Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers Reviews

Our Dell PowerEdge servers support a variety of workloads. We use them to host web servers, run internal applications, and manage virtual machines through VMware. Additionally, we utilize them for database storage.

The success of our entire business hinges on the reliability of our servers. Therefore, we require servers that meet our specific needs and minimize the risk of downtime. For this reason, we have chosen Dell PowerEdge servers.

We've automated the configuration process for our server racks. This allows us to easily and automatically apply the necessary settings during server installation. As a result, we can efficiently deploy multiple servers up to a dozen at once, and bring them up to standard quickly.

In terms of security, we primarily rely on firmware updates obtained from the Dell website. These updates are certified and considered reliable. However, we don't utilize many other security measures beyond this.

Regarding energy consumption, we haven't encountered any significant issues. The newer versions of the servers are demonstrably more energy-efficient than the older ones. We actively monitor and collect power consumption data to optimize power distribution across our server bays. The data from the PowerEdge servers helps us prevent overloaded bays and maintain balanced power distribution across the data center. Additionally, the server chassis allows us to effectively measure and distribute the load equally.

Unplanned production downtime has been significantly reduced thanks to the implementation of PowerEdge servers, particularly their robust monitoring capabilities. This allows us to receive comprehensive feedback on various aspects, including disk errors. Consequently, we can leverage the iDRAC feature to seamlessly switch to secondary servers in case of an issue, minimizing downtime. Additionally, the excellent support ensures timely replacements for any faulty disks, further minimizing disruptions. While disk failures may occur, the implemented solution effectively mitigates their impact on production.

We have only recently begun using the OpenManage console to centrally manage firmware patching and deployment across our chassis. This has significantly accelerated the update process. Previously, updates were cumbersome and often neglected. However, with the console, particularly in the data center where it is installed, patching is now much faster and allows for more frequent updates.

We particularly appreciate the iDRAC feature, especially in its latest versions, for its capabilities in remote server management and comprehensive monitoring.

Historically, servers required a large number of processors, with a maximum of four being accessible at a time. While processor capabilities have improved, some brands still offer servers with eight processors. Nowadays, with more powerful processors, the need for multiple processors has diminished. We've recently encountered more issues with graphics processing units. Access to specific card models can be limited, and sometimes we require smaller cards than those offered by Dell.

I have been using Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers for 15 years.

I have never had any problem with the stability of the Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers. Our system has been running smoothly with no downtime for a very long time. Therefore, there have been no issues up to now.

Our scalability is currently good. We can easily add more servers as needed, so there are no concerns at that level.

Nowadays, we adopt a scalable approach to server deployment. This allows us to dynamically select the necessary hardware components, such as CPU and RAM, based on evolving needs. As our requirements grow, we can seamlessly add new servers to the existing infrastructure, similar to how video chains are extended. This flexibility ensures that we only allocate resources when required, optimizing costs and efficiency.

Regarding Dell's support, we haven't needed it much recently, which is a positive sign. We haven't had many issues with them in the past either. While there were some challenges in the past, they were mainly related to the support tools, which could become complex when dealing with multiple deliveries.

Specifically, the issue arose from the tool's organization. We encountered situations where eight different sites with the same delivery address were created due to an extra comma in the address. This made it difficult to configure the tools as they recognized each address with the extra comma as a separate location.

However, since we've consolidated our data centers and everything is now at a single location, these issues have been resolved. The complexity arose primarily during my initial onboarding when we had servers duplicated across four sites, making management cumbersome.

That being said, Dell's support itself was always helpful. The challenges stemmed more from the limitations of the tool, which didn't allow us to permanently remove these "ghost locations" and required workarounds like hiding them within the interface.

Overall, although there were initial hurdles due to the tool's limitations, Dell's support has been satisfactory.

Positive

We use HP servers in parallel to the Dell PowerEdge servers. We are already using several HP servers in production. However, we haven't conducted extensive testing on them. Occasionally, urgent needs may necessitate their use. For instance, we acquired our current HP servers during a period of tight supply when we needed a two-week delivery timeframe, while typical lead times were around two months. As a result, the supplier had HP stock readily available, which is why we chose them at that time. While each technology has its advantages and disadvantages, we are very satisfied with Dell's performance. Since we haven't encountered any significant issues with Dell, they remain our primary choice for the time being.

