VxRail Reviews

We use this solution mainly as a middleware application. We work in banking and use VxRail to run all of our mid-layer applications.

We would like to have on-premise technical support.

A more containerized approach in regards to the interface would be better.

I have been using this solution for one year.

VxRail is very stable.

We haven't had problems with bugs, We recently updated VxRail and we haven't had any problems.

If there are any issues, we just open a ticket and are connected with an engineer who helps us solve the problem.

We use two solutions: Vxrail with a hypervisor on VMware; and HyperGrid, with a hypervisor on Microsoft Windows, 2016. Both solutions are different and have separate pros and cons.

The initial setup was not complex. 

We had an integrator from Dell to help us set up everything. I can't remember exactly, but I believe deployment took only one or two days.

Pricing its depend on your requirement well licensing is very simple all VMware and other license cost including in VxRail. But If an organization wants to buy a VMware enterprise license, then they need to pay separately.

VxRail is a good solution, but it all depends on your strategy. We could build our own VMware cluster by buying a separate product. Technically, I could purchase a server and then built my own solution, but with VxRail, everything comes in one box, including licensing, Dell EMC and VMware — It's nice and simple. Although, if an organization wants to buy a hypervisor layer on Microsoft, then that's another story. There are many solutions available for this, including Cisco, which uses Unity to provide a hypervisor layer. HyperGrid uses Windows 2016 on its host operating system. It all comes down to your strategy and roadmap. You need to select your hypervisor first. If you go with VMware, then VxRail is a great choice; however, if you're not using a VMware hypervisor, then there are many other options to choose from.

On a scale from one to ten, I would give VxRail a rating of nine, simply because there is always room for improvement.

We run the applications on VxRail. We run all the applications that we have virtualized through VxRail.

By implementing VxRail, we wanted hyperconvergence.

We are a little unhappy with the last five nodes that we have bought because we have had them for less than one year, but the power supply already burned out, and three network cards from three different nodes had to be changed. With the other seven nodes, we were more or less happy because the only failure they had was the CMOS battery. There were some small issues, but with these last ones, we are a little dissatisfied.

Their support team is always very willing to help, but in the end, we are not 100% satisfied. To give you an idea, we have, for example, four support cases open for which we still do not know what the solution is. One of the cases is that we have a cabin through a Unity node, which is also Dell’s, but the other nodes have zero visibility with the cabin. The only solution that we have been told is to eliminate or clean all the network units that are placed there, which is a drastic solution involving the loss of service, so we are a little dissatisfied with that solution. Their support is very receptive. Our customers try to quickly raise the incident, and we try to open the cases quickly as well. To be fair, someone from the support team contacts you quickly, but it takes too long for them to find the solution. For this reason, we are a little dissatisfied.

VxRail has the ability to consolidate infrastructure from multiple locations. It is a fundamental part. Especially for geographical redundancy, it is furthermore necessary and mandatory.

In terms of VxRail’s ability to simplify our management of VMware, simplifying VMware management is impossible.

VxRail consumes a lot of energy. The rack we have has seven nodes and then it has a cabin and more features. In the end, it consumes a lot of energy, but it is normal. They are working 24/7 after all.

When it comes to reduction in unplanned production downtime, because we have seven redundant nodes, it is hard to know if VxRail is helping to reduce unplanned production downtime. If we had only one or two nodes, the experience would be different because then the node would have been active 24/7, but this is not the case. Because we have seven nodes, we have everything redundant.

At the moment, VxRail has not had any effect on the flexibility of our operations or business. VxRail has also not had any impact on our organization’s sustainability goals because we do not have any sustainability goals.

It is very powerful. We find that to be the most valuable aspect. The movement of devices between nodes is very easy.

The agility of the support team to provide you with better solutions should be improved. VxRail also has to be improved in terms of simplicity. Adding a simple node seemed like quite a project.

We have had it for five years. We had seven nodes, and last year, we bought five more nodes.

It is pretty stable.

In our infrastructure, we started with five nodes. We then increased them to six, and then we grew them to seven. It is not “plug and play” as they say. It took Dell’s technician almost a week to add the node so it is not that simple.

It is a very expensive support, so it is logical that they will assist you quickly, but in the end, for the resolution itself, in many cases, you go around 1,000 times. You waste a lot of time, and they do not find a solution right away.

Neutral

This is the first solution of this type that we've used.

The ROI cannot be measured. In the end, it is a horizontal service that we have to provide, and we have no other option but to give it. The cost does not matter.

It is very expensive.

