Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers Reviews

My division is backup. We use Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers powered by Intel to deploy backup systems to back up the entire area or region where we are setting it up. We actually use it as a media server for backup.

For this server, we bought several with a net of 30 terabytes to use with a memory of about 256 gigs.

We have benefited in performance, especially when installing the media server for the backup and performing backup for high performance and fast storage.

I like Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers powered by Intel. It is a good, high performance server. It is easy to manage, especially with the iDRAC. 

iDRAC is its most valuable feature. The management from the iDRAC port is useful for me because my server is located in Australia, and I need to manage it from Israel. Therefore, it is useful for troubleshooting.

There is flexibility to use a lot of storage on the server. It has the ability to have it as a RAID and support that. This is most useful for me in the case of a malfunction in one or two drives. It is like having a server and storage together, i.e., hyperconverged. We can manage this remotely.

In regards to security, I have noticed that we can implement Active Directory to the iDRAC. It is more secure that way. Then, everyone can access it as they please.

We use Intel Xeon Scalable processors in our PowerEdge Rack Servers. They have very much helped to improve the performance of our targeted workloads. 

I would like them to add more NVMe slots. That would be good. That way, it would have better performance, e.g., enough storage for better performance than a spinning disk.

There is some improvement needed in the site (with its arrangement) when trying to find some configuration or troubleshooting matches.

We just bought two Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers for a region. We installed them about a month ago.

It is very stable.

I am using it for backup, so it has to be reliable. Even in cases where there is downtime, we can then use the solution to retrieve data. 

Its scalability is great. I can add more storage and shelf to that server.

I have not yet needed the help of Dell support for PowerEdge Rack Servers. In the past, I have enjoyed my experience with Dell support for storage. I would rate them as eight out of 10.

Positive

Previously, we had an old HPE server that was backing up systems but taking a lot of time. Now, with the Intel Xeon and Dell server, it is a lot faster.

The HPE server was no longer supported, so we tried to check with some other vendors. Because of its flexibility to have more storage and scalability, we choose Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers.

The deployment of PowerEdge Rack Servers was new for me since I used to work with HPE servers. The setup was a little bit different, but it was easy to catch up and do the installation.

It took several minutes to determine how to work with PowerEdge and configure the BIOS. The one thing that surprised me is the ability to configure the BIOS from the iDRAC, not going directly inside the BIOS in order to do so.

I deployed it.

We installed the servers, and they are currently working.

The pricing and licensing are fair.

We evaluated HPE, Dell, and IBM. We chose Dell PowerEdge mostly because of the price and extendability.

It is easy to manage and extendable. Compared to other vendors, the prices are much lower. Go for it.

I would rate Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers as 10 out of 10.

We made a renovation of our infrastructure, and the problem we're solving is our performance and it is collectivity in our infrastructure too.

We have a full-scale infrastructure for six countries and are able to centralize it. With this kind of product, we are solving a lot of problems, or issues that we had before with regards to performance. The centralization of the platform for the company helped immensely.

The go-to-market implementation was pretty fast. The go-to-market speed for us was pretty important at the time we had to implement that infrastructure. 

In terms of the performance of the servers, I'm already pretty comfortable with that.

When it comes to PowerEdge rack servers handling the evolving needs of workloads, I have support from Dell partners. They constantly assess improvements for us and other versions of items on products. I keep up to date with it via my partners.

We use Dell's Optane to obtain memory in the PowerEdge environment. It helped save money in that aspect, as far as adding memory capacity. We used to negotiate these kinds of platforms and renewal with our partners on a full scale. We have a lot of cost-saving with this infrastructure.

PowerEdge helped to reduce unplanned production downtime. We have an IT continuity plan that is actually based on the infrastructure we already have implemented with Dell.

They could improve the time between new versions of the product. They could move faster, or maybe offer a little bit more support from the partners.

We've been using the solution for four years.

We have 6,500 people across six countries using the platform.

We have good support from Dell and good support from our partners. That said, sometimes it takes a pretty long time to get an answer from Dell. However, we get pretty good support from those folks.

Positive

We had used HP solutions and others as well. We changed as I had some experience with this product and we had comfort in the security that Dell gives us as a platform. The cost and the go-to-market implementation alongside the partner support are the main drivers we looked at when changing.

I was involved in the setup of the product. It was both easy and difficult to set up. However, thanks to the partner, it was more easygoing. There were a lot of people and it was useful to have somebody help as well.

We have a pretty big platform. It took two and a half months to implement the solution. That said, for our needs, it was pretty fast. We had to deal with multiple locations and we migrated everything to just one. We centralized the entire platform.

We had a great partner and planner involved.

For us, it makes more sense to have an on-premise platform rather than a cloud due to the cost. The cost-saving we have in the on-premises platform still is the driver.

We did consider public cloud servers before choosing PowerEdge Racks. We looked at servers for AWS, Azure, and others.

I'd rate the solution ten out of ten. We are quite satisfied.

It's a good scalable product. It's a good cost-saving product too. That aspect helps us as a company. In my experience, it's a pretty good implementation too. 

I'd advise new users to keep up with the timing of new deployments. That way, you can take advantage of new features. 

We use the solution to host on a private cloud. We use a lot of the 600 and 700 series.

Dell has grown a lot since the fourth generation. When I buy Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers, I don't have to worry about servers, stability, and ease of deployment.

The solution is easy to use and very stable, and we are happy with it.