During the initial setup, especially for the iDRAC configuration, I created custom scripts to automate configurations for iDRAC, BIOS, and Syslog. This streamlining process allows for a quick server installation. Once placed in the bay and prepared, our team can efficiently install the operating system and other necessary components.

In terms of our deployment strategy, we configure everything directly on-site. This includes setting the IP address for the iDRAC based on its final location. I then deploy the system using a pre-defined password and run a script that configures the base settings. Following this, the NG systems, including both Linux and Windows, take over to install the operating system.

The implementation was completed in-house.

Regarding the pricing, it seems fair. However, it's worth noting that compared to some brands, it can be more expensive, particularly in terms of customization options. For example, with Dell, choices like the GPU might be limited, potentially driving up the cost compared to a smaller server from another manufacturer like Supermicro.

As project managers, we should explore alternative vendors that offer greater flexibility in hardware selection and potentially smaller form factors. However, no final decision has been made on this yet.

We evaluated Supermicro servers.

I would rate Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers nine out of ten.

Foreign Language:(French)

Les Serveurs sont Éco-Énergétiques, N’Ont Pas D'Arrêts De Production Imprévus Et Sont Scalables

Quel est notre cas d’utilisation principal?

Les serveurs PowerEdge répondent à plusieurs charges de travail. Nous nous en servons pour l'hébergement des serveurs web, exécuter des applications internes et gérer les machines virtuelles à travers le VMware. On s’en sert aussi pour du stockage de base de données.

Le succès de toute notre activité repose sur la fiabilité de nos serveurs. Nous avons donc besoin de serveurs qui répondent à nos besoins spécifiques et qui réduisent le risque de temps d'arrêt. C’est pour cette raison que nous avons choisi les serveurs Dell PowerEdge.

Comment cela a pu aider notre organisation?

Nous avons automatisé le processus de configuration de nos racks de serveurs. Cela nous permet d’appliquer les paramètres nécessaires durant l’installation des serveurs plus facilement et automatiquement. On peut ainsi déployer efficacement plusieurs serveurs et même jusqu'à une douzaine en même temps et les mettre rapidement aux normes.

En termes de sécurité, nous comptons principalement sur les mises à jour de firmware qu’on obtient sur le site internet de Dell. Ces mises à jour sont certifiées et considérées comme fiables. Cependant, on ne se sert pas de beaucoup d’autres mesures de sécurité au-delà de ça.

Pour ce qui concerne la consommation d'énergie, nous n’avons pas rencontré de problème significatif. Les nouvelles versions de ces serveurs sont clairement plus économes en énergie que les anciennes. Nous surveillons et recueillons activement les données de consommation d'énergie afin d'optimiser la distribution d'énergie à travers nos baies de serveurs. Les données des serveurs PowerEdge nous aident à éviter un surchargement des baies et à maintenir un équilibre de distribution d'énergie à travers le centre de données. De plus, le châssis du serveur nous permet de mesurer et distribuer les charges de manière efficace et équilibrée.

Les temps d'arrêt de production imprévus ont été grandement réduits grâces à l'implémentation des serveurs PowerEdge et en particulier, leurs solides capacités de surveillance. Cela nous permet de recevoir des informations détaillées sur différents aspects, comme les erreurs de disques. Par conséquent, nous pouvons nous servir de la fonction iDRAC pour basculer aisément sur des serveurs secondaires en cas de soucis et minimiser ainsi les temps d'arrêt. De plus, l’excellent support permet des remplacements rapides pour tout disque défectueux, ce qui facilite une minimisation supplémentaire des perturbations. Bien que des défaillances de disques puissent se produire, la solution implémentée atténue leur impact sur la production.

Nous avons seulement récemment commencé à utiliser la console OpenManage pour une gestion centralisée de correction du firmware ainsi que pour son déploiement à travers nos châssis de serveurs. Cela a considérablement accéléré le processus de mise à jour. Auparavant, les mises à jour étaient fastidieuses et souvent négligées. Cependant, avec la console, et plus particulièrement dans le centre de données où elle est installée, le raccordement est désormais plus rapide et permet des mises à jour plus fréquentes.

Qu’est-ce qui est le plus utile?

On apprécie plus particulièrement la fonction iDRAC, surtout dans ces versions les plus récentes, pour ces capacités à gérer un serveur et faire une surveillance complète à distance.

Qu’est-ce qui peut être amélioré?