We also evaluated HP and other solutions, but in the end, we chose VxRail because other colleagues were using it and we already had that knowledge close to us. We said, “Well, let’s take advantage of the know-how.”

We did not consider public cloud infrastructure before choosing VxRail. Due to our business characteristics, a public cloud is not an option. We must have everything on-premises.

At the moment, it does cover our objectives. I do not yet know about the competition. We are now evaluating alternatives, and we cannot yet compare. I would rate Dell VxRail a six out of ten.

Foreign Language:(Spanish)

Título: El movimiento de dispositivos es fácil, pero el soporte es insatisfactorio

¿Durante cuánto tiempo utiliza Dell VxRail?

Lo tenemos desde hace cinco años. Teníamos siete nodos y el año pasado compramos cinco nodos más.

¿Cuál es su principal caso de uso de esta solución? (Incluya detalles sobre su entorno.)

Ejecutamos las aplicaciones en VxRail. Ejecutamos todas las aplicaciones que tenemos virtualizadas a través de VxRail.

Al implementar VxRail, queríamos hiperconvergencia.

Comparta cómo Dell VxRail ha mejorado su infraestructura de TI. Si no fue así, explique por qué.

Estamos un poco descontentos con los últimos cinco nodos que hemos comprado porque los tenemos desde hace menos de un año, pero ya se quemó una fuente y hubo que cambiar tres tarjetas de red de tres nodos diferentes. Con los otros siete nodos estábamos más o menos contentos porque el único fallo que sentimos fue en cuanto a la batería CMOS, Hubo algunos pequeños problemas pero con estos últimos estamos un poco descontentos.

Su equipo de soporte siempre está muy dispuesto, pero al final no estamos 100% satisfechos. Para que os hagáis una idea, tenemos por ejemplo cuatro casos de soporte abiertos de los que todavía no sabemos cuál es la solución. Uno de los casos es que tenemos una cabina a través de un nodo de Unity, que también es de Dell, pero los demás nodos tienen visibilidad nula con la cabina. La única solución que nos han dicho es eliminar o limpiar todas las unidades de red que allí se encuentran colocadas, lo cual es una solución drástica que implica la pérdida del servicio, por lo que estamos un poco insatisfechos con esa solución. Su apoyo es muy receptivo. Nuestros clientes intentan comunicarnos rápidamente sobre el incidente y nosotros también intentamos abrir los casos rápidamente. Para ser justos, alguien del equipo de soporte se comunica contigo rápidamente, pero tarda demasiado en encontrar la solución. Por eso estamos un poco descontentos.

VxRail tiene la capacidad de consolidar infraestructura desde múltiples ubicaciones. Es una parte fundamental. Especialmente en el caso de la redundancia geográfica, además es necesario y obligatorio.

En términos de la capacidad de VxRail para simplificar nuestra administración de VMware, simplificar la administración de VMware es imposible.

VxRail consume mucha energía. El rack que tenemos tiene siete nodos y luego tiene una cabina y más funciones. Al final consume mucha energía, pero es normal. Después de todo, trabajan 24 horas al día, 7 días a la semana.

Cuando se trata de reducir el tiempo de inactividad de producción no planificado, debido a que tenemos siete nodos redundantes, es difícil saber si VxRail está ayudando a reducir el tiempo de inactividad de producción no planificado. Si tuviéramos solo uno o dos nodos, la experiencia sería diferente porque entonces el nodo habría estado activo 24 horas al día, 7 días a la semana, pero este no es el caso. Como tenemos siete nodos, tenemos todo redundante.

Por el momento, VxRail no ha tenido ningún efecto en la flexibilidad de nuestras operaciones o negocios. VxRail tampoco ha tenido ningún impacto en los objetivos de sostenibilidad de nuestra organización porque no tenemos ningún objetivo de sostenibilidad.

¿Qué características le han parecido más valiosas y por qué?

La potencia que tiene es valiosa y el movimiento de dispositivos entre nodos es muy sencillo.

¿En qué áreas se podría mejorar Dell VxRail?

Se debe mejorar la agilidad del equipo de soporte para que brinde mejores soluciones. VxRail también debe mejorarse en términos de simplicidad. Agregar un nodo simple parecía todo un proyecto.

¿Utilizó anteriormente diferentes soluciones hiperconvergentes? En caso afirmativo, ¿cuál y por qué cambió?

No, esta es el primera.

Antes de elegir Dell VxRail, ¿evaluó otras opciones? ¿De ser asi, cuales?

También evaluamos HP y otros, pero al final se eligió VxRail porque otros colegas lo estaban usando y ya teníamos ese conocimiento cerca de nosotros. Dijimos “Bueno, aprovechemos el know-how”.

