VxRail Reviews

The solution is primarily used as a general data center and VDI. 

I consult multiple organizations across many industries.  VxRAIL is a platform  I lead with. It reduces IT admin time and complexity around managing a hyper-converged environment. 

The solution is perfect for the lifecycle management of hardware.

The solution allows automated updates to hosts os and hardware, and in some cases switch hardware patches as well.

The licensing costs are too expensive for smaller deployments. They should work on their pricing model at the low end. many of the customer's at the smaller end of the scale would benefit the most from the automation but it often times becomes cost prohibitive.

The solution needs a little more flexibility in the hardware that is supported by VxRAIL. Right now, they're very restrictive of the hardware supported. 

I've been dealing with the solution for two or three years.

The stability of the solution is rock solid. Organizations consider it completely reliable. There aren't bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash. It's great.

The scalability of the solution is very impressive, actually. You can scale a very large environment with ease. It's not trouble at all.

On the converse of that, it doesn't work so well for very small environments. This is mostly for if you've got, for example, four hosts already. It's not for small environments. You need to really have 100 to 200 VMs to really take advantage of it.

As a reseller, I'll typically check in with clients after a few months to see how things are going and to see if they need a new node or anything of that nature.  Typically, they are looking to scale a bit more.

The technical support is phenomenal. I'd give it five stars. They are very responsive and knowledgeable. We're satisfied with the level of service they provide.

I have been selling virtualization platforms for around 10 years.  Hyper Converged Infrastructure is perfect for general data center work loads and for VDI.  

For myself, it's fairly straightforward and no longer very complex. However, I've done more than a dozen of them so far. If you don't know what you're doing, it can be pretty complex. You really do need some expertise with the solution to manage everything.

In terms of deployment, it chiefly takes about two days of planning and about two days of implementation.

In terms of maintenance, what makes it so nice is that it automates management and patching of all of an organization's virtual hosts and even their switches if the switches are supported. Therefore, it reduces admin.

We handle the implementation for our clients.

Users do find that licensing is quite pricey.

The costs vary from customer to customer.

A typical node that I would sell to a customer has a list price be between $50,000 and $80,000 per node. Organizations typically start with four nodes. That's the hardware, software, VMware licensing, everything. 

Customers typically pay about half of that for VSAN REady nodes - approximately $25,000 to $50,000 a node. On average, it costs about $200,000 to get your foot in the door. That can be quite expensive for any organization that isn't a large enterprise.

I have trained and worked with all of the major HCI options out there.

VSAN (VxRail is built on top of this)

Nutanix ( a very solid alternative)

Simplivity ( not to the level of VSAN or Nutanix)

Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct ( good idea, not quite ready for production)

We're a partner with Dell VMware. VxRail is a part of Dell.

I largely just sell and set up the solutions; I don't use the solution regularly myself.

It's an amazing product overall.

This solution definitely requires an organization to plan everything out correctly. You need to map out your networking, understand what your resource utilization is going to be, make sure you get the right amount of RAM and storage on the host, and then also understand the impact to your licensing costs for Microsoft.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten. I would give it perfect marks if it wasn't so expensive.

It is for virtualization. It is where all our servers run. It is for server storage.

By implementing VxRail, we wanted hyperconvergence. We wanted to have the entire infrastructure unified in a single system. We were also looking for power, speed, and computation.

VxRail has improved our organization a lot. It has greatly simplified the infrastructure. Previously, we had many more nodes. We had the network on the one hand, the storage on the other, and the computing on the other. VxRail has unified them and created a much more agile and easier management.

It has unified the cluster. We have managed to move all of them to a single one, so we have all the data in a microcluster. It works well.

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

In terms of energy consumption, I am not an expert in energy consumption, but it must be one of the least consuming ones. It seems good.

VxRail has helped to reduce unplanned production downtime. We never had a crash, and we never had a service stoppage. It has been 100% successful.

VxRail has had a lot of impact on the flexibility of our operations or business because it is very scalable. We have already grown twice in nodes. Instead of expanding a different infrastructure, what we do is add new nodes, and we manage to have a much more flexible cluster.

Homogeneity is most valuable. The truth is that having everything in a single cluster helps a lot.