Historiquement, les serveurs nécessitent un grand nombre de processeurs, avec un maximum de quatre accessibles à tout moment. Bien que les capacités d’un processeur aient été améliorées, certaines marques proposent encore des serveurs avec huit processors. De nos jours, avec des processeurs plus puissants, on a moins besoin de plusieurs processors. On a récemment eu plus de soucis avec les unités de traitement de graphiques. L'accès à des modèles de cartes spécifiques peut être limité et parfois, nous avons besoin de cartes plus petites que celles proposées par Dell.

Depuis combien de temps j’utilise cette solution?

J’utilise les serveurs Dell PowerEdge Rack depuis 15 ans.

Quelles sont mes impressions sur la stabilité de cette solution?

Je n’ai jamais eu de problème de stabilité avec les serveurs Dell PowerEdge Rack. Notre système fonctionne bien et sans temps d'arrêt depuis très longtemps. Par conséquent, il n’y a pas eu de soucis jusqu'à présent.

Quelles sont mes impressions sur la scalabilité de cette solution?

Pour le moment, notre scalabilité est bonne. Nous pouvons facilement ajouter plus de serveurs si besoin et il n’y a donc aucun souci à ce sujet.

Nous adoptons aujourd’hui, une approche scalable pour le déploiement de nos serveurs. Cela nous permet de sélectionner les composants de matériel nécessaires de façon dynamique tels que les CPU et les RAM, en fonction de l'évolution des besoins. Alors que nos exigences augmentent, nous pouvons parfaitement bien ajouter des nouveaux serveurs à l'infrastructure actuelle de façon semblable à l'extension de chaînes vidéos. Cette flexibilité nous permet d’affecter des ressources lorsque nécessaire, ce qui optimise les coûts et l'efficience.

Comment évaluez-vous le service client et le support?

En ce qui concerne le support de Dell, nous n’en avons pas eu beaucoup besoin récemment, ce qui est est quelque chose de positif. Nous n’avons pas eu non plus beaucoup de soucis avec eux dans le passé. Bien qu’il y ait eu des soucis dans le passé, ils étaient principalement liés aux outils du support et cela peut devenir complexe lorsqu’on a affaire à plusieurs livraisons.

Plus spécifiquement, le problème est venu de l’organisation de l’outil. Il nous est arrivé qu’il y ait huit sites différents avec la même adresse de livraison à cause d’une erreur de virgule dans l’adresse. Cela rend la configuration des outils difficile car ils reconnaissent chaque adresse avec une virgule différente comme un site différent.

Par contre, depuis que nous avons renforcé nos centres de données et que tout se trouve désormais sur un seul site, ces problèmes ont été résolus. Les choses sont devenues complexes lors de l'intégration initiale avec des serveurs qui étaient dédoublés sur quatre sites différents, ce qui a rendu la gestion fastidieuse.

Cela dit, le support Dell en lui-même était toujours efficace. Les problèmes venaient plutôt des contraintes de l’outil qui ne nous permettaient pas d’enlever les ‘adresses fantômes’ et qui nécessitent des astuces comme les cacher dans l’interface.

Dans l’ensemble, malgré quelques difficultés initiales dues aux contraintes de l’outil, le support Dell a été satisfaisant.

Comment évalueriez-vous le service client et le support?

Positivement.

Quelle solution ai-je utilisé auparavant et pourquoi ai-je changé?

Nous utilisons des serveurs HP en parallèle aux serveurs Dell PowerEdge. Nous utilisons déjà plusieurs serveurs HP en production. Nous n’avons par contre pas fait de tests approfondis sur eux. Nous nous en servons occasionnellement, en cas de besoin urgent. Nous avons par exemple, acquis nos serveurs HP actuels lors d’une période de tension sur les offres alors que nous avions besoin d’un délai de livraison de deux semaines et que la moyenne des délais était d’environ deux mois. De ce fait, le fournisseur avait un stock de HP disponible immédiatement et c’est pourquoi nous les avons choisis à cette époque. Bien que chaque technologie ait ses avantages et inconvénients, nous sommes très satisfaits de la performance de Dell. Etant donné que nous n’avons pas rencontré de problème particulier avec Dell, ils restent notre premier choix pour le moment.

Comment s’est déroulée la configuration initiale?

Pendant la configuration initiale et surtout la configuration de l’iDRAC, j’ai créé des scripts pour automatiser les configurations pour les iDRAC, BIOS et Syslog. Ce processus de rationalisation permet une installation rapide du serveur. Une fois qu’il est placé dans la baie et préparé, notre équipe peut installer le système de fonctionnement et les autres composants nécessaires de manière efficace.