No consideramos la infraestructura de nube pública antes de elegir VxRail. Por nuestras características de negocio, una nube pública no es una opción. Debemos tener todo en las instalaciones.

¿Qué opina sobre el precio y/o la licencia de Dell VxRail?

Es muy caro.

¿Cuáles son sus impresiones sobre la escalabilidad de Dell VxRail?

En nuestra infraestructura, comenzamos con cinco nodos. Luego los aumentamos a seis y luego los aumentamos a siete. No es “plug and play” como dicen. Al técnico de Dell le llevó casi una semana agregar el nodo, por lo que no es tan sencillo.

¿Cuáles son sus impresiones sobre la estabilidad de Dell VxRail?

Es bastante estable.

¿Has visto el ROI (Retorno de la Inversión)? En caso afirmativo, ¿de qué manera (es decir, métricas/puntos de datos)?

El retorno de la inversión no se puede medir. Al final es un servicio horizontal que tenemos que dar y no nos queda otra que darlo. El costo no importa.

Cuéntanos tu experiencia con el servicio y soporte al cliente.

Es un soporte muy caro, por lo que es lógico que te atiendan rápidamente, pero al final, para la resolución en sí, en muchos casos, das 1.000 vueltas. Pierdes mucho tiempo y no encuentran una solución inmediata.

¿Cómo calificaría esta solución en una escala del 1 al 10 en cuanto a servicio y soporte?

5.

En una escala del 1 al 10 (1=peor, 10=mejor), ¿cómo calificaría Dell VxRail? Por favor explique por qué.

De momento, sí cubre nuestros objetivos. Aún no sé sobre la competencia. Ahora estamos evaluando alternativas y todavía no podemos comparar. Calificaría a Dell VxRail con un seis sobre diez.

In the last deployment, I had VxRail connected to Dell EMC Isilon storage and it increases the complexity of what you're doing and you need to have a team that can manage it.

I have used VxRail within the last 12 months.

I did not have any issues with the stability of VxRail. 

VxRail ability to expand was good, I don't remember what it maxes out at but the one deployment that I was working on and assisting with is one where they were running out of storage too quickly. However, this does not matter if it's HCI or if it's a traditional storage array that you're connecting via iSCSI or Fiber Channel or ports. Running out of storage is a lack of knowledge of utilizing the tools, such as vRealize or Turbonomic, and it is important to do capacity planning. When comparing VxRail to Nutanix, Nutanix had similar scalability capabilities.

The technical support from Dell was very good.

I have used other solutions, such as Nutanix.

The implementation of a VxRail, it's straightforward, but the ongoing utilization, and integration, are where it can start to become difficult if you're not used to doing it.

I rate the Dell price a four out of five.

The price of VxRail highly depends on your design and your configuration. For example, if I connect Pure Storage directly to ESXi hosts and bypass Fiber Channel switches and I will save on money. However, it reduces my redundancy and makes it not as robust of deployment and easy to manage. An HCI environment, it's more cost-effective than utilizing a traditional SAN. With storage and computing altogether, you don't necessarily have to involve the networking team as much. I don't necessarily need somebody that understands Brocade's or Cisco Fiber Channel Switches, because I have it all right there.

One of the most important aspects of implementing VxRail is the capacity planning and understanding of what kind of expansion is going to be needed over a period of 12, 24, and 36 months. No matter what the solution is, you'll start off with a minimum of three nodes, and growing from there, it's very difficult to go back and get more capital. 

Make sure that you understand using an RV tools exporter or something similar to understand when you are designing the solution. This will help make sure that I've allowed for 20, 30, or 40 percent growth over a period of 12 months, or 24 months, depending on the use case. 

It is important to manage budgets, such as OpEx and CapEx. You will always have a certain amount of money that you can spend and not need to go back and attempt to gather more capital, capacity planning is critical.

All right. Overall for the VxRail, how would you scale it from one to ten? If ten was the best and one was the worst.

I rate VxRail an eight out of ten.

We are a customer of VxRail with 200 users. We use the solution for production workloads for the company workflow.

We have Dell enterprise licensing and use all the features. VxRail is a complete solution that includes performance, backups, and disaster recover.

VxRail should try to improve the pricing.

We have been using VxRail for 12 months.

Stability is good.

VxRail is vSAN, so we only need to buy a node when we need to scale, which is not a problem.

Technical support is good.

The initial setup is straightforward. Installation took approximately 2 days, but migration from the old UCS to the new infrastructure took time.