Some of Dell's competitors have already been feeding a lot of the performance and availability data to an online platform. We haven't seen that with PowerEdge, or at least we never used it. It would be nice if it were all included as a part of PowerEdge so you can check your server's performance and availability online.

I've been using Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers for a long time. I have been using it before it was called PowerEdge.

The solution's scalability is very good. Nowadays, you can jam so much infrastructure into very small 1U or 2U servers, which is very impressive.

The solution’s technical support team is pretty responsive.

Positive

We use a lot of Supermicro servers, which are very good in terms of customizability. Supermicro servers can also be a lot aggressive in pricing. We use Supermicro for really lower-end and high-end servers. We use Dell for a lot of the middle-end servers.

It is easy to deploy Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers.

We have seen a return on investment with the solution in terms of stability and ease of use.

I wouldn't say the solution's pricing is the best, but it's very competitive.

Right now, we're using a lot of 13, 14, and 15-gen PowerEdge servers.

Many of our customers who do encryption at rest use Dell's TPM chip capability, which works.

PowerEdge Servers are very good for handling the evolving needs of high-performance workloads. We were able to use the solution to scale many of our compute nodes, which are used by many of our customers who need a lot of high computing. So, we're pretty happy with it.

Nowadays, PowerEdge is very reliable and has helped reduce unplanned production downtime twice as much as five years ago.

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

We use Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers for virtualization with VMware products to host ESXi. We also use products such as vCenter and vSphere, and we are now in the process of moving towards the VCF solutions to do our SVDC infrastructure.

By implementing Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers, we are looking to replace some of the old machines with more recent machines. We want to reduce energy consumption and also gain some space in our data rooms and our data centers. We are going to replace several machines with just one machine that is a more recent machine.

We have always had them. We have always worked with Dell PowerEdge servers. So, I have only known those servers. They have improved our organization in terms of productivity, continuity, and the quality of the service. They are quite robust. We are very happy with the malware incident-product resilience ratio.

Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers have improved a great deal in comparison to the older generations of servers when it comes to energy consumption. I do not have the figures because I am not part of the teams that measure our data centers, but we have easily had 20% or 30% energy savings.

To manage the evolving needs of high-performance workloads, the racks or the machines that we buy have a lot of storage space to add memory or disks if needed. In terms of storage, we are using the PowerEdge servers to make some VMware vSAN. With vSAN, there is a storage layer with disks, flash, etcetera for the cache. We have the option to stretch it by buying more disks for more storage, but we also have the possibility to easily stretch and add memory to our machines, which is good. In terms of evolution, this is very important for us because in the beginning or at the kickoff point of a new project, it can be a bit vague for us and we do not know how our needs will evolve. We might need more over time.

The machines that we have today are the oldest that I know of from the Dell PowerEdge series. For example, they might be 11G. We still have some of them, and they still work. They are robust, resilient, and durable. However, they no longer get any support. If we want any maintenance from them for this hardware, we have to pay for support extensions. This way we get help when we have a supply or hardware breakdown with these models. We must pay for the support because this kind of equipment came out a long time ago, and it has reached its end of life, so the support exists but at an extra cost. That could be an area for improvement, but from a commercial point of view, it is hard to maintain the support and storage for parts and keep a stock of parts for aging machines while knowing that they have been replaced by new-generation machines that are more efficient and less energy-consuming. It is debatable, but commercially, it is understandable. We just live with it.

For all of our Dell products, including PowerEdge servers, we have a ProSupport contract for the data center. We are very pleased with them because any breakdowns are very quickly resolved. We get a technician in less than 24 hours. We can also resolve certain breakdowns quickly because we can simply get connected to the machine. Even when we no longer have access or a connection to the machine, we always have an administration link that allows us to connect to iDRAC and reboot the machine. As a result, this feature is helpful.

We use the OpenManage console. It helps the team and saves a huge amount of time with the lifecycle management and updating BIOS and firmware. It is good for that. Without it, we cannot manage to keep our servers up to date, so it is a very significant gain. It is very important for us.

Using Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers has affected the overall flexibility of our operations. We have gained productivity. To start with, we have gained in terms of performance at the writing level with IOs. In the past, our users used to complain a lot about the waiting time and the slowness. There was some congestion with IOs. Since we have been using the new generation servers, people are happier. We no longer get problems with the slow speed of the IOs writing, etc.

Nowadays, iDRAC is very important. It is one of the features that we use the most because we do not always have physical access to our machines. iDRAC is a tool that we use daily. If we did not have it, it would be very complicated to manage the machines. This is a great feature.

The pricing can be better. These are expensive machines. Especially since COVID-19, many organizations are trying to reduce costs in various directions, and they often end up challenging the IT services and IT teams to reduce the costs. As a result, the choice made today for IT machines is very much based on the price, especially for the hardware. We are currently working with Dell because when we do an RFP, we put several resellers in competition, and at the moment, Dell is able to produce competitive and interesting prices for our needs. So, the final decision is often based on the price. It is essentially the price that will influence the choice of the hardware.

We order vSAN Ready Nodes, but it can happen that between the moment we order our machines and the moment they get delivered, there are some updates or new versions that may have come out. As a result, when we receive our machines and switch them on, even though they are vSAN Ready Nodes, we still have to patch them and build them with a version to be able to integrate them in a cluster so that they are uniform and with the same version as the others servers. So, there is room for improvement with regard to getting the target version.