En termes de stratégie de déploiement, nous configurons tout directement sur le terrain. Cela inclut le paramétrage de l’adresse IP address pour l’iDRAC basée sur son emplacement final. Je déploie ensuite le système en utilisant un mot de passe prédéterminé et je déroule un script qui configure les paramètres de base. Ensuite, ce sont les systèmes NG avec Linux et Windows d’inclus, qui prennent la relève pour installer le système d'opération.

Quelles sont vos impressions sur l'équipe d'implémentation?

Nous avons fait l'implémentation nous-mêmes.

Quelle est mon expérience avec les coûts et les licences?

Les couts semblent raisonnables. Cependant, il est bon de noter que comparé à d’autres marques, ils peuvent paraître plus chers, particulièrement en termes des options de personnalisation. Par exemple, avec Dell, les choix de GPU peuvent être limités, potentiellement faisant monter le coût comparé à un serveur plus petit d'un autre fabricant tel que Supermicro.

En tant que chefs de projets, nous devons explorer des alternatives de vendeurs qui offrent une plus grande flexibilité dans la sélection de hardware et potentiellement des facteurs de dimensions plus petites. Aucune décision n’a pourtant encore été prise à ce sujet.

Quelles autres solutions ai-je évaluées?

Nous avons évalué les serveurs Supermicro.

Quel autre conseil puis-je avoir?

Je donnerais une note de neuf sur dix aux serveurs Dell PowerEdge Rack.

Quel modèle de déploiement utilisez-vous pour cette solution?

Local.

Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers are the production servers for the company.

By implementing Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers, above all, we wanted to resolve issues of scalability and trust.

Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers have improved our company in terms of efficiency and security. In terms of business continuity, they have never failed us, and they have helped us to have a good name in the market.

The PowerEdge Cyber Resilient Architecture approach to security is very good.

Energy consumption is one of the things that I worry about. While looking at and comparing with other platforms, Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers seem to be very good. I realized that it is not a platform that consumes a lot of energy, and that calms us down. Their direct competitor is HPE. We always evaluate its energy consumption, and the comparisons come out very well in favor of PowerEdge.

Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers are good for handling the evolving needs of high-performance workloads. As a matter of fact, we have a virtual environment set up on one of their machines, and it is going very well. It has not disappointed us.

The impact of Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers has been good on our organization’s sustainability goals. We started using them as an initiative to improve our energy system, and it is worth saying that it was exactly what we needed.

Using Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers has helped to reduce unplanned production downtime. In terms of reliability, the servers do not break down, which helps us a lot as service providers. I cannot exactly say how much, but I can say that we have moved on from the previous company, HPE, to these servers, and from having maybe three or four interventions a year, we went to having none.

The OpenManage console has not at all affected our IT staff’s productivity.

The most valuable features are that they are very reliable, and Dell's technical service is also optimal.

The price is the only thing that can be improved.

I have been using Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers for more than 10 years.

The stability is very good. Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers are very stable.

The scalability of Dell PowerEdge Rack Server is very good.

Their support is very good. The only thing that I would improve is the language, which sometimes can be a problem. They can direct you to different centers depending on the product you are referring to, and the language often seems to be an issue. I remember a case of a breakdown that we had with a PowerEdge server. We had to escalate it. We talked about it with a center in India, and it was complicated and almost impossible, even with an English translator.

Neutral

We used HPE servers. HPE is a direct competitor, and we were very happy, but we have noticed an improvement using Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers.

We decided to switch because of what we read and what other colleagues in the sector recommended to us and also because at that time, the economic offer was better.

The implementation was simple. There was no specific implementation strategy for it.

We implemented Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers in a hybrid cloud model. For the public part, we used ESSENCE IT. We have our servers deployed in several locations.

We used the same company through which we purchased it, and together with their technicians, we implemented it.

One of the things we really like is being able to request a warranty extension of up to five years directly with the manufacturer. Not everyone does that, but that is an important ROI because the investment you make initially can be maintained for those five years with confidence.

They are very competitive.

We evaluated HPE. The difference was the price. There was a lot of similarity at the level of functionality and internal components. For example, in terms of INTEL or NVIDIA, at the manufacturer level, you pretty much have to integrate the same thing, but it does have its nuances, such as the issue of energy savings due to power supplies and so on.

