigen Supportmitarbeiter gäbe. Als wir zum Beispiel von Version 7 auf 8 umgestiegen sind, wäre es schöner gewesen, sich mit jemandem fließend unterhalten zu können, aber das ist eher ein Problem meinerseits und nicht des Supports.

Wie bewerten Sie den Kundenservice und -support?

Positiv

Welche Lösung habe ich vorher verwendet und warum habe ich gewechselt?

Wir haben keine andere ähnliche Lösung verwendet.

Wie war die Ersteinrichtung?

Wenn ich es ohne die Hilfe des Dell-Mitarbeiters zum ersten Mal gemacht hätte, wäre es komplizierter gewesen. Weil er es mir einmal gezeigt hat, war es sehr einfach. Wenn ich jetzt etwas ändern will, ist das ganz einfach. Dahinter verbirgt sich die ganze Automatisierung. Wenn ich einen neuen Server habe, schiebe ich ihn in das Rack, schließe alle Kabel an, gebe ihm eine IP-Adresse und klicke auf eine Schaltfläche, um den Server hochzufahren.

Was ist mit dem Implementierungsteam?

Wir hatten jemanden von Dell, der uns bei der Installation und Konfiguration geholfen hat.

Welche Erfahrungen habe ich mit den Preisen, den Implementierungskosten und der Lizenzierung gemacht?

Es gibt einen Vorteil für diejenigen, die ein gutes Geschäft mit Dell haben. Sein Preis ist gut. Aus der Sicht eines Unternehmens ist es immer zu teuer, aber es geht um ein gutes Preis-Leistungs-Verhältnis.

Welche anderen Lösungen habe ich bewertet?

Wir haben keine anderen Optionen evaluiert. Wir hatten andere Dell-Server, aber wir hatten kein VxRail. Wir brauchten keine Alternativen. Wir arbeiten gerne mit Dell. Die Kollegen haben es uns angeboten und verkauft.

Bevor wir uns für VxRail entschieden haben, haben wir keine öffentliche Cloud-Infrastruktur in Betracht gezogen.

Welche anderen Ratschläge kann ich geben?

Insgesamt würde ich VxRail mit zehn von zehn Punkten bewerten. Ich bin sehr zufrieden damit. Wenn man einmal den Umgang damit gefunden hat, kann man einfach damit arbeiten. Falls man Unterstützung braucht, kann man sich bei der Konfiguration helfen lassen.