VxRail Reviews

We use this solution for middle customers and headquarters. It's very scalable and works fine. I can roll out the system in thirty minutes and the customer can work with it. 

The most valuable feature is the quick installation. I build the system for the customer and then it is quick and easy to manage. The price is a little bit on the higher side but the system and management are so quick and easy that it's worth it for the customer. 

I would like to see integration with vCenter if possible.

In terms of stability, it's an easy solution. 

I can start with two systems for a robot, or I can start with a bigger system that has twelve or more nodes, and I can add the customer's workload. 

We had a big project in Germany that started with one cluster. It expanded over a year and a half to a fourteen cluster system.

In the beginning, we had to put in a lot of requests with their technical support. Now, we have fewer tickets. The support is okay.

The initial setup of this solution is not complex. Take it out of the package and implement; it's very easy.

We implement the systems ourselves.

We use Dell EMC products and this solution was the best one for our customers and projects.

We typically use G Series, but for a certain customer, we have the P Series to handle the application workload. The P Series has more performance which you may need for your application. All of the other clusters are G Series. 

I have some colleagues who also use this solution. This is a good product of the future.

I would rate it a ten out of ten. I love it.

Our customers who have the old infrastructure and are looking for high-performance and modern infrastructure, use VxRail. 

VxRail has improved our organization by providing our admin team with an easy-to-use interface. 

The upgrade packages require a lot of bandwidth. This could be reduced for an improved experience.

I have been using this solution for four years. 

This is a stable solution. 

The technical support for this solution is great. I would rate it a ten out of ten. 

Positive

We used a different open-source product but it was not easy to manage which is why we switched.

The initial setup is straightforward. The time it takes to set up depends on the size of the cluster. For a mid-size cluster of 12 nodes, it usually takes one to two days.

We have seen a return on the investment due to how easy this solution is to use and the time it frees up for our staff. 

Its pricing is reasonable compared to other products.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten. 

Today, we completed the first stage with one customer. We finished our POC and sold six VxRail systems to the customer. The customer usually uses standard VxRail systems for data storage and servers. 

The customer wants to do some implementation to replace an old system. They are a manufacturing company that wants to improve their system with a more valuable storage area because they have a lot of data stored across various products. For example, they have 10 terabytes of information on one storage platform and another 2 terabytes on the other, etc. 

We faced competition from HPE SimpliVity and won. Yesterday, we got the good news from the customers, who were pleased with licensing for virtualization. The VxRail system provides some good benefits, and the customers are happy. We have two more projects lined up, but they are waiting for the new year, especially because they are arranging budgeting issues. We expect to see some new business in the first quarter. 

We deploy VxRail systems to provide our customers with a distributed information solution. The customer was impressed because we delivered a serious data reduction. For example, we showed them that 10 terabytes on their traditional storage solution could be reduced to 1.5 terabytes in the VxRail systems. That's why the customers also like it so much,

One of the biggest VxRail features our customers require is hardware redundancy. Customers have good network products like Cisco for their local networks, so they were ready when they did the POC work. The other thing is application completion, VxRail's most effective feature.

Dell wants to implement the disaster recovery site in the new year, but they haven't decided yet. I hope we will have the opportunity to sell VxRail with this disaster recovery site. It is not really clear at the moment, but hopefully, we will get some good news from the customers in the new year. Maybe in the second quarter, we will start to work for the disaster recovery site, I hope so. I think we have to implement the new systems, and maybe we can talk about what can happen in the future after that. 

We've been using VxRail for the last two years.

VxRail's stability is amazing. The performance is always effective and good.

VxRail is a scalable product. Of course, it depends on the business and the markets, but the scalability is usually excellent.

Dell's support in Turkey has helped us so much in the project, especially the salesperson. He supported us so much, and we are so appreciative.

We haven't fully deployed VxRail because we only got our first order for the systems today, and we will go to the setup, but the demo system was easy to use and set up.

I rate VxRail nine out of 10. I'd like to add something about the market for this product. A bank or a company like that can easily use VxRail. Another benefit is that customers don't need to close the systems without updates. For example, it's easy to upgrade the firmware upgrades. VxRail is really effective in a banking or insurance company that doesn't need to close the systems. However, it is not possible in our sector. We really work a lot on this project. We spend so much time with the customers and the project.

We use it for our data center.

It helps our servers and it is very efficient. 

