Dell PowerFlex Reviews

We are new to this, so we are still learning about the valuable features.

The solution is okay overall. It could be easier to learn. We haven't had any issues. They could have more AI functionality in the future. 

We use PowerFlex for the storage abilities, specifically for the SAN, the storage area network. We save a lot of data on it.

Dell PowerFlex has helped us reduce our footprint by minimizing the hardware we were using. We are also looking at incorporating AI, which will further improve our work.

We started using ScaleIO followed by VxRail and finally PowerFlex. We use Dell PowerFlex as a hyperconverge for a specific workload. Our security solutions, including QRadar, are all on PowerFlex now.

Dell PowerFlex helped our organization in many ways. The hyperconverge automation makes it easy to deploy the machines. They are stable and offer high availability. If we have to perform maintenance on a single-blade server, we don't need to bring down the complete hyperconverge. We can move it live. We are primarily using it for VMware so the availability is important for us. A reset takes only five minutes, while planned downtime for regulatory approvals and adjustments would take three weeks.

PowerFlex's ability to manage storage across multiple environments depends on our requirements. We can go with only compute nodes, or storage nodes, or we can go with both. There are no restrictions or limitations. It is based on the workload. We are thinking about moving our containerized solution, Openshift to be on PowerFlex. Openshift is more compute-related consumption for our banking services so storage nodes are not heavily required for this and we are targeting to purchase PowerFlex more for compute nodes. Most security solutions are monitoring logs and events which requires more storage. PowerFlex gives us the flexibility to use either or both.

We are happy with the combination of reliability and scalability that PowerFlex offers us. The most important aspects of PowerFlex for us are stability, performance, and availability. PowerFlex is good in all these areas. For example, we had VxRail in our call center. Our call center is using Avaya's telephone solution to support customer calls and five years before we purchased VxRail we forced Avaya to convert all of their physical appliances to virtual appliances. So the complete Avaya solution has been working on VxRail for five years now and the call center has had hundreds of thousands of calls without a single interruption from the infrastructure. This is the beauty of the solution. We are now in the process of upgrading the Avaya solution which requires infrastructure upgrades. I purchased the latest version of PowerFlex and the implementation is in place now. In two weeks I will be moving the entire Avaya solution from the old VxRail solution to the new PowerFlex. The beauty of it is we will be able to make the switch without any interruption to the banking service because of the version. This makes life easy for us when we go for a complete software-defined solution.

Dell PowerFlex helped streamline our organization. The local Dell team is close to us and understands our infrastructure. They are not just trying to sell the Dell products to us. There was one time we discussed with them about converting our complete infrastructure to the hyperconverge and they told us that though they are the leaders in hyperconverge, they don't recommend we move our complete workload onto the hyperconverge. It depends on the use case. Some of the banks need to be run on three-tier infrastructure and some services can run on the hyperconverge. So based on the requirement, they proposed the right solution for us.

Dell PowerFlex is used for on-prem cloud solutions. It's a hyper-converged infrastructure, which means you can integrate it directly into your core network. You get all the computing and storage you need without bothering much about the network connection between the servers because all that comes bundled in Dell PowerFlex. It's like a mini data center of its own, replacing the infrastructure they used to sell.

Dell has positioned it now to replace the VxBlock converged infrastructure. It basically gives its customers a mini data center. You have all the compute storage and network that you need. All you need to do is integrate it into your core network, and you can start provisioning. It comes bundled with either virtualization or containerization options, which I think they started in the latest version, version four.

You could have your normal VMware vSphere on top of it. If you request it, I think some of them could ship with Red Hat OpenShift. The customer can provision workloads for all manner of operations and even to their DevOps on the platform.

Dell PowerFlex is a highly scalable solution. You could start very small and expand it.

We use this solution to manage software-defined infrastructure and for rapid provisioning of computer storage.

The API catalog helps us use Ansible automation. We still have to build custom providers for PowerFlex Manager to use Ansible, but what we developed has enabled us to provision computer storage power for less than 16 hours.

It is a Flex system that requires a good amount of infrastructure just to be up and running. But when it's up and running and you've configured it appropriately,  your downtime is next to none and the performance increases. Since the time we had switched to converge I've never seen anybody overrun the performance capabilities but previously I have seen and experienced substantial outages before. I've seen mistakes being made due to the complexity because it was very hard to understand. 

The resiliency and data protection are the most valuable features. There is always a better chance of experiencing a data center outage than of losing data on the platform. So in order to lose data, either somebody has to go in and delete it or physically remove assets off the data center floor. That is how resilient the solution is. 

Our company's customer is the transportation government. We deliver the tool to the transportation government in our country. We deliver the solution with Dell PowerFlex, and we also deliver VxRail. Dell PowerFlex is more compact but more complicated than VxRail to configure. Many configurations in the tool regarding Dell PowerFlex are still confusing.

The solution's most valuable feature is the storage space it offers. Dell PowerFlex offers a large storage capacity to save more data and information. The things that I remember about the solution are its storage and security. The tool increased the storage capacity and security posture. My customers are concerned with their databases and applications while also wanting to have more storage capacity.

Dell PowerFlex is our primary private cloud. 

The combination of reliability and scalability is perfect for us. When we need extra storage we have six nodes so we simply purchase new licenses and hard drives. Although it is possible to use the nodes just for storage, we use them for CPU and RAM as well.