There can be a long time gap between the order, the manufacturing, and the delivery or receipt of the machines. After receiving them, we have a process of hardwiring. We still have tasks left, such as racking the machine and hardwiring, before using the machines. It can sometimes take several weeks before we are able to use them, and that is when we notice a difference between the production machines and the new machines. Although the new machines are vSAN Ready Nodes, they are not actually ready.

I have been using Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers for seven years, but it has been longer for our organization.

The stability is good.

They are scalable.

We are very happy with their support because we benefit from ProSupport. It includes the intervention on the data center, the parts, and the technician in less than 24 hours. So, it is working well.

I would rate their support a nine out of ten because sometimes, there are issues. Sometimes, a part might not be available. When a part is not available, it can have an impact. They have several strategic points in France where the parts are stored, and the parts come from those points. When those parts are not in those areas, they widen the search for the parts, and that can be worldwide. As the parts can come from anywhere, they can take longer to get to us. Some service requests might also have gone over the SLAs, but we understand that it cannot be perfect.

Positive

In this organization, I have always worked with Dell servers, but in the past, I have worked with HPE. They are fairly similar. HPE has the iLO card, and Dell has the iDRAC card. I do not have enough insights into HPE servers because I have worked very little with them. I do not have that many elements for comparison. The only elements for comparison that I have are more or less the same.

I was involved with the new infrastructure. It was very simple because the new PowerEdge servers that we ordered were vSAN Ready Nodes. We get our own machines. We do the hardwiring. We switch them on, and we immediately have our ESXi installed. Only the configuration is left to do. We only need to integrate new nodes and new servers in the bay centers and ESXi in our clusters at the bay centers. We then do the configuration. That is the administration part, and then, we link VMware. So, the integration has been hugely simplified by the fact that we have some vSAN Ready Nodes.

We do the implementation ourselves.

Personally, I find them extremely expensive, but my colleague is a part of the buying team, so he would know better than me.

I would rate Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers an eight out of ten. I am not entirely satisfied to rate them a ten.

Foreign Language:(French)

Des serveurs robustes pour la productivité, la continuité et la qualité de service

Depuis combien de temps utilisez-vous les serveurs Dell PowerEdge Rack?

J’utilise les serveurs Dell PowerEdge Rack depuis sept ans mais cela fait plus longtemps pour notre société.

Quel est votre cas principal d’utilisation de cette solution? (Décrivez votre environnement).

On utilise les serveurs Dell PowerEdge Rack pour de la virtualisation avec les produits VMware pour héberger de l’ESXi. On utilise des produits vCenter et vSphere et en ce moment, on est en train de se tourner vers les solutions VCF pour faire notre infrastructure SVDC.

En implémentant les serveurs Dell PowerEdge Rack, on cherche à remplacer des vieilles machines par des machines plus récentes. On veut réduire la consommation énergétique et gagner de la place en salles serveurs et dans nos data centers. On va remplacer plusieurs machines par une seule machine qui est plus récente.

Comment est-ce que les serveurs Dell PowerEdge Rack ont amélioré votre organisation? Si ce ne fut pas le cas, veuillez expliquer pourquoi.

On en a toujours eu. On a toujours travaillé avec les serveurs Dell PowerEdge. Donc, je n’ai toujours connu que ces serveurs. Ils ont amélioré notre organisation en termes de productivité, de continuité et de qualité de service. Ils sont robustes. On est très contents du ratio incident malware et résilience du produit.

Les serveurs Dell PowerEdge Rack se sont beaucoup améliorés par rapport aux anciennes générations de serveurs en ce qui concerne la consommation d'énergie. Je n’ai pas les chiffres en tête parce que je ne fais pas partie des équipes qui mesurent nos data centers mais on est facile à 20% ou 30% de gain en énergie.

Pour gérer les besoins évolutifs des charges de travail à haute performance, on achète des racks, des machines qui ont beaucoup de place pour ajouter de la mémoire ou des disques, si besoin. En termes de stockage, on utilise les serveurs PowerEdge pour faire du VMware vSAN. Avec la vSAN, il y a une couche stockage avec des disques, flash, etcetera, pour le cache. On a la possibilité d'étendre en rachetant des disques pour la partie stockage mais on a aussi la possibilité d'étendre et rajouter de la mémoire dans nos machines assez facilement, ce qui est une bonne chose. En termes d'évolution, cela est très important pour nous parce qu’au début, au moment où on démarre un nouveau projet, on est des fois dans le flou et on ne sait pas comment nos besoins vont évoluer. On peut parfois en avoir besoin de plus.

Les machines qu’on a aujourd’hui des séries Dell PowerEdge sont les plus anciennes que je connaisse. Ce sont des 11G, par exemple. On en a encore quelques-unes et elles fonctionnent toujours. C’est robuste, résistant et durable. Après, ce sont des produits qui n’ont plus de support. Si nous voulons de la maintenance sur ce matériel, on doit payer pour des extensions de support. C’est le seul moyen d’avoir de l’aide si jamais on a une panne d’alimentation ou du matériel sur ces modèles. On doit payer du support parce que c’est du matériel qui est sorti il y a longtemps et qui a atteint sa fin de vie. Le support existe donc bien mais avec un surcoût. Cela pourrait être un point d'amélioration mais d’un point de vue commercial, c’est dur de maintenir du support et de produire et d’avoir du stock de pièces pour des machines qui sont vieillissantes, sachant que c’est remplacé par des nouvelles générations de machines qui sont plus performantes et moins énergivores. Ça se discute mais commercialement, c’est compréhensible. On vit avec.