It's very flexible. We can add more servers as much as we want. It also includes the VMware license, I find this good. We do not waste a lot of resources because you are able to use them efficiently, depending on the usage and the processing unit that is used in a node or not. 

I cannot think of anything right now, nothing in coming to my mind.

The implementation started last December and it went on to January and February; in total, we have used it for less than one year. 

It is a stable solution.

It is very easy to add new servers, the scalability is very easy.

We did contact technical support. In the beginning, we had some tickets with them. They responded well and were very helpful.

We did the setup through the service provider because we didn't have the experience. It was something new for us, so we went through them to get help. They showed us how to migrate from the old service to the new one and we continued to do the process. The implementation took two days for the setup.

What I did not like so much was the amount of VMware that you have to put in your system related to the VxRail. This uses a lot of resources and not all of them are necessary. We did not use everything that came with VxRail to set it up so it is okay.

We also evaluated another product by Cisco.

I would recommend this product, we have another site that we need to replace the data center and we will implement the same solution.  

I would rate VxRail nine out of ten.

In medium-sized installations, many of our customers require a reasonably-priced solution to replace legacy computer storage. Those are the customers who we are suggesting using the  VxRail solution to. If the customer is building a data center using VMware, we are recommending VxRail because of the VMware compatibility.  

Medium set-ups can be used in a large enterprise but only when they need this solution as a smaller part of their environment. It works well for small setups or medium setups, or for new application setups.  

Most of the products of this type have features that are almost the same. We are using VxRail especially because we would like to have products that are compatible with VMware and Dell to support our prospective client base.  

The configuration of HCI (Hyper-Convergence Infrastructure) solutions is very easy compared to the legacy solutions. Legacy systems run the computer and the storage separately and use switches to get the connectivity. That is much more complicated. It is completely the opposite when using generic HCI technology. The implementation is very simple and so is the operation.  

The only thing about the HCI solution is that troubleshooting is a little bit difficult because it is still a new technology. Other than this it is simpler than the traditional technology. HCI is nice and it makes sense. I think there is a need to improve the solution because it is difficult to troubleshoot. But compared to legacy solutions, you are troubleshooting one that is a little bit difficult instead of troubleshooting two different products that might each be a little easier. In the end, the difference as far as troubleshooting is not much but the advantages are still there on the HCI side and technology upgrade.  

The other thing I would like to see improved is not really a feature. It is about scalability. It would be good to increase the limit of the number of nodes within the clusters.  

I had experience before 2018, but I have been using it for this past year.  

Even compared to Cisco, I think VxRail is a very stable solution. It is in the same class as Cisco.  

VxRail is easy to scale, but the number of nodes is limited. This is not the same with other solutions like Nutanix. VxRail has a limit for a certain number of nodes within the cluster and if you need more than that then you have to create another cluster. It is an issue but at the same time, it is not an issue. It is kind of just a configuration difference.  

I do not have any direct contact with technical support because I am not doing the product delivery. If the technicians have some issues, they have to make the contact. I have not heard anything bad or good about the support. That suggests it is good.  

The initial setup was simple. The amount of time it takes depends on the number of nodes you have.  

It does require some maintenance over time. For maintenance, you have to request that through your supplier or even through the implementation team. It will be totally different depending on the kind of activity and the issue, but it should not be disruptive for the most part. The only exception is in critical applications. These may be critical but it is simple to restore the network connectivity or storage availability.  

My advice about cost and setup is that it is just as cheap to have the HCI solution as to stay with legacy solutions. If you convert the value of HCI versus the traditional, legacy solution you gain more than you spend. It comes out to an even trade as far as budget.  

Compared to other HCI products, VxRail has advantages in stability and support from the vendors. If you bought Cisco, for example, you have to open an account with Cisco for the hardware and open an account with VMware for the software separately. With VxRail this is not what happens. You opened the account with them and they will manage all the communication and the services. That ends up being more stable. Getting your support from one company is better than having to get support from different companies when dealing with an issue shared between products and trying to sort that out.  

I recommend VxRail as a solution especially for those using legacy services. We often recommend VxRail over other competitors. The only exception really is if the customer does not want Dell computing resources. For example, the client may have another vendor they tend to use. So if everything they have is HP they may like to have an HP solution. If they are using Cisco, they may want a Cisco solution. Those are the only times that we will not go with suggesting VXRail.  

