Dell PowerEdge VRTX vs FlexPod XCS comparison

"It is pretty easy to install."

"The solution is stable."

"Dell PowerEdge VRTX supports a lot of memory which has allowed us to keep our system size smaller."

"The system is very intuitive."

"In my view, the only aspect that could be enhanced in the Dell PowerEdge VRTX solution is the pricing. Apart from that, the overall performance and features of the solution are flawless."

"From a hardware perspective, it's interesting. The selling point of VRTX is that everything is built-in. For a small company that doesn't have a server room or the capabilities of hosting several servers, VRTX has four blades. The equivalent in regular server models would be four servers, which is a minimum of 4U, but it could easily be 8U, and then it would have storage. The storage is included inside the enclosure, and it would require a storage unit. It would also require connectivity, which would be ethernet or another protocol switch. From a software perspective, it's a little bit more integrated. You have an integrated way of managing the whole thing, including storage and networking. It has an internal network that can also be useful. I know for a fact that Dell is almost fazing out the product, and it is not that available anymore because it will just cannibalize their sales. They want to sell the more expensive stuff."

"The security is very good on the solution."

"While I cannot say Dell is better than HP or IBM, Dell has a strong presence here in Qatar. We can recommend Dell because of that strategic factor."

"The most valuable features are that the solution is vetted and validated and it's supported end-to-end."

"It takes all of the homework out of building the solution. The prearchitected design simplifies your deployment, gets you a quicker time to market, and a single point of support."

"All of our main applications run on this solution, and it has done a stellar job."

"Validate designs are a good. They work in the background to combine all the infrastructure and storage. They create automation which can create volumes and attach VMs directly to massive CIFS."

"It provides us with a lot of agility, on-demand or through orchestrations. We deliver hundreds of servers."

"SolidFire all-flash block storage system in an existing FlexPod data center environment. This improves the agility and performance, including the additional load of cabling."

"We have absolutely been able to save space."

"We have significantly less latency now with our imagery."

"It would be better to have a compact version of this solution for customers that have a small office and don't require a proper data center with power or an industrial type HP."

"Management of storage and networking is web-based, slow, and difficult."

"The scalability could be better."

"The licensing can be difficult to understand."

"When we first started with this product, we had some difficulty with it."

"Dell PowerEdge VRTX can improve by providing support for M2 drives."

"The storage can be improved."

"I'd like to be able to increase capacity."

"The initial setup is complex because it has to be done in a certain way."

"I would think more cloud integration, a lot more flexibility with adapting to different things."

"Make it easier to refresh hardware. We got to the point where we couldn't fix vulnerabilities without refreshing the hardware, then that became a little too expensive for us to do."

"We haven't seen ROI yet."

"FlexPod XCS needs to improve its pricing."

"They need to improve the user interface to make it easier to work in this environment. The older version is poor."

"We would like to see the automation improved because there has been a learning curve having to create the workflows."

"There are apparently some new products coming around the whole FlexPod side of things with regards to auditing, to ensure everything is configured correctly. It's basically a "delta" if there have been any changes. It's important to us, from a support perspective, to know if there have been changes and what impact they have actually had."

"The solution price of Dell PowerEdge VRTX could be reduced. However, when comparing the price of Dell PowerEdge VRTX to other solutions, such as HP and Lenovo, it was the best price for what they offer."

"This product is more reasonably-priced than similar solutions by HPE."

"Fully configured, it costs about $50,000 or $55,000. I did purchase a used one or refurbished one. I have been very happy with it so far. Even if it is an older unit, it doesn't look like its age, and I would say it has been a great choice so far for me. Obviously, I would have thought twice if I had to pay for a brand new one because it is still an older technology with the risk of being discontinued. I talked to Dell, and they're still selling it, but they're not promoting it. They're promoting another line of products right now for hyper-converged, which are much more expensive."

"The tool's pricing is fine."

"On the scale of pricing, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I would rate it as a three. I am familiar with the overall cost, which involves licenses from Dell and VMware, among others, making it a combination of various license types."

"We are renewing the support and we are purchasing the license for the software."

"We bought a license for seven years."

"The solution is less expensive than competitors."

"Licensing can be interesting with the new version because of the Intersight integration. I don't know what that looks like yet. I have seen some of the different licensing models, but with the new purchasing, all customers are going to have to buy some sort of Intersight licensing with the Blades or FlexPod. I am curious to see how that option shakes out. Previous to the UCS X-Series, the licensing was the same."

"The scalability is very good. I wish it was a more cost-effective, but you get what you pay for."

"Because the solution is now stable, we are saving about $100 million USD a year."

"It is cheaper than other products. For example, Dell EMC VxBlock is more expensive."

"We can just swap in new equipment or hardware as we need, which has probably saved us several weeks."

"Storage is very expensive. To buy MIC cards and additional storage either on-prem or in the cloud, the IT department does not have money for it, so you need a more niche product or a more flexible way to store your data. That is the benefit that you get from this product."

"FlexPod has saved data center costs, due to the fact that we reduced our footprint for storage in a big way. We went from three complete racks down to a 2U storage array for more than 300 terabytes of storage."

"The product is kind of expensive even from an entry-level standpoint. I would say FlexPod would be the way to go if you are a larger business or one with large data volume."