Its price could be better.

I have been using VxRail for three and a half years.

The stability of VxRail is very good.

It is very agile.

Their support works very well. We have had problems with hard drives, and we have an NDA. They came and changed them perfectly and quickly. They take one business day.

Positive

We used HPE SimpliVity, and it did not have a very good result, so we changed it for the better. There was a management issue, and it consumed almost 40% of the machine's resources. It is as if you buy a Ferrari and it already takes away 40% of your speed, whereas, with VxRail, you have 100% speed. We are very happy with it.

I do not have any return on investment in mind.

It is very expensive.

We evaluated HPE SimpliVity, and we are left with VxRail.

We considered public cloud infrastructure before choosing VxRail, but due to costs, we decided to use VxRail. The latency is much lower. VxRail is faster in your CPD than in the cloud. It is less scalable because you have to buy nodes, which takes a while, whereas a cloud can keep growing according to the demand.

It has not failed us, and we find it highly reliable. I would rate VxRail an eight out of ten.

Foreign Language:(Spanish)

Se adapta bien, nunca falla y simplifica la infraestructura

¿Durante cuánto tiempo utiliza Dell VxRail?

He estado usando VxRail durante tres años y medio.

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

Es para virtualización. Es donde funcionan todos nuestros servidores. Es para el almacenamiento del servidor.

Al implementar VxRail, queríamos hiperconvergencia. Queríamos tener toda la infraestructura unificada en un único sistema. También buscábamos potencia, velocidad y computación.

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

VxRail ha mejorado mucho nuestra organización. Ha simplificado enormemente la infraestructura. Anteriormente teníamos muchos más nodos. Teníamos la red por un lado, el almacenamiento por el otro y la informática por el otro. VxRail los ha unificado y creado una gestión mucho más ágil y sencilla.

VxRail ha unificado el clúster. Hemos conseguido moverlos todos a uno solo, por lo que tenemos todos los datos en un microcluster. Funciona bien.

VxRail tiene la capacidad de consolidar infraestructura desde múltiples ubicaciones, pero actualmente la tenemos en una sola ubicación.

En cuanto al consumo de energía, no soy un experto en consumo de energía, pero debe ser uno de los que menos consume. Me parece muy bueno.

VxRail ha ayudado a reducir el tiempo de inactividad de producción no planificado. Nunca tuvimos un accidente y nunca tuvimos una interrupción del servicio. Ha sido 100% exitoso.

VxRail ha tenido un gran impacto en la flexibilidad de nuestras operaciones o negocios porque es muy escalable. Ya hemos crecido dos veces en nodos. En lugar de ampliar una infraestructura diferente lo que hacemos es añadir nuevos nodos y conseguimos tener un cluster mucho más flexible.

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

La homogeneidad es lo más valioso. La verdad es que tener todo en un solo cluster ayuda mucho.

¿En qué áreas se podría mejorar Dell VxRail?

Su precio podría ser mejor.

¿Utilizó anteriormente una solución diferente? De ser así, ¿por qué la cambió?

Usamos HPE SimpliVity y no tuvo muy buen resultado, así que lo cambiamos para mejor. Hubo un problema de gestión que consumió casi el 40% de los recursos de la máquina. Es como si te compraras un Ferrari y te quitaran el 40% de velocidad, mientras que con VxRail tienes el 100% de velocidad. Estamos muy contentos con ello.

Antes de elegir, ¿evaluaste otras opciones? ¿De ser asi, cuales?

Evaluamos HPE SimpliVity y nos quedamos con VxRail.

Consideramos la infraestructura de nube pública antes de elegir VxRail, pero debido a los costos, decidimos usar VxRail. La latencia es mucho menor. VxRail es más rápido en su CPD que en la nube. Es menos escalable porque hay que comprar nodos, lo que lleva un tiempo, mientras que una nube puede seguir creciendo según la demanda.

¿Qué aconseja a otros sobre el costo de instalación, el precio y/o la licencia?

Es muy caro.

¿Cuáles son sus impresiones sobre la escalabilidad de esta solución?

Es muy ágil.

¿Cuáles son sus impresiones sobre la estabilidad de esta solución?

