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Dell VPLEX vs Red Hat Ceph Storage comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Dell VPLEX
Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
Storage Management (5th)
Red Hat Ceph Storage
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
27
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (2nd), File and Object Storage (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Storage Management and Software solutions, they serve different purposes. Dell VPLEX is designed for Storage Management and holds a mindshare of 6.8%, down 8.1% compared to last year.
Red Hat Ceph Storage, on the other hand, focuses on Software Defined Storage (SDS), holds 20.0% mindshare, down 22.0% since last year.
Storage Management
Software Defined Storage (SDS)
 

Featured Reviews

Sayed Zuber - PeerSpot reviewer
It's an excellent solution for data mobility and disaster recovery, but the CLI can be difficult for beginners
Dell VPLEX currently requires Flash Player to access the GUI. It would be better to have a web-based HTML management interface. The encryption could also be improved. When the host writes data, it goes from VPLEX back to the physical storage. The physical storage device will do encryption or use an algorithm called Data Address Encryption. If there are vulnerabilities between the host and the storage device, you can lose your data. I suggest encrypting the data before it is sent from the host to the storage. I would also recommend using the NVM protocol in VPLEX. It still has Flash Player and a local SATA disk built into the Flash Player. You need to Flash the disk to SAS and then SATA. The NVM protocol is better.
Rifat Rahman - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers reliable performance and availability for large deployments
I would like to see improvements in Red Hat Ceph Storage not because I necessarily think it needs improvement, but because I generally prefer to do things manually rather than following the containerization part. Current deployments are based on containers, but I deploy manually with my scripts and controls. If there are no Kubernetes-like requirements, I often prefer to deploy a whole manual process. I don't ask for improvements in the deployment model because Red Hat has its own philosophy about making things, but it's my personal choice that I prefer things manually. Some features are available only in the containerization part, so if those are also available in manual deployment, that will help.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The most valuable feature is deduplication, as we have no duplication in the snapshots."
"Its mirroring capabilities allow for data to be mirrored across two different data centers, so if one center were to crash or fail, the other center could take over and keep everything running smoothly."
"The solution works well. It's very reliable."
"Mobility enables us to carry out an internal migration of data."
"The best feature of VPLEX storage is its ability to consolidate storage. It also provides the highest RPO and RTOs for replication technology. VPLEX enables application mobility."
"Storage virtualization and geographic resilience for Metro Sans, plus a great performance improvement."
"The capacity to migrate machines onto VPLEX is great — it's very clean. We can migrate machines and add arrays easily."
"Dell's technical support is awesome. We received instant support from EMC as long as we had an active contract."
"Most valuable features include replication and compression."
"The high availability of the solution is important to us."
"It's a very performance-intensive, brilliant storage system, and I always recommend it to customers based on its benefits, performance, and scalability."
"The solution is pretty stable."
"The most valuable feature is the stability of the product."
"radosgw and librados provide a simple integration with clone, snapshots, and other functions that aid in data integrity."
"Ceph Storage allows us to add value related to cost and offers a unique experience compared to traditional storage."
"Ceph Storage allows us to add value related to cost and offers a unique experience compared to traditional storage."
 

Cons

"Today, it needs a huge effort that is not acceptable during disaster recovery."
"With Dell VPLEX, there are some bugs with Broadcom."
"The price is a problem with EMC due to the fact that it's more expensive than the other vendors."
"There can be delays in getting performance reports."
"Dell VPLEX should improve its integration and user interface and be easier to configure."
"I would like to have site-to-site replication capability for applications."
"VPLEX hardware migration to spare equipment in case of major disruption."
"VPLEX's engine-based architecture is complex, so the implementation is challenging and takes more time. It's also difficult to fix hardware issues. When an appliance fails, it takes Dell EMC a long time to fix it because spare parts are in short supply."
"The product lacks RDMA support for inter-OSD communication."
"Rebalancing and recovery are a bit slow."
"It took me a long time to get the storage drivers for the communication with Kubernetes up and running. The documentation could improve it is lacking information. I'm not sure if this is a Ceph problem or if Ceph should address this, but it was something I ran into. Additionally, there is a performance issue I am having that I am looking into, but overall I am satisfied with the performance."
"I have not identified any drawbacks, however, the response to public platform inquiries could be faster."
"Routing around slow hardware."
"Ceph does not deal very well with, or takes a long time to recover from, certain kinds of network failures and individual storage node failures."
"The management features are pretty good, but they still have room for improvement."
"I've heard the integration with OpenShift is great, however, the licensing cost is excessively high."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We struck a great deal with Dell EMC, so for us, VPLEX was not very expensive."
"VPLEX is a little bit expensive in my personal opinion."
"Most of time, you can get Ceph with the OpenStack solution in a subscription​​ as a bundle.​"
"If you can afford a product like Red Hat Ceph Storage then go for it. If you cannot, then you need to test Ceph and get your hands dirty."
"The operational overhead is higher compared to Azure because we own the hardware."
"We never used the paid support."
"The price of Red Hat Ceph Storage is reasonable."
"There is no cost for software."
"I rate the product’s pricing an eight out of ten."
"The other big advantage is that Ceph is free software. Compared to traditional SAN based storage, it is very economical."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Performing Arts
8%
Healthcare Company
8%
Computer Software Company
18%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Educational Organization
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Dell VPLEX?
Dell's technical support is awesome. We received instant support from EMC as long as we had an active contract.
What needs improvement with Dell VPLEX?
Dell VPLEX should improve its integration and user interface and be easier to configure. Any EMX product, be it PowerMax, VMAX, or DMAX, works based on the CLI. A person has to be very good at runn...
What is your primary use case for Dell VPLEX?
We use Dell VPLEX for backend connectivity within the storage. We also use it when we want to manage redundancy for any storage.
How does Red Hat Ceph Storage compare with MiniO?
Red Hat Ceph does well in simplifying storage integration by replacing the need for numerous storage solutions. This solution allows for multiple copies of replicated and coded pools to be kept, ea...
What do you like most about Red Hat Ceph Storage?
The high availability of the solution is important to us.
What needs improvement with Red Hat Ceph Storage?
Areas of Red Hat Ceph Storage that have room for improvement include more promotion. Many people do not know about the Stratus case, which is one of the most reliable systems available in the world...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Ceph
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Kindred Healthcare, Regis Aged Care, WeBank SpA, Panduit, Munson Healthcare
Dell, DreamHost
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