I would rate Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers a nine out of ten.

Foreign Language:(Spanish)

Precio competitivo, muy confiable y útil para la continuidad y eficiencia del negocio.

¿Durante cuánto tiempo utiliza los servidores en rack Dell PowerEdge?

He estado usando servidores en rack Dell PowerEdge durante más de 10 años.

¿Cuál es su principal caso de uso de esta solución? (Incluya detalles sobre su entorno.)

Son los servidores de producción de la empresa.

Al implementar los servidores en rack Dell PowerEdge, sobre todo, queríamos resolver problemas de escalabilidad y confianza.

Comparta cómo los servidores en rack Dell PowerEdge han mejorado su organización. Si no fue así, explique por qué.

Los servidores en rack Dell PowerEdge han mejorado nuestra empresa en términos de eficiencia y seguridad. En términos de continuidad de negocio nunca nos han fallado y nos han ayudado a tener un buen nombre en el mercado.

El enfoque de seguridad de PowerEdge Cyber Resilient Architecture es muy bueno.

El consumo de energía es una de las cosas que me preocupan. Al observar y comparar con otras plataformas, los servidores en rack Dell PowerEdge parecen ser muy buenos. Me di cuenta que no es una plataforma que consume mucha energía y eso nos tranquiliza. Su competidor directo es HPE. Siempre evaluamos su consumo de energía y las comparaciones salen muy bien a favor de PowerEdge.

Los servidores en rack Dell PowerEdge son buenos para manejar las necesidades cambiantes de las cargas de trabajo de alto rendimiento. De hecho, tenemos un entorno virtual configurado en una de sus máquinas y va muy bien. No nos ha decepcionado.

El impacto de los servidores en rack Dell PowerEdge ha sido bueno en cuanto a los objetivos de sostenibilidad de nuestra organización. Empezamos a utilizarlos como una iniciativa para mejorar nuestro sistema energético y vale la pena decir que era exactamente lo que necesitábamos.

El uso de servidores en rack Dell PowerEdge ha ayudado a reducir el tiempo de inactividad de producción no planificado. En términos de confiabilidad, los servidores no fallan, lo que nos ayuda mucho como proveedores de servicios. No puedo decir exactamente cuánto, pero puedo decir que hemos pasado de la empresa anterior, HPE, a estos servidores, y de tener quizás tres o cuatro intervenciones al año, pasamos a ninguna.

La consola OpenManage no ha afectado en absoluto la productividad de nuestro personal de TI.

¿Qué características le han parecido más valiosas y por qué?

Son muy fiables y el servicio técnico de Dell también es óptimo.

¿En qué áreas se podrían mejorar los servidores en rack Dell PowerEdge?

El precio es lo único que se podría mejorar.

¿Utilizó anteriormente una solución diferente? De ser así, ¿por qué la cambió?

Usamos servidores HPE. HPE es un competidor directo y estabamos muy contentos con el, pero hemos notado una mejora al utilizar los servidores en rack Dell PowerEdge.

Decidimos cambiarnos por lo que leímos y lo que nos recomendaron otros compañeros del sector y también porque en ese momento la oferta económica era mejor.

Antes de elegir, ¿evaluaste otras opciones? ¿De ser asi, cuales?

Evaluamos HPE. La diferencia estaba en el precio. A nivel de funcionalidad y componentes internos, había mucha similitud. Por ejemplo, en términos de INTEL o NVIDIA, a nivel de fabricante hay que integrar prácticamente lo mismo, pero tiene sus matices, como el tema del ahorro energético por fuentes de alimentación, etc.

¿Qué aconseja a otros sobre el costo de instalación, el precio y/o la licencia?

Son muy competitivos.

¿Cuáles son sus impresiones sobre la escalabilidad de esta solución?

La escalabilidad del servidor en rack Dell PowerEdge es muy buena.

¿Cuáles son sus impresiones sobre la estabilidad de esta solución?

La estabilidad es muy buena. Los servidores en rack Dell PowerEdge son muy estables.

¿Has visto el ROI (Retorno de la Inversión)? En caso afirmativo, ¿de qué manera (es decir, métricas/puntos de datos)?

Una de las cosas que nos gusta mucho es el poder solicitar una ampliación de garantía de hasta cinco años directamente con el fabricante. No todo el mundo hace eso, pero es un retorno de la inversión importante porque la inversión que realizamos inicialmente puede mantenerse durante esos cinco años con confianza.