La estabilidad de VxRail es muy buena.

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

No tengo en mente ningún retorno de la inversión.

Cuéntanos tu experiencia con el servicio y soporte al cliente.

Su soporte funciona muy bien. Hemos tenido problemas con los discos duros y tenemos un NDA. Vinieron y me los cambiaron perfectamente. Tardaron un día laboral.

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

9.

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

No nos ha fallado y nos parece muy fiable. Calificaría a VxRail con un ocho de diez.

I'm not a direct user. I'm a team manager, and we are using it in our company. We are using it as our new-generation virtualization platform. Currently, we are just building the environment, and we still have things to do directly with Dell.

We are very happy with the purchase, and it works well. It is fast. We went with the full-flash version, meaning that we have SSDs. So, we can build a Windows virtual machine in two minutes. We were surprised when we first tried to do that. So, currently, we are very happy with it.

The best features of HCI are the reliability and no need to have additional storage models and storage administrators. All the things—such as virtualization models, storage models, and networking—are in one environment. So, a single hardware administrator can access and support everything. I like HCI because of being able to have all components of virtualization in one cluster and in one place. There is no SAN and storage. It brings simplicity to hardware maintenance.

We have some issues, but they are possibly out-of-the-box issues. There was a host that was dead on arrival, and there were some file issues on other hosts. We're currently working actively with Dell to resolve all these issues. Once they are resolved, the product should be stable.

In terms of the additional features, we still need to adopt what we have. It has lots of features, and we need to start using it heavily. I might have something to add in a year or so, but currently, I don't have anything.

We have been using this solution since December. It has been two full months.

We are having some out-of-the-box issues, and we're actively working with Dell to resolve those issues. Once those issues are resolved, it should be stable, but as a virtual environment, it has never failed. These are only single-node or single-component issues that don't affect the whole virtual environment, which is great and which is why I love HCI.

It is scalable. Currently, we have 12 people who are working with this solution, but there will be more.

A vendor did the whole implementation. We have purchased it as a service. So, we had a third-party vendor who installed and configured everything. My technicians were watching and learning. So, we were not the ones who were primarily responsible for configuring things. The process took some time, but the result is very satisfying.

It is reasonable. Compared to the legacy hardware that we had so far, we are not paying way more, but we have very good performance. Its price is good.

I would rate it a nine out of 10 because of those out-of-the-box issues. They are a bit annoying, but I believe we will be able to resolve them quickly, and then it would be a 10.

The big portion of it is the VDIs, XenDesktop VDIs. I would say that our biggest deployment for VDI is approximately 15,000 users.

Our team actually maintains the solution and deploys the updates, etc. We have two people that handle all maintenance-related issues. Mostly me but I have support from another person.

VxRail does not require fiber switches or external storage. It's easy to replace and manage. It's centralized management through VxRail Manager.

The upgrade process is still not finished up. Sometimes during the upgrade process of VxRail, we experience errors that have nothing to do with reality and I cannot troubleshoot them without calling Dell and bringing in an engineer to figure it out.

If the VxRail upgrade fails on one of the particular nodes in the cluster, it doesn't stop, It pauses. When a problem's fixed and you retry it, it starts from the beginning.

For example, If I have 32 nodes in a cluster and I have a problem with the 31st node, I have to start from node 1 to check everything. To get to node 31, it takes up to three hours.

I have been using VxRail for three and a half years.

Stability is not related to VxRail. It's related to vSAN. Because VxRail has nothing to do with vSAN. VxRail's just aiding automation and the orchestration processes to vSAN, the VMware vSAN. Overall, the stability is pretty good if the hardware is stable.

The scalability is 10 out of 10. I can add or remove hosts at any time. I have no problem with that.

I'm really pleased with the technical support because it's centralized. It's not just VxRail support, it's hardware support and vSAN support, VMware support. If I call Dell for any problems relating to VxRail, I don't have to call anybody else.

In any case, if we need VMware engineers, it's just a matter of internally bringing somebody on the call, and then we figure it out together.

The initial setup is straightforward. As soon as I prepare a JSON file I have no problem.

Usually deployment depends on the number of nodes — it's taken up to two hours.

