VMware vSAN and Dell PowerFlex are competitors in the hyper-converged infrastructure domain. VMware vSAN appears to have the upper hand due to its cost-effectiveness and ease of scalability on commoditized hardware.
Features: VMware vSAN includes vMotion, Distributed Resource Scheduler, centralized storage, and seamless integration with other VMware solutions. It is known for its ease of scalability, cost-effectiveness, and impressive performance on commoditized hardware. Dell PowerFlex offers flexible deployment options, high performance with its distributed architecture, and supports modern workloads, making it suitable for varied environments.
Room for Improvement: VMware vSAN requires better dashboard management and alert systems, as well as deduplication, encryption, and improved monitoring capabilities. Dell PowerFlex could enhance its customer experience with a more intuitive UI, better integration with Dell CloudIQ, and enhanced automation features.
Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: VMware vSAN is versatile across on-premises, private, and hybrid clouds, praised for good customer service and responsive technical support, though some complexities in VMware support processes exist. Dell PowerFlex, while beneficial for on-premises and cloud solutions, faces challenges with intricate setup requirements and needs improved support in licensing and pricing flexibility.
Pricing and ROI: VMware vSAN offers competitive pricing relative to traditional SAN systems with cost-saving and operational efficiency potential, yet users note high upfront costs. ROI is often achieved through reduced hardware and administrative expenses. Dell PowerFlex presents a premium pricing model aligning with its robust capabilities. It provides a competitive TCO over time, though initial high costs may deter smaller businesses.
Starting with a smaller infrastructure and scaling as required allows us to save costs initially.
I have seen a return on investment; it's satisfactory in the long run.
The level of support needs improvement as the front-line support staff lack knowledge when we raise cases.
We do not have local Dell technical support.
I would rate their support nine points.
If we consider technical support from Broadcom, I would rate them an eight or nine now.
I am not satisfied with VMware support, particularly with the reaction times, SLAs, and those kinds of issues.
The scalability is very good and is one of the key features of Dell PowerFlex.
It supports up to 64 nodes in a cluster, allowing us to add nodes and expand the cluster as needed.
If you have already bought it, you need specific servers, and it is easier with a SAN.
When setting up a new installation, it is relatively stable.
In terms of stability, I give VMware vSAN nine points.
They could have more AI functionality in the future.
The level of support needs improvement as the front-line support staff lack knowledge when we raise cases.
As more customers start deployment, I believe use cases will develop, leading companies to consider that.
I have recently used Nutanix, and I observed that Nutanix provides better performance than VMware vSAN due to its data locality features.
Discussing the pricing model is significant as Broadcom creates many discussions worldwide regarding pricing.
A proper monitoring tool that encompasses both applications and infrastructure would help in quickly resolving issues.
This has resulted in a slight cost increase.
Dell PowerFlex includes PowerFlex Manager, which integrates with this solution to provide complete orchestration; you can manage your entire hardware as well as software segment and application segment through a single pane of glass, making it very easy to use and manage.
The scalability is very good and is one of the key features of Dell PowerFlex.
The performance is excellent, handling workloads better than direct-attached or legacy storage solutions.
Hot add features are available by default in vSphere, allowing us to immediately increase memory, CPU, and hard drive without any downtime.
Everything is integrated, allowing for more automation and ease of use.
| Product | Market Share (%) |
|---|---|
| VMware vSAN | 10.7% |
| Dell PowerFlex | 7.0% |
| Other | 82.3% |
| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 8 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 8 |
| Large Enterprise | 15 |
| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 100 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 58 |
| Large Enterprise | 129 |
Dell PowerFlex is a software-defined storage infrastructure delivering modern architecture and versatile deployment for on-premises or cloud. It achieves high performance, scalable storage, and workload consolidation through advanced automation.
PowerFlex's VMware compatibility ensures seamless integration, offering flexibility in compute and storage scaling. With its hyper-converged infrastructure, it caters to AI, cloud, and database environments, providing robust automation, resilience, and security. Flexible deployment options are complemented by a single-window management system, prioritizing cost optimization. However, enhancements are needed in monitoring tools, user interface, and AI functionality. Migration from Hyper-V and licensing flexibility also require attention, while improved documentation could simplify usage. Integration with services and streamlined upgrade processes are essential.
What are the key features of Dell PowerFlex?PowerFlex is essential in industries requiring support for mission-critical workloads and large-scale applications. It is instrumental for deploying storage, compute nodes, hyper-converged infrastructure, and private clouds. The platform integrates compute, storage, and networking, optimizing performance for modern applications like AI video analytics and disaster recovery.
VMware vSAN is a software-defined storage product that is used in collaboration with VMware ESXi hypervisor and that provisions and manages storage based on policies, regardless of the underlying hardware. The solution enables you to prime your business for growth through its seamless evolution (it is integrated with vSphere and requires no new tools), its flexibility, and its multi-cloud capabilities. As an industry-leading software, VMware vSAN provides high levels of performance with minimal impact on CPU and memory.
VMware vSAN Features
VMware vSAN has many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:
VMware vSAN Benefits
There are many benefits to implementing VMware vSAN. Some of the biggest advantages the solution offers include:
Reviews from Real Users
Below are some reviews and helpful feedback written by PeerSpot users currently using the VMware vSAN solution.
PeerSpot user Yves S., CEO, Cloud Evangelist at Comdivision Consulting GmbH, says, “vSAN gives us a lot of advantages when we need to expand resources. We have an overall larger host infrastructure, and we split that up for specific customer test and use cases. In that specific scenario, we can easily add more hosts or reduce the number of hosts in the environment.”
A reviewer who works in Infrastructure Security explains, “The ease of use is great. The initial setup and upgrade process was pretty straightforward. And, technical support is great.”
Laurent N., Director at Softlogic, comments, "The feature that I have found most valuable is that it is easy to deploy. It is easy to create and delete virtual servers. It is easy to create the load balancing and the clustering."
We monitor all HCI reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.