Pour tous nos produits Dell avec les serveurs PowerEdge inclus, nous avons le contrat ProSupport pour le data center. Nous sommes très satisfaits parce que les pannes sont résolues très rapidement. On a un technicien qui arrive en moins de 24 heures. On peut résoudre certaines pannes rapidement parce qu’on peut tout simplement se connecter à la machine. Même lorsqu’on n’a plus d'accès ou de connectivité avec la machine, on a toujours un lien d’administration qui nous permet de nous connecter à l’iDRAC et relancer la machine. Du coup, cette fonctionnalité est utile.

On utilise la console OpenManage. Elle fait gagner énormément de temps aux équipes sur la gestion du cycle de vie et pour mettre à jour les BIOS et firmware. C’est très bien pour tout ça. Sans cette console, on ne serait pas capable de maintenir nos serveurs à jour donc, c’est un gain très important pour nous. C’est un produit très important pour nous.

L’utilisation des serveurs Dell PowerEdge Rack a affecté la flexibilité globale de nos opérations. Nous avons gagné en productivité. Nous avons déjà eu des gains en termes de performance au niveau des écritures des IOs. Par le passé, nos utilisateurs se plaignaient beaucoup de problèmes de latence et de lenteur. Il y avait des congestions au niveau de l'IOS. Depuis qu’on utilise les nouvelles générations de serveurs, les gens sont plus contents. On n’a plus ces problèmes de lenteur d'écriture d'IOS, etc.

Quelles fonctionnalités avez-vous trouvé les plus utiles et pourquoi?

Aujourd’hui, l’iDRAC est très important. C’est une des fonctionnalités qu’on utilise le plus parce qu’on n’a pas toujours accès physiquement à nos machines. L’iDRAC est un outil qu’on utilise quotidiennement. Si on ne l’avait pas, ce serait très compliqué de gérer les machines. C’est une super fonctionnalité.

Dans quels domaines les serveurs Dell PowerEdge Rack pourraient-ils être améliorés?

Le prix pourrait être meilleur. Ce sont des machines qui sont chères. Surtout depuis le COVID-19, beaucoup d’organisations cherchent à réduire leurs coûts dans différentes directions et elles vont souvent challenger les services et les équipes informatiques pour réduire les coûts. Du coup, le choix des machines aujourd’hui est plutôt basé sur le coût, surtout pour le matériel hardware. Nous, aujourd’hui, on travaille avec Dell parce que quand on fait un RFP, on met plusieurs revendeurs en concurrence et pour le moment, Dell est capable de sortir des tarifs qui sont compétitifs et intéressants par rapport à nos besoins. La décision finale est donc souvent basée sur le prix. C’est essentiellement le coût qui va influencer le choix du hardware.

On commande les vSAN Ready Nodes mais entre le moment où on commande nos machines et le moment où elles sont livrées, il se peut qu’il y ait eu des mises à jour ou des nouvelles versions qui soient sorties. Du coup, quand on reçoit nos machines et qu’on les allume, bien qu’elles soient du vSAN Ready Nodes, on doit encore les patcher et les monter en version pour pouvoir les intégrer dans un cluster pour que ce soit uniforme et la même version que les autres serveurs. Il y a donc un point d'amélioration sur le fait d’avoir une version cible.

Il peut se passer beaucoup de temps entre la commande, la fabrication et la livraison ou la réception des machines. Et après les avoir reçues, nous avons encore un autre processus de câblage. On a encore toute la main-d’œuvre derrière pour mettre les machines en rack et faire le câblage avant de pouvoir les utiliser. Cela peut parfois prendre plusieurs semaines, avant de pouvoir s’en servir et c’est là où on constate une différence entre la production des machines et les nouvelles machines. Bien que les nouvelles machines soient vSAN Ready Nodes, elles ne sont pas vraiment ‘ready’ (prêtes à être utilisées).

Avez-vous utilisé une solution différente auparavant et le cas échéant, pourquoi avez-vous changé?

Dans cette société, j’ai toujours travaillé avec des serveurs Dell mais par le passé, j’ai travaillé avec du HPE. Ils sont assez similaires. HPE a la carte iLO et Dell a la carte iDRAC. Je n’ai pas assez de recul sur les serveurs HPE parce que j’ai très peu travaillé avec eux. Je n’ai pas beaucoup d'éléments de comparaison. D'après les seuls éléments de comparaison que je puisse avoir, c’est plus ou moins identique.

Que conseillez-vous à d'autres sur les coûts d’installation, les tarifs et/ou les licences?

Personnellement, je les trouve extrêmement chers mais mon collègue qui fait partie de l'équipe des achats en sait plus que moi.

Quelles sont vos impressions sur la scalabilité de cette solution?

Ils sont scalables.

Quelles sont vos impressions sur la stabilité de cette solution?

La stabilité est bonne.

La configuration initiale était-elle simple ou complexe et de quelle manière?

J'étais impliqué sur la nouvelle infrastructure. C'était très simple parce que les nouveaux serveurs PowerEdge que nous avions commandés étaient des vSAN Ready Nodes. On a nos propres machines. On fait le câblage. On les allume et on a déjà directement notre ESXi d’installé. Il reste juste la configuration à faire. Il nous reste juste à intégrer les nouveaux nœuds et les nouveaux serveurs dans nos centres de baies et les ESXi dans nos clusters dans les centres de baies. Après, on passe à la configuration. Et ensuite, c’est la partie administration pour lier le VMware. L'intégration a donc été grandement simplifiée du fait d’avoir des vSAN Ready Nodes.

