Dell XC Appliance Reviews

Dell offers several benefits with its appliances. Primarily, I can combine them horizontally and vertically, reaching up to sixty-four nodes. 

Additionally, Dell employs its own artificial intelligence tools, which are unique in the market. They collaborate with VMware, vSphere, and vSAN, and their internal software, iDRAC, integrates seamlessly with VMware. 

From a single screen, I can view VM details, performance, and hardware issues, such as power supply or fan malfunctions, along with RAM module problems. Dell has also integrated CloudIQ software, which is connected to VMware. CloudIQ proactively identifies configuration errors. 

If a snapshot backup isn't performing as expected, CloudIQ will highlight and guide me on the error. The benefits of Dell Appliance include horizontal and vertical combinations, up to sixty-four nodes, and unique AI tools. Dell collaborates with VMware, vSphere, and vSAN, and its iDRAC software integrates with VMware. 

I can view VM details, performance, and hardware issues on the same screen. CloudIQ identifies configuration errors and provides guidance.

Dell's appliances provide several key benefits. I can combine them both horizontally and vertically, supporting configurations up to 64 nodes. 

Their proprietary artificial intelligence tools are uncommon in the industry, and they collaborate effectively with VMware, vSphere, and vSAN. 

Their internal software, iDRAC, smoothly integrates with VMware, allowing me to monitor VM details, performance, and hardware issues from one screen. 

Additionally, CloudIQ software proactively addresses configuration errors. Its high-performance computing integration with multiple software platforms is already implemented on VXL. 

Furthermore, Dell has ground appliances supporting high-performance computing.

The primary use case is to run all of our production workloads, which are file servers, databases, web servers, and front ends. It's running everything.

The most valuable features are the low management overhead, and the lower skill set required to manage it.

All of the additional management tools plug into vCenter, which is our standard virtualization interface for VMware. It has the vRealize Operations Manager, which is the management and the monitoring suite that's available from VMware. This is all incorporated into the product. It's a turnkey solution.

We are a solution provider and that is one of the products that we implement for our clients.

Our clients use this for VDI, virtual desktop infrastructure.

The vSAN is quite good because if one of the clients goes down then you have a high availability replacement.

The appliance is easy to configure and the deployment is quite easy, as well.

The primary use case of this solution is for the virtualization of the infrastructure of the company, and data storage.

What I like the most is that it is easy to implement, easy deployment and that it's easy to manage.

It's a feature-rich solution with an interface that is in permanent reconstruction and optimization, which is very good.

I am a reseller. I sell Dell components and I sell Nutanics. So, I sell these solutions and I also have hands-on experience working with them.  

The main driver for clients who are using the XC Appliance is for reduced maintenance. Clients run workloads on the product and use it for storage. However, they do not want to have a traditional three-tier architecture. This product provides that solution.

The feature I think is most valuable are the deduplication and the compression features. Both of these features are very good and very valuable for users.  

We primarily use the solution for the consolidation and visualization of terabytes. Occasionally different software is needed as well. 

The solution's best feature is its simplicity. It's so simple to deploy it. You've got the VMware, and it's own appliance. It is really helpful. The system is online within half a day and saves so much time. 

Overall, the solution is great.

The product's interface is very user-friendly. 

Dealing with the solution is simple. The hardware is easy to install and implement. 

The technical support is very good.

The solution's hardware is great.

The inside of the servers could be improved by increasing the available specs.

The solution's storage size could be improved.

The most valuable feature is that you can assign a volume to an off-shore workload on the fly.

It is built on top of VMware vSAN and it is kernel-shared with vSphere. If you are familiar with vSphere then it will be very easy to manage.

With Dell, the most valuable features are the SSH VPN.

You don't have to have separate storage for two different protocols.

The management tool is a good tool that is built on vSan. It integrates well with the vCenter.

When I work with VxRail or vSan and I have a cluster, and if I wanted to allocate some of the volumes to workloads that are not in that cluster, whether it's a physical or virtual workload that is not in that cluster, it is not possible.

Looking at the competitors, such as Nutanix, they can carve out volumes from Nutanix clusters and allocate them the virtual workloads.

Currently, there is no support for the servers that are not in the cluster. If this were improved then it would be of great value.