I was not involved in the licensing of this solution.

If you're interested in using VxRail, use your judgment. There are multiple solutions and all of them are geared toward different use cases. Some people will prefer HyperFlex, others will prefer to go with Nutanix, VxRail, or, for god's sake, vSAN ReadyNodes.

VxRail has some limitations. For me, it's limited from doing what it's supposed to do because it's provided by VxRail — it's automated and orchestrated by VxRail. For example, I cannot use VMware Update Manager. I have to use a bundle, which is produced by Dell, and usually, they are at least a month to a month and a half behind VMware.

Overall, on a scale from one to ten, I would give VxRail a rating of eight.

We use the solution to host virtual machines or servers. We host Red Hat Enterprise Linux and other application servers.

We have automated the build of the VMs. We have automated the complete process. If users need a VM, they go to a portal and fill out a form. The automation takes the details and builds a VM for them. Keeping it virtualized on VxRail makes the VM adaptive to scaling. When we have a resource contention, we can easily increase the capacity. It is a valuable aspect for us.

We don't want some of our applications on the public cloud. We want to keep them on-premise in our environment for various security and compliance reasons. VxRail gives us the flexibility that we usually get on the cloud. We can scale as per the demand with a quick turnaround. Once we get familiar with the tool, it is pretty easy to manage and build. The tool is easy to manage and easy to maintain. It provides amazing support and a good return on investment.

The product comes with a certain number of nodes. It is an underlying cluster. If I run a 4-node VxRail cluster, I need to add at least two more nodes to extend the cluster. If I want a certain amount of clusters and add only one node, I do not have the flexibility to do it. The product must provide more flexibility in adding nodes. The UI could be a little more informative.

I have been reselling the solution to my clients for almost three to four years. I am working with the latest version.

The stability is amazing.

The scalability of the product is the biggest selling point. We have 15,000 users in our organization. They use the applications that are running in the VxRail environment. We have many more customers using the tool. We have plans to increase the number of users. The scalability is a bit rigid, though.

The support is amazing if we get premium Dell support. The support is very good, especially in the South Central regions of the USA. We got Dell to come on-site to rack and stack our VxRail. The initial configuration and the management of the support have been excellent.

Positive

The setup is pretty straightforward. It is not complicated. There are specifications of what is required. We have to be ready with our architecture and how we want to design our cluster after the hardware setup. Once the architecture is ready, it is pretty straightforward to implement it in a VxRail environment. The maintenance is not complex. Virtual networking needs a bit of skill to manage. If we have the right resources, it is easily manageable and maintainable.

Dell professionals did the deployment and setup.

VxRail is the best solution in the industry if we want to host things internally in our environment and for applications that are not ready to go to the cloud yet.

We get special pricing since we are partners.

We are partners and resellers. Organizations that want to invest in the solution must investigate which applications are needed and which are not. If we don't make that decision correctly with the required data points, we will go into the cloud and get stuck with a lack of security. Once the user does the research properly, the best option for keeping their things on-premise with a decent cost and return on investment is VxRail. Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

The data conversion capabilities are very good.

Deduplication is excellent.

The initial setup is simple.

As of right now, I cannot think of any improvements, as it has been working very well.

It might help if there was more confidentiality between VxRail and the Data Domain for Backup. There are several issues with backup solutions. We'd like integration with Avamar.

We'd like to see more automation capabilities in the future. 

I've been using the solution for about one year.

The solution is like a rock. It's extremely stable. We've had no issues. It doesn't crash or freeze. There are no bugs or glitches. 

We haven't tested the scalability and therefore I cannot comment on its capabilities. 

Currently, we have more than 1,000 users on the solution. They are basically working with the database.

Next year, we have plans to increase usage. e plan on getting more customers and therefore will need to bill for more storage. 

For any phase-one issues, I would first go to the integrator. I can escalate straight to the vendor if I need to. So far, our experience with the integrator has been very good. We have no complaints. 

We didn't have any issues with the initial setup. It was very straightforward and not overly complex. 

Our contract partner handles any maintenance tasks. 

An integrator assisted us with the initial implementation process. They were very professional and the experience overall was positive. 