¿La configuración inicial fue sencilla o compleja y de qué manera?

La implementación fue simple. No existía una estrategia de implementación específica para ello.

Implementamos servidores en rack Dell PowerEdge en un modelo de nube híbrida. Para la parte pública utilizamos ESSENCE IT. Tenemos nuestros servidores implementados en varias ubicaciones.

¿Lo implementó a través de un equipo de proveedores o uno interno?

Si se trata de un equipo de proveedores, ¿cómo calificaría su nivel de experiencia?

Utilizamos la misma empresa a través de la cual lo compramos y junto con sus técnicos lo implementamos.

Cuéntanos tu experiencia con el servicio y soporte al cliente.

Su soporte es muy bueno. Lo único que mejoraría es el idioma, que a veces puede ser un problema. Te dirigen a diferentes centros según el producto al que se refiera y el idioma a menudo parece ser un problema. Recuerdo un caso de avería que tuvimos con un servidor PowerEdge. Lo tuvimos que escalar . Lo hablamos con un centro en la India y fue complicado y casi imposible, incluso con la ayuda de un traductor de inglés.

¿Cómo calificaría esta solución en una escala del 1 al 10 en cuanto a servicio y soporte?

7.

En una escala del 1 al 10 (1=peor, 10=mejor), ¿cómo calificaría los servidores en rack Dell PowerEdge? Por favor explique por qué.

Calificaría los servidores en rack Dell PowerEdge con un nueve.

We're using it for various purposes, such as DB servers, web servers, application servers, file servers, print servers, etc.

We can use the OpenManage console for managing multiple rack servers. We can manage all of them in a single console. The firmware can be pushed on multiple servers via the OpenManage console. It's very user-friendly, and it makes it easy to download and update the firmware. There are multiple options. If I have 15 servers of the same model, to update the firmware, I don't need to download the firmware on each server. With the OpenManage console, we can download it just once and then push it to multiple servers.

The OpenManage console has affected our IT staff’s productivity. Upgrading firmware on each server generally takes two hours. So, upgrading firmware on multiple servers would take a lot of time. For example, for 15 servers, it would take at least 30 hours, whereas, with the OpenManage console, we can update all the servers within two hours.

The OpenManage console also decreases the time it takes to deploy new data centers. It would take more time to deploy the individual servers.

We can use Dell Lifecycle Controller for remote server management. If something happens, I use the iDRAC console to check the impact. It's easy to identify the issue from the iDRAC console. If there is a blue screen or purple screen, it's a hardware-related or software-related issue. I am based in India, but I can easily support US operations. iDRAC allows me to work remotely to troubleshoot. So, troubleshooting, as well as firmware downloads and updates, are very easy. All the firmware and drivers are available on a single page. I can download or update the firmware if there is a purple screen or a driver is missing. In the OpenManage console, everything is visible. We can see the installed version and the available version in a single console. It shows anything that is non-compliant in your list. If my environment has 1,000 servers, it will show whether all 1,000 servers are up to date or not. I can then identify and plan for the firmware updates. After updating the firmware, the hardware runs smoothly.

It supports multiple operating systems. I have experience installing Windows servers, ESXi, and Linux. It's not only for Windows. We use the VMware ESXi operating system. On ESXi, we run around 6,000 virtual servers. We have app servers, DB servers, and file servers. There are also manufacturing applications, where they are running robotic machines. So, there are different applications running.

You can use Dell PowerEdge hardware for anything. It supports everything such as file servers, web servers, and DB servers. It can support all critical servers and applications. There are bank applications running on PowerEdge servers.

PowerEdge rack servers are good in terms of energy consumption.

Dell hardware is not as stable as HP. I have not seen any issues with HP in five years, but with Dell, I am getting multiple issues. It's not stable. They need to verify why it has multiple issues and why Dell hardware is not as stable as HP hardware.

I have 15 years of experience in the IT industry. I have worked in multiple companies, and I have more than 10 years of experience with Dell hardware. I have worked with Dell PowerEdge R720, R730, R740, R830, R840, and R940, and I have also worked with Dell PowerEdge VRTX Chassis M630 and M640.

Dell hardware is not as stable as HP hardware.

Their support is number one worldwide. I never got that much support with other hardware. I would rate them a 10 out of 10.