Avez-vous fait l'implémentation avec une équipe d’un revendeur ou en interne? Si à travers un revendeur, comment évalueriez-vous leur niveau d’expertise?

Nous la faisons nous-mêmes.

Décrivez-nous votre expérience avec le service client et le support.

On est très content avec leur support parce qu’on bénéficie du ProSupport. Cela inclut l’intervention sur le data center, les pièces et le technicien en moins de 24 heures. Donc, ça marche bien.

Je donnerais un neuf sur 10 pour leur support parce que des fois, il y a des problèmes. Il arrive parfois qu’une pièce ne soit pas disponible. Lorsqu’une pièce n’est pas disponible, cela peut avoir un impact. Ils ont plusieurs points stratégiques en France où les pièces sont en stock et elles viennent de ces points-là. Lorsque ces pièces ne sont pas stockées dans ces points-là, ils élargissent pour trouver la pièce et des fois, ça peut venir du monde entier. Comme les pièces peuvent venir de n'importe où, elles mettent plus de temps à arriver chez nous. Certaines demandes de service ont pu dépasser les CNS mais on comprend que cela ne peut pas être parfait.

Comment évalueriez-vous cette solution sur une échelle de 1 à 10 pour le service et le support?

9

Sur une échelle de 1 à 10 (1=le pire, 10=le meilleur), comment évalueriez-vous les serveurs Dell PowerEdge Rack? Veuillez expliquer pourquoi.

Je donnerais une note de huit sur dix aux serveurs Dell PowerEdge Rack. Je ne suis pas entièrement satisfait pour leur donner un dix.

We use Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers across our organization for diverse needs. Some handle essential services like DHCP and DNS, while others support websites and applications. Additionally, we use them for storage and computational power, adapting to the unique requirements of each site efficiently.

Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers have significantly improved our organization, especially for simulation work. 

The switch to SSDs has made a tremendous difference, reducing simulation times from a day to just an hour. This boost in performance has translated into cost savings, allowing us to accomplish more in less time. 

The impact of Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers on our organization's sustainability goals has been significant. Although we are a large company and often maximize hardware life, investing in newer, more energy-efficient systems has proven worthwhile. 

With energy pricing in leased buildings and considering the collective impact of servers, desktops, and screens, the upgrade has made a substantial positive difference both economically and environmentally.

Additionally, switching to Dell VSAN SSD storage has significantly boosted our server performance, especially for high-performance workloads. The transition from external storage with a different supplier to Dell storage took some time to adapt, but the results have been impressive. The performance now is exceptional and has surpassed our previous setup.

What I find valuable about Dell is that the newer servers are more energy-efficient compared to older ones, aligning with the need to consider power consumption.

We are generally very satisfied with Dell, but there is a suggestion to potentially revisit pricing, although this is a common consideration with most products.

I have been working with Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers since 2012.

Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers have been incredibly reliable, minimizing unplanned production downtime. Over the past 11 years, I have experienced very few issues, such as only one failed hard drive. The servers have been stable, even during moves and power cycles, consistently performing well.

Tech support for Dell PowerEdge has been excellent. I have had the same account manager for about two and a half to three years, and she has been awesome. Whenever there is a project or need for assistance, they provide valuable support, creating a collaborative and effective environment for problem-solving.

I find Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers valuable for our company's needs. While we have used HP systems before, we switched back to Dell due to their better service and more familiar hardware. The way Dell products work aligns well with our preferences, making them a more pleasant choice for our business.

The deployment time for Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers depends on the project. For longer planning phases, it can take up to three years, while in more straightforward cases, it is a matter of weeks. The actual installation is easy and tool-free, involving simply clicking on the hardware, connecting it to the network, and using remote access for configuration.

Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers have fair prices for our basic needs, and when we need more power, the cost matches the value we get. It feels like we get a good deal for what we pay.

Overall, I would rate Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers as a nine out of ten.

We're using it for various purposes, such as DB servers, web servers, application servers, file servers, print servers, etc.

We can use the OpenManage console for managing multiple rack servers. We can manage all of them in a single console. The firmware can be pushed on multiple servers via the OpenManage console. It's very user-friendly, and it makes it easy to download and update the firmware. There are multiple options. If I have 15 servers of the same model, to update the firmware, I don't need to download the firmware on each server. With the OpenManage console, we can download it just once and then push it to multiple servers.

The OpenManage console has affected our IT staff’s productivity. Upgrading firmware on each server generally takes two hours. So, upgrading firmware on multiple servers would take a lot of time. For example, for 15 servers, it would take at least 30 hours, whereas, with the OpenManage console, we can update all the servers within two hours.

The OpenManage console also decreases the time it takes to deploy new data centers. It would take more time to deploy the individual servers.

We can use Dell Lifecycle Controller for remote server management. If something happens, I use the iDRAC console to check the impact. It's easy to identify the issue from the iDRAC console. If there is a blue screen or purple screen, it's a hardware-related or software-related issue. I am based in India, but I can easily support US operations. iDRAC allows me to work remotely to troubleshoot. So, troubleshooting, as well as firmware downloads and updates, are very easy. All the firmware and drivers are available on a single page. I can download or update the firmware if there is a purple screen or a driver is missing. In the OpenManage console, everything is visible. We can see the installed version and the available version in a single console. It shows anything that is non-compliant in your list. If my environment has 1,000 servers, it will show whether all 1,000 servers are up to date or not. I can then identify and plan for the firmware updates. After updating the firmware, the hardware runs smoothly.