I can't speak to the licensing aspects of the solution. It's basically just a one-time purchase. 

There are very many competitors between the hyper-converged solutions, such as Nutanix and Dell, and so on. We also looked at VMware options. However, we are wanted to go with something that was more stable and we're generally attracted to Dell. 

We're just a customer and an end-user.

It's a very stable system. It's very easy to use. You just need one desktop for control over all the items of the system. As of now, it's been problem-free.

I would rate the solution at a ten out of ten.

We use VxRail for the promotion of all our infrastructure VM services.

VxRail has helped us by increasing the performance and capacity of our workload. 

I have found the vSAN is highly flexible. The documentation is good and the interface of the solution is responsive and fast. The interface has everything you need to manage the solution, such as the VxRail and VMware integration. You can manage the hardware from within the VMware plasma pan.

I have been using VxRail for approximately four years.

VxRail is stable because it has redundancies. VxRail is our standard system for the deployment of HR environments.

We have one person for the maintenance of the solution and one person for the backups.

We use the solution on a daily basis.

I have found VxRail highly scalable. You are able to add more nodes and increase the hardware to scale. It is flexible.

We have thousands of people using the solution. However, it is difficult to know for sure since many different business units use it.

VxRail comes from Dell and they have a one-stop service. You can work with Dell to get everything solved. Any issues in hardware or in software, whether it be VMware related or Dell related, everything is done by one team from Dell. The support aspects of the solution are good but it carries a price. We're happy to pay the price if we get that level of service.

One of the most valuable aspects of the support is the knowledge of the people and the speed at which they respond. If you have a problem and you phone them up, they immediately have the experts at the end of the phone to assist. If there is a problem they come in and fix the problem quite fast. If it is more difficult they will spend the time that is needed to solve it. They have helped us out of some heavy situations we caused ourselves. The support is very good.

The support that they offer us is why we purchased the solution.

We have previously used Hyper-V-based systems, StarWind, and Nutanix. We have mostly done testing of the other solutions and have not fully introduced them. Out of all the solutions we tested, we settled on the VMware-based VxRail. 

We switched from the others solutions because the support from Dell VxRail was excellent.

The configurations of VxRail can be difficult. However, it has improved in the newer version. From version 6 to 7, there has been a lot of changes.

The initial setup of VxRail was straightforward because they get handled by Dell themselves. There is a one-stop-shop for all your needs. They gather the information on what you require in your environment and how you want to set it up, such as what local IT information networks are required. They do a good job and the whole process took them a couple of hours to half a day.

Dell did the implementation of the solution for us.

VxRail is expensive because it's based on VMware and V-SAN. The price is not the cheapest. The technical support is expensive, but it is a good service.

My advice to others would be not to attempt to fix issues yourself and let Dell look after them.

I rate VxRail a nine out of ten.

We use VxRail for VDI and for our production environment hosted on VMware. Within our organization, there are roughly 3,000 employees that use this solution.

We enjoy the ease of management since all of the resources are located on one box — one single point of support. 

I host a lot of other clients on my premises, the ACR, and I need to charge them for the services I provide. I would like it if there were tools that provided the billing costs. In other words, this infrastructure or this resource will cost you X amount of dollars. In short, I would prefer it if each cell had a tool geared toward billing clients.

The initial setup for the VxRail economy requires a minimum of three nodes. We might consider building a new cluster with a minimum of four, as not all customers can sponsor for the sub-training number of nodes. In short, to implement VxRail, you need a minimum of three nodes for the initial setup; and the initial setup isn't cheap. 

I have been using VxRail for two and a half years.

VxRail is very stable — it scales up and spins out.

I am very satisfied with the customer support.

For the HCI it's quite straightforward; however, in regard to the switches, there is no GUI implemented with the top-rack switches which can make things difficult. Overall, deployment took one week.  

We evaluated HyperFlex and NetApp. The best part aboutHyperFlex is that it operates on the CDM layer to integrate the VM-ware reports which need an extra 20% of the resources that the box or the production data needs. However, I would say that HyperFlex is more complicated to install than VxRail.

Overall, on a scale from one to ten, I would give this solution a rating of nine.