We have ten people on our in-house technical team including networking, security, and data center engineers who do storage and servers.

VxRail is doing the job we require, we are not making money from it.

VxRail is an expensive solution as we have the enterprise license that is billed annually. It has everything we need but it would be nice if they could do something about the pricing.

If you have done the research about VxRail and know what you are looking for then I recommend using it.

I rate this solution a 10 out of 10.

We are using the VxRail hyperconverged infrastructure to host some of our applications' virtual machines. We have customized this virtual machine and our applications serve different departments within the company.

The most valuable feature for me in this latest release has been the ability to add a compute or storage node. In the previous release, if I wanted to add only the compute mode, I need to buy a full node, including both compute and storage. That is no longer the case. I can upgrade whatever I want one based on my demand.

It would be great to have a mechanism that identifies whether or not the configuration has been done well. Right now, we are doing that manually. A compliance check would be a helpful feature.

Some of the features of the hyperconverged infrastructure could be integrated with external storage. Right now, for example, if I have surveillance going, I need to purchase very cheap storage. So, an integration between the hyperconverged infrastructure and external storage would be good.

I have been using VxRail for almost three years now. 

The stability and performance of VxRail are excellent. 

VxRail is very scalable. This is one of the advantages of hyperconverged infrastructure: Whenever you need to scale, all you have to do is add a node. We use this product on a daily basis. 

The first layer of technical support is not well equipped to help you identify the root cause of issues. However, the second level is. 

There is room for improvement with the first level of technical support. 

The initial setup was not complex, it was very straightforward. Deployment took us three to four days. 

The maintenance we do on it now is mostly preventative. 

We have two people working on VxRail. 

The pricing is reasonable considering the value of this product. 

There are no additional licensing and support costs. 

I would recommend this product to other users. 

We are system integrators and IT providers. 

The solution is cost-effective and easy to instal, it's just a plug and play. It also contains a ready VMware solution that I use to manage virtual machines. Finally, it is a hyper-converged infrastructure, so it's not a regular server.

A beneficial improvement they could make would be the integration of all the dealings with VMware to provide a license with VxRail so the customer can purchase it without the need to pay for an additional license for the VMware. If the license for VMware were to come together with the hardware at no additional cost, that would be great. Nutanix offers this package.

I've been using this solution for four years. 

The solution is very reliable. 

The solution is flexible, scalable and easily integrated. We can add to it at any time and it'll give extra performance and extra CPU.

Our engineers deal with any support issues we may have.

The initial setup is straightforward and can take up to four days. Deployment requires a technician and an assistant engineer to plan everything and get it ready to host the services. Maintenance is required but we receive documentation regarding updates and framework feature updates. We have five system administrators working on this product.

Dell VxRail is flexible and reliable and scalable. It's easy to restore without the higher cost. We're not comfortable with the cost of VxRail and neither are our clients. As a result, we sometimes have to go to other brands because the price of VxRail is not competitive. Not that comfortable with some projects so the recommendation is Dell can do the same price as the normal server. I know it's marketing plan, especially for Middle East. It'll be much better and we will buy all the required servers from VxRail not, as you know, you'll go to all hyper-converged infrastructure.

We also offer Nutanix to our clients. What Nutanix offers is not available in Dell or HPE. Nutanix has its own management system similar to VMware and is also easy to configure. Through the system, the system administrator can manage and ensure all the virtual machines or virtual appliances that will host the services. If they could change the licensing structure so there is no additional license required, it would be a great feature that would strengthen Dell against their competitors.

I always recommend VxRail because of their scalability and flexibility, but sometimes the cost creates a barrier with the client. All of our clients who have chosen VxRail are happy with it, it's just the cost that's an issue. 

I rate the solution nine out of 10. 

The cover points feature in VxRail is remarkable. It's unique. It has an intervention failover system as well as an automatic failover system, reaching clusters existing in VxRail. This makes all files act as a single file with a large and huge resource, and, of course, with customized administration, configuration, and resources. It provides automatic failover for redundancy and data recovery.

If they can provide deduplication compression through the traditional hard drives, as Cisco does in the HyperFlex system, it will be very cost-effective, especially when it comes to archiving workload. 

VxRail doesn't allow the mixing of old flash clusters and hyper clusters. When I'm starting with an old flash cluster and it comes to archiving workload, I will also need to attend the new cluster. So, I either manage two different clusters, or I pay and upload my work with the archiving mobile hard drive, which is not cost-effective at all. The main key is to allow mixing between two types of clustering, like Nutanix, or allow deduplication of completion over the period of shared hard drive on SAV. It will be much better.