It supports multiple operating systems. I have experience installing Windows servers, ESXi, and Linux. It's not only for Windows. We use the VMware ESXi operating system. On ESXi, we run around 6,000 virtual servers. We have app servers, DB servers, and file servers. There are also manufacturing applications, where they are running robotic machines. So, there are different applications running.

You can use Dell PowerEdge hardware for anything. It supports everything such as file servers, web servers, and DB servers. It can support all critical servers and applications. There are bank applications running on PowerEdge servers.

PowerEdge rack servers are good in terms of energy consumption.

Dell hardware is not as stable as HP. I have not seen any issues with HP in five years, but with Dell, I am getting multiple issues. It's not stable. They need to verify why it has multiple issues and why Dell hardware is not as stable as HP hardware.

I have 15 years of experience in the IT industry. I have worked in multiple companies, and I have more than 10 years of experience with Dell hardware. I have worked with Dell PowerEdge R720, R730, R740, R830, R840, and R940, and I have also worked with Dell PowerEdge VRTX Chassis M630 and M640.

Dell hardware is not as stable as HP hardware.

Their support is number one worldwide. I never got that much support with other hardware. I would rate them a 10 out of 10.

Positive

I have also worked with HP hardware in one of the companies. In five years, I generally did not see any issues with HP hardware, but in case I had any problem with hardware, they took more than 10 days to replace the hardware or troubleshoot the problem. I don't like that. Whereas Dell provides support within four hours for hardware replacement. They provide better support. Within four hours, they arrange for a replacement. Their support is number one. I would recommend Dell because their support is very good.

Dell's hardware is not as stable as HP's. We see multiple issues, such as hard disk failures. We need to apply updates or patches. Dell is user-friendly. So, it's very easy to apply and download, but the hardware is not stable. This is the only part that needs to be developed from Dell's side.

HP is more expensive than Dell. Dell provides better quotes. They give multiple options to buy the hardware.

Its deployment is very easy. Anybody can deploy it. They provide everything. Its deployment is easy and user-friendly.

For deployment, we have customized ISO for our environment. We use that. For ESXi, we are using the Dell custom image that they provide on their website. We can download that directly from there, and that's it.

One of the clients has been offered a price of $18,000 instead of the regular price of around $25,000.

It supports everything. You can install anything you want. If you want DB, you can do that. If you need high-performance workloads, you need to increase storage capacity. It depends on the configuration, but it will support that. The PowerEdge server has 16 slots. You just need to buy maximum capacity during the purchase.

I would rate Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers a 10 out of 10.

I integrate PowerEdge for customers who buy the servers and storage, doing the integration between them. I have helped integrate 20 to 30 customers.

Dell PowerEdge powered by Intel helps improve organizations that we work with a lot.

I like the integration between iDRAC and the system. It is very easy to update the framework and install the operating systems. 

Intel's Xeon CPU makes the system work very well and fast. I like this type of CPU. It has helped to improve the performance of targeted workloads by 70%.

Some customers took the machine to the extreme, which makes it a bit slower and delays the system. Since the customer can put a lot of VMs with a lot of data, it can use up the CPU memory to 20% to 25%, which slows down the system. However, if we reduce the CPU memory or split it to another, then it works very well.

I would like to change the physical rails to be more like how HPE rails are formatted and organized.

I have been using PowerEdge Rack Servers powered by Intel for almost three years.

PowerEdge Rack Servers have helped to reduce unplanned production downtime. The organization will not have downtime at all if you can migrate VMs between servers, but you need at least two. With two or three clusters, you can convert the machines.

The stability is very good, if you have at least two servers. Then, you have full redundancy of all the VMs and the system. If one server has downtime, then all the data in the VMs on the server convert automatically to the other. Therefore, you need at least two or three servers to have full redundancy.

Our customers can run the systems in their organization 24/7 without any downtime.

PowerEdge offers a lot of types, which is very good for customer scalability, from small businesses to large businesses. 

I have not used their technical support.

It is very quick to deploy. It takes something like 30 minutes to an hour for us to deploy.

I recommend reading the documentation before you deploy the product.

It makes the integration with a lot of storage systems cheaper. 

The pricing is very good because there are a lot of types of PowerEdge Rack Servers. You have the R540, R640, and R740. The prices are very scalable through the specific server, e.g., small businesses can take the R640 while large businesses can take the R740 or R840. Thus, Dell technologies touch on every organization.

I like Dell Technologies' products, such as PowerEdge and PowerStore, more than their competitors. It is very easy to work with Dell because of all their documentation for deployments. It is much easier than their competitors.

There are no issues with security in my experience.

I am hoping that some customers will use Dell’s OpenManage console in the future.

I would rate the product as nine out of 10.

We use them for everything—from infrastructure services to virtualization, as well as storage.

By implementing these servers, we wanted to meet our needs regarding office automation. I work for a national library, so it was essentially about being able to distribute digital books and being able to create applications and a digital library.

At the time, they were the only ones to offer a remote management system, and that is a very important feature for us, especially bearing in mind that we have only two people for hundreds of servers. It is indeed very important.

Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers have the PowerEdge Cyber Resilient Architecture approach to security, but I do not believe in that. We put the security in place well in advance and early on the servers as well as the networks in order to filter everything, so we have minimal exposure to the servers. Once it is on the servers, it is too late. They must be stopped well in advance.

In terms of energy consumption, it depends on what you are doing with the machine. If it is to manage AIs or other similar things, they consume far too much energy. If it is for the purpose of heritage conservation, then it is consuming what it needs to. It depends on what you are using it for. If you leave the light on in a room and everyone has their eyes closed and nobody is doing anything, then it is excess energy consumption. Even if it is barely a fraction of any watt being used, it is already too much. However, if it is for reading and learning about things, it can be justified. The justification does not take place at the server level but at the level of how we use that server. Certain servers are very energy-consuming because there are certain projects that have no purpose at all, and there are projects, such as the digital library, that are very useful, and I do not find them very energy-consuming.

They have very good indicators on them that allow us to follow the workloads as well as consumptions. That is very good. One good thing about those servers is that we are remotely warned. There is a follow-up, and the administration is much easier for us.

In terms of their impact on our sustainability goals, we do not have much money in the public sector, so we make them last for a very long time. I have some servers that are more than ten years old, so the maintenance or support no longer exists for those models. This equipment is well-manufactured and reliable, and it works very well.

For the last 20 years, there have been far fewer breakdowns. The servers function much better and the OS too. For sure, we are getting a much better quality product than we used to about 20 or 25 years ago. That is for sure. The machines no longer stop. We now only stop them for some safety updates or something similar, but that is it.

The OpenManage console does allow us to combine everything, but we had that system well before it was a VM. At the time, it was still an application.

Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers have affected the overall flexibility of our operations. The fact that they are easily manageable is an essential aspect.

These web servers were easily manageable from as early as 2003. We have a very large building, and it was possible to manage them remotely in a simple way from as early as 2003.

All of the marketing terminologies from Dell are very complicated as they have names that sometimes involve the same technology. It is something very complex for me as well as for many people who are not that familiar with Dell’s catalog. Apart from that, from a technical aspect, Dell is following the technical progression of the motherboards and processors from other manufacturers, and as a result, they are always up to date.

Their price could be better.

The first one was in 2003, so we have been using them for about 20 years.

They are very stable. They last a very long time.

We never make any changes. We buy the equipment. Sometimes, we even buy a lot of identical equipment, and according to the lifespan, we add server disks from an obsolete server to make another server more powerful. That is the only thing that we do. We do not make any changes to processors or anything else. We buy the servers based on necessity.

Their support is always very good. It is always a ten out of ten. They have very competent people. There is no need to negotiate something or explain it ten times when a server strip is faulty and needs to be returned. There is no problem regarding this, and it is very good.

Positive

We have some Lenovo servers, and we have some HPE servers. Dell does not always offer the best prices, and the competitors are also offering products at a good price. That is what the competitive game is about, and sometimes, it is the competitor who wins.

I was involved in the initial setup. It is extremely simple.

In terms of the implementation strategy, we had two delivered. We watched how they were cabled up, how they were built up, and we put the others. We had ordered together with a guide, and there were no problems.

We did the implementation with a guide. We always do this, but while telling him what to do. We made our own terms and conditions. We were the ones in charge.

Dell’s licensing is perfect. In comparison to the competitors, it is perfect. It is simple and well done. It is working for us.

I would rate Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers a ten out of ten. Out of all the brands that I know, they are the best together with HPE, but there is something that I do not like about HPE, and that is the licensing. I find their licensing absolutely unbearable.

Foreign Language:(French) 

Offre une gestion à distance, une administration facile et des indicateurs de charges de travail et de consommation

Depuis combien de temps utilisez-vous les serveurs Dell PowerEdge Rack?

Le premier était en 2003, cela fait donc environ 20 ans.
Quel est votre cas d’utilisation principal de cette solution? (Décrivez votre environnement).

On s’en sert pour tout — autant pour les services d’infrastructure que pour la virtualisation et le stockage.

En implémentant ces serveurs, on voulait répondre à nos besoins en bureautique. Je travaille pour la bibliothèque nationale. C’est donc essentiellement pour distribuer des ouvrages numérisés et d'être capable de concevoir des applications et une bibliothèque numérique.

Veuillez décrire comment les serveurs Dell PowerEdge Rack ont amélioré votre organisation. Si ce ne fut pas le cas, veuillez expliquer pourquoi.

C'était les seuls à l'époque qui proposaient un système de gestion à distance et ça, c’est un aspect très important pour nous, sachant que nous sommes que deux pour plusieurs centaines de serveurs. C’est vraiment très important.

Les serveurs Dell PowerEdge Rack ont l’approche de l’architecture PowerEdge Cyber-Résiliente mais je n’y crois pas trop. On met la sécurité bien avant et bien en amont des serveurs, ainsi que sur les réseaux afin de tout filtrer et donc, on expose un minimum les serveurs. Une fois qu’ils sont sur les serveurs, c’est trop tard. Il faut les arrêter bien avant.