Positive

I have also worked with HP hardware in one of the companies. In five years, I generally did not see any issues with HP hardware, but in case I had any problem with hardware, they took more than 10 days to replace the hardware or troubleshoot the problem. I don't like that. Whereas Dell provides support within four hours for hardware replacement. They provide better support. Within four hours, they arrange for a replacement. Their support is number one. I would recommend Dell because their support is very good.

Dell's hardware is not as stable as HP's. We see multiple issues, such as hard disk failures. We need to apply updates or patches. Dell is user-friendly. So, it's very easy to apply and download, but the hardware is not stable. This is the only part that needs to be developed from Dell's side.

HP is more expensive than Dell. Dell provides better quotes. They give multiple options to buy the hardware.

Its deployment is very easy. Anybody can deploy it. They provide everything. Its deployment is easy and user-friendly.

For deployment, we have customized ISO for our environment. We use that. For ESXi, we are using the Dell custom image that they provide on their website. We can download that directly from there, and that's it.

One of the clients has been offered a price of $18,000 instead of the regular price of around $25,000.

It supports everything. You can install anything you want. If you want DB, you can do that. If you need high-performance workloads, you need to increase storage capacity. It depends on the configuration, but it will support that. The PowerEdge server has 16 slots. You just need to buy maximum capacity during the purchase.

I would rate Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers a 10 out of 10.

We primarily used the solution for the servers. It's a node among many in a multiprocessor, supercomputer environment. It's a very verified application. The customer uses a lesser file system, which means that one file system is shared among the entire installation. You're not going to see that very often in your career unless you're in that business. It's a multi-node, high-performance computing file system. It's Linux based.

It fit the requirements of the client, that's really all that it was for us. It could deliver the IOPS and the local storage that was required. It could have been anybody else, Lenovo, IBM, HP, etc. We were Dell's number one reseller in Canada and probably worldwide. We got very favorable terms and that also helped with the decision.

The only way you could improve it is, for the purpose of HPC installations, is IOPS and the only way to improve it is to get a more powerful machine to deliver more IOPS. Basically, you need more CPUs and you need more RAM and you need a faster backbone. We were running on 100 gigabits Infiniband.

Until they get new technology and density, it would be nice to see four nodes in a one-year package instead of a three-year package.

I'm recently retired, however, I did work with the solution on one of my last projects which lasted a few months.

The solution delivers what it promises. You look at the specs and it delivers them. If it doesn't deliver you move onto another model.

There's really nothing special about it, and Dell doesn't make servers that are any better than anybody else's. The prime reason we chose it is that it delivers what it promises to deliver in terms of IOPS and the price right for us because when you're a platinum level reseller for a server company, they will give you very favorable terms especially in this time of a pandemic, hardware sales are down across the board for the entire industry.

It's very scalable. That's the whole idea. When you want to add more computation power to the platform you just throw in another act of compute nodes and storage.

I've never used technical support. Out-of-the-box it works, and if it doesn't, then the client deals with it directly. The equipment is sold to them so they own the serial numbers and they own the service contracts, so if anything went wrong during the installation the client would take care of them, not us.

We've worked with HP, Cisco, Lenovo, and IBM in the past. We always choose the solution that makes the most sense for our clients.

We handed over the complete installation in September. We started in August. It takes time. You're coming into an empty room. You have to have power, you need the AC for the equipment there that has to be moved out. It takes time. The racks were pre-populated in Toronto and shipped to Montreal, and then in Montreal, they were set up and powered. We had liquid cooling and radiators on the rear of the cabinet for the heat.

We've done many of these installations, and it's pretty routine. There's nothing complex about it. The complexity is mostly that there are so many key parts in terms of getting it delivered on-site. There are so many parts from so many different vendors and there are penalties if you don't deliver on time. Nobody wants to pay penalties.

I didn't deal with the pricing, and therefore don't know the exact costs. 

However, they would compete with pricing on the market. Even if HP made an equivalent platform, and they do, we wouldn't get good terms. They're all pretty well in the ballpark range in cost and the variation. The list price might be 10%. They know what the competition is doing so they don't want to price themselves, the values, off the list of potential. If I'm looking at servers that deliver so much IOPS and they price themselves out, HP knows what Dell is doing and Dell knows what HP is doing.

My company partners with Dell.

I'm recently retired, however, I did most of the infrastructure, backup storage, and high-performance computing. I was in pre-sales. I was a solution architect. Therefore, I'm not an end-user.