On a scale from one to ten where one is the worst and ten is the best, I would rate the VXRail solution as an eight-out-of-ten.  

At a remote location where physical servers were deployed in order to address latency or process delays, one of these appliances is now installed and a low cost virtual environment is in place. This has also allowed snapshot backups to be taken with our Avamar solution rather than just performing file level backup with an agent.

Being able to perform upgrades and check the system through the VxRail Manager has been very helpful. It allows files to be uploaded, performs a pre-check against the system, then upgrades the appliance from the hardware up through the VMware environment.

My main issue so far is that the installation created a default datacenter name of "Marvin" and it cannot be changed. This can be a problem with multiple device\location deployments where all of the names are "Marvin".

As with any new product, we have had a few bugs that were address in the last upgrade we performed. For example, we had a host that would appear to become disconnected or missing from vCenter, but later return and be online. However, there has never been an outage or loss of data with any issues. In the above mentioned issue, the VMs still functioned and were reachable. This was correcting with a software update.

We have not had a reason to scale or add to the initially purchased appliance.

Customer Service:

Our customer service is outstanding. As with many Dell EMC accounts, there is a primary person assigned as our account representative. He maintains regular contact and interaction to ensure we are not only satisfied with our VxRail, but also our other Dell EMC solutions.

Technical Support:

The few times I have contacted technical support they have always been very responsive. I have never felt as though it was a low-level support person, reading a script. They all seem to have been top-level support individuals. As with other Dell EMC products, the appliance includes an ESRS gateway, so they have the ability to remotely access (if allowed) and proactively address issues that may occur through the dial-home service.

No, we did not have any previous HCI installations.

The initial setup was not really any more complex than some other HCI deployments. We completed a spreadsheet, with IP addresses and names, that was imported into a JSON file. This was then used to automate the deployment and creation of the virtual environment.

The implementation used a combination of in-house staff being onsite and Dell EMC personnel being on a WebEx. This was mostly due to being one of the early deployments of the system. I am not sure of the current requirements around new deployments.

The VxRail has allowed an environment to be created that is easy to manage and back up. This reduces the amount of time that is required by staff to manage and update systems.

At the time, VMware licensing was purchased separately. I have heard that now it is offered as part of the appliance. There is a permanent vSAN license included since it is required, but vCenter\ESXi host licensing should be validated in the purchase process.

We did look at some other solutions, but at the time we were only capable of 1G networking and this device was the only one available at that speed. However, it has performed great and has been easy to manage.

I'm the software system team leader. 

The valuable features for us are the VDI, UCC, and HCI.

My only complaint about this solution is that it's vendor-locked with Dell being the only supplier for VxRail.

I've been using this solution for almost a year. 

The solution is stable. 

The solution is scalable.

Customer support has been good so far. It's possible the good service is somewhat related to the license agreement we have, I'm not sure. 

The initial setup is straightforward. We have close to 1,000 end users who connect directly to the VDI and to the UCC solution. 

We generally procure a three-year license with a support agreement from the supplier. 

I recommend this solution, it's a good product. We recommend it to our customers.

I rate this solution nine out of 10. 

A valuable feature of the solution is that it allows everything to be integrated into a single model, comprised of hardware and software. 

When using hybrid nodes, such as VxRail, there should not be compression and deduplication, only in All-Flash nodes. So, it's about improvement. It's good to see deduplication in hybrid nodes.

I have been working with VxRail for around one year. 

I am satisfied with the stability. To my knowledge, our customers don't have any problems with the solution.

As I am not an engineer, I am not in a position to talk about the installation. I do not have familiarity with implementation. 

I do not believe that the price should be lower. I feel it to be reasonable. This is because we can compare blade with blade server, MX7000 for example, when it comes to buying VMware products, meaning it will not act like a true hyper converged infrastructure. 

I prefer VxRail to that of HyperFlex, because the VMware facilitates the configuration of two or more disk groups. Yet, HyperFlex offers one test drive and separate capacity drives, so this group only handles one load.

My knowledge of HyperFlex is limited, which is why I am in the process of comparing it with the solution.

Everything is balanced in the solution. The hardware is integrated with VMware. 

VxRail is a good solution. It offers easy administration, including updates, along with a central console enabling complete visibility of management, administration and monitoring. 

I rate VxRail as a ten out of ten.