En termes de consommation d'énergie, ça dépend de ce qu’on fait avec la machine. Si c’est pour gérer des IAs ou autre chose de semblable, ça consomme beaucoup trop d'énergie. Si c’est pour la conservation patrimoniale, alors ça consomme ce que cela doit consommer. Ça dépend de ce qu’on fait dessus. Si on laisse une lumière allumée dans une pièce et que tout le monde ferme les yeux et que personne ne fait rien, c’est une consommation d'énergie en trop. Même si ce n’est qu’une fraction de watt qui est utilisée, c’est déjà trop. Par contre, si c’est pour lire et apprendre des choses, ça se justifie. La justification ne se passe pas au niveau du serveur mais au niveau de l’utilisation qu’on en fait. Certains serveurs sont très énergivores parce qu’il y a des projets qui ne servent à rien et il y a des projets comme la bibliothèque numérique qui sont très utiles et je ne les trouve pas très énergivores.

Ils ont de très bons indicateurs dessus qui nous permettent de suivre les charges ainsi que les consommations. Ça, c’est très bien. Une bonne chose au sujet de ces serveurs, c’est qu’on est averti à distance. Il y a un suivi et l’administration est beaucoup plus facile pour nous.

En termes de leur impact sur nos objectifs de durabilité, on n’a pas beaucoup d’argent dans la fonction publique et on les fait donc durer très longtemps. J’ai des serveurs qui ont plus de dix ans donc, la maintenance et le support n’existent plus sur ces modèles. C’est du matériel bien conçu, fiable et qui marche très bien.

Il y a beaucoup moins de pannes depuis 20 ans. Les serveurs fonctionnent beaucoup mieux et les OS aussi. C’est sûr qu’on arrive à une meilleure qualité de produit qu'il y a environ 20 ou 25 ans. Ça, c’est sûr. Les machines ne s'arrêtent plus. On les arrête uniquement pour faire des mises à jour de sécurité ou des choses comme ça mais c’est tout.

La console OpenManage permet de tout regrouper mais on avait ce système bien avant que ce soit une VM. A l'époque c'était encore une application.

Les serveurs Dell PowerEdge Rack ont affecté la flexibilité globale de nos opérations. Le fait qu’ils soient faciles à gérer est un élément essentiel.

Quelles fonctionnalités avez-vous trouvé le plus utile et pourquoi?

Ces serveurs web étaient faciles à gérer dès 2003. On a un bâtiment qui est très grand et c'était possible de les gérer à distance et de manière simple et dès 2003.

Dans quels domaines les serveurs Dell PowerEdge Rack pourraient-ils être améliorés?

Toutes les terminologies marketing de Dell sont très compliquées car ils ont des noms qui regroupent des fois, la même technologie. C’est très complexe pour moi et pour beaucoup de personnes qui ne sont pas tout le temps sur le catalogue Dell. Sinon, techniquement, Dell suit la progression technique des processeurs, des cartes mères d’autres constructeurs et ils sont donc, toujours à la pointe de l’innovation.

Leur prix pourrait être meilleur.

Avez-vous utilisé une solution différente auparavant et le cas échéant, pourquoi avez-vous changé?

On a des serveurs Lenovo et des serveurs HPE. Dell ne fait pas tout le temps les meilleurs prix et les concurrents offrent également des produits à des prix intéressants. C’est tout le jeu de la concurrence et parfois, c’est le concurrent qui gagne.

Que conseillez-vous à d'autres au sujet des coûts d’installation, des tarifs et/ou du licensing?

Le licensing Dell est parfait. Par rapport aux concurrents, c’est parfait. C’est simple et bien fait. Ça fonctionne pour nous.

Quelles sont vos impressions sur la scalabilité de cette solution?

On ne fait jamais de changements. On achète le matériel. Parfois, on achète plusieurs matériels identiques et en fonction de la durée de vie, on ajoute du disque de vieux serveurs qu’on a de-commissionné pour en faire un serveur plus puissant. C’est uniquement ce que l’on fait. On ne fait pas de changements de processeurs ni d’autre chose. On achète des serveurs pour un besoin.

Quelles sont vos impressions sur la stabilité de cette solution?

Ils sont très stables. Ils durent très longtemps.

Le déploiement initial était-il simple ou complexe et de quelle manière?

J'étais impliqué dans le déploiement initial. C’est extrêmement simple.

En termes de stratégie d'implémentation, on en a fait livrer deux. On a regardé comment ça se câblait, comment ça se montait et on a fait les autres. On avait commandé un guide et il n’y a pas eu de soucis.

Avez-vous fait l'implémentation avec l'équipe d’un revendeur ou en interne? Si avec l'équipe d’un revendeur, comment évalueriez-vous leur niveau d’expertise?

On l’a fait avec un guide. On fait toujours comme ça mais en lui indiquant ce qu’il faut faire. Nous faisons le cahier des charges nous-mêmes. Nous menons la tâche.

Décrivez-nous votre expérience avec le service client et le support.

Leur support est toujours très bien. C’est toujours dix sur dix. Ils ont des gens compétents. Il n’y a pas besoin de négocier pour quelque chose ou expliquer dix fois lorsqu’une barrette de serveur tombe en panne et qu’il faut la renvoyer. Il n'y a pas de soucis là-dessus. C’est très bien.

Comment évalueriez-vous cette solution sur une échelle de 1 à 10 pour le service et le support?

10

Sur une échelle de 1 a10 (1=le pire, 10=le meilleur), les serveurs Dell PowerEdge Rack? Veuillez expliquer pourquoi.

Je donnerais un dix sur dix aux serveurs Dell PowerEdge Rack. Parmi toutes les marques que je connais, ce sont les meilleurs avec HPE, mais il y a des choses que je n’aime pas chez HPE, comme leur licensing. Je trouve leur licensing absolument insupportable.