We only used Dell for the servers. We used Seagate for storage. They have hard drives. They've been in the hard drive business for 40 years.

My biggest piece of advice for those considering the solution is to make sure they are delivered on time. When clients are spending $50 million for an installation and you say it's going to be ready September 15th, it better be ready September 15th. One of the main reasons stuff's not ready is because parts are missing. That means you can't deliver a complete solution. If you're missing a box of spare hard drives, they're just spares, they're not preventing the installation, however, they're missing, and therefore you haven't delivered the product.

Overall, I'd rate the product ten out of ten.

We use Dell PowerEdge for virtualization purposes, particularly with VMware.

The new hardware, including Dell PowerEdge, has contributed to reducing unplanned production downtime.

Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers are incredibly valuable because they are both user-friendly and powerful for managing hardware.

I am generally very satisfied with Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers. However, there is room for improvement in technical support.

I have been working with Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers for five years.

We have not had any issues with the stability of the servers.

The servers are scalable, especially in terms of adding extra disks. It is a straightforward process; if you need more storage space, you can easily scale up by adding additional disks to meet your requirements.

Tech support is generally good, but there can be challenges, especially when dealing with support from India. Language differences can sometimes make communication difficult, but having a proficient English speaker or a good interpreter usually helps resolve issues effectively.

My company used a mix of Dell and HP hardware before, but now we exclusively use Dell. I find Dell's servers more powerful and user-friendly for remote management.

Deployment was relatively straightforward for us. The most labor-intensive part was the physical setup in the data center, handled by the data center team. After that, the installation of AHI was a breeze, making the overall process quite manageable.

Overall, I would rate Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers as a nine out of ten.

I use Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers in my company, mostly for virtualization and also for some applications running directly on physical machines.

The solution's lifecycle management with iDRAC works really well, and it is a valuable feature because it helps with maintenance and keeping track of what we have in our company.

The product offers a bit of a larger landscape to manage the entire environment. There is a feature that allows you to see the power distribution the rack servers in your environment use. 

The product has some other features that were really beneficial for my company and made it easier for us to work with the systems, as it became easier to expand and fix them online.

We wanted to have two storage cards during the onboarding process of the solution, which were available only on the more expensive version of the boxes that we usually use for work in our company. It would have been easier for my company to deal with the product if the two storage cards provided during the solution's onboarding process of the expensive versions of the solution were available for the slightly simpler versions of the tool.

I have been using Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers for six years.

In our company, we have had some really good results with the product's hardware, but we also had a couple of sets of hardware be bought that had a lot of memory errors, so we needed to have a lot of DIMM hardware replaced. In my company, we had really stable sets of hardware and not-so-stable ones as well.

The range of systems under Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers is large enough to have both small enough systems and large enough systems, so the product's scalability is fine.

It is not me but mostly my colleagues who have contacted the solution's technical support. From what I know, I can say that the solution's technical support works really well, so it's okay. In our company, we can schedule a replacement part very quickly with the help of the solution's technical support. 

I rate the technical support a nine out of ten.

Positive

In my company, we had experienced too many hardware failures with our previous solution supplier, HPE.

My company's tools for deployment had to be modified to take care of the product's deployment phase. The product's deployment phase was not super complicated, but it did take my company a couple of weeks to build it up and to make it work, which was not too bad. The aforementioned process would have been the same for every other company as well, so it was okay, in my opinion, since it was not worse than the processes of some other tools.

I don't know about the product's licensing part. Price-wise, it is an okay product. I believe that the cheaper the better, but I think that the product's price is okay.

As a part of my company's evaluation process, we considered Supermicro against Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers. Compared to Supermicro, Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers are a bit cheaper, but the product's con stems from the fact that we had to do too many things in our company to make it work. The amount of effort to maintain all of it and to build or maintain it all was too much. Though the product was a little bit more expensive than Supermicro, its management features were way more extensive, which made a difference for us in our company.

In my company, we were trying to resolve some particular issues through the implementation of Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers, as we had experienced too many hardware failures with our previous solution supplier, HPE.

PowerEdge Cyber Resilient Architecture's approach to security, including the silicon-based root of trust, signed firmware updates, and user access security, works well, but my company doesn't have many sales-related areas to report.

The assessment of Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers for energy consumption in my company is not much of a big deal for us. In our company, we saw that the energy consumption of the product depends on which role of the machines it is concerned with, especially when it came to the more mission-critical servers which we used to use in high