I have been using this solution for four to five years. I have used three generations of Dell servers. 

It is very stable and durable. It only depends on vSAN, which is the number one software that defines storage. 

Currently, more than 500 users are using VxRail in our company. It's capable of delivering for all types of workloads. Technically, it depends on the hyper-converged instructions. This means that you have 100% assurance of its compatibility with all of its components. It should also carry all types of workload dispersing, that is, from the normal traditional virtual machines to high-performance computing, such as HEP workload, heavy database, artificial intelligence, and business analytics.

They provide good support. You can reach them, especially if your system is at ESRS, EMC functional support. You can just chat with one of their technicians. They collect the logs and discover the issue. It takes almost a couple of hours from opening the ticket to resolve it. They are very good.

The hardware replacement takes 24 hours. They have their own stock here in Egypt.

It is easy to install and implement the VxRail clusters. The initial setup was a piece of cake for us. 

We manage the storage, compute, and virtual machines as well as networking through the perfect channel. 

We do all kinds of deployments. We check whether the customer wants to deploy it on-premises, cloud, or integrate with the public cloud to tier and replicate.

VxRail is very cost-effective and affordable in the long term. It is more recommended when it comes to financial life, but it may depend upon the license. VxRail comes with VMware licensing, which may not be that cost-effective as compared to others. With VMware, it's an auto check competition. VMware is an expensive solution, especially for Nutanix. Nutanix have their own hypervisor called Acronis, which is very cost-effective against the VMware.

Nutanix is cheaper for the hardware but not for the software. If you ask the Nutanix partners to deploy Nutanix over Cisco servers or Dell EMC servers, the cost will be higher. Nutanix wants to compete financially. Therefore, they propose their software over the Supermicro server, which is a very cheap Chinese server. In fact, I don't like their terms of service.

HyperFlex has the highest price, and it is very expensive. I don't know why. It may be because this is a UCS system, which comes from Cisco and is already expensive. When it comes to HyperFlex, they need the labor to deploy Hyper-V, Citrix, or any other hypervisor.

I also deal with HyperFlex and Nutanix. In fact, I prefer VxRail. 

When comparing with HyperFlex, VxRail is much alike HyperFlex. It is very cost-effective, and it doesn't have too many conditions like HyperFlex. When you start with building clusters in HyperFlex, you stick to the selected nodes forever. It is not the same in VxRail. You start with pNode in VxRail, and then you add eNode, sNode, etc.  

HyperFlex has its own limitations. They say we can create up to 64 nodes, but, in fact, there are only 52 storage and 52 nodes compute with no mixing between two workloads. On the other hand, in VxRail, you can really create up to 64 nodes, which means the double amount of nodes to carry more servers, more computing in the clusters. 

There are too many concerns about HyperFlex, especially related to performance. HyperFlex source the deduplication compression. You don't have the option to enable or disable the deduplication compression, which means that deduplication ends the performance. In VxRail, you can enable or disable the deduplication compression. So, you can gain a net performance against the storage, and you can move the storage against the performance. You can balance the full configuration. 

When it comes to the software, Nutanix is great. The main concern is that Nutanix doesn't have its own hardware, and it is integrated with different types of servers to deploy its own system. Nutanix just has a contract with Noble, Supermicro, or HP to develop its own system, which is okay for some types of users. However, many types of users request and prefer the full software or hardware that comes from a single vendor so that they can achieve the maximum and ultimate support.

I would rate VxRail an eight out of ten. They should allow the deduplication compression over the hard drives and mixing of the hyper and the old flash clusters.

We use it to consolidate our data center footprint.

Hyper-converged solutions seem a lot easier to manage, especially with the single pane of glass view into all the management pieces of it.

The most valuable feature is its high performance.

The single pane of glass manager is a lot easier than having multiple systems to manage.

Being able to call one vendor instead of multiple vendors is a lot easier.

There are still some features which aren't built into Cisco, like virtualized networking, that use its applications. However, these can be purchased through another product as an additional licensing cost to us.

It is very stable. We've had no issues. The only thing that we have had to replace is the disk.

It is very easy to scale out.

We have used technical support for disk replacement.

We had legacy ESX infrastructure previously. It really came down to consolidating our data center, which is what drove our solution switch.

We had Dell EMC Professional Services come in and install it, then do the handover and some training,

We worked with Dell EMC directly. Our experience with them was great.

We looked at Cisco and HPE. A lot of what drove of our decision is because VxRail is VMware integrated, so it was easy to manage and learn.

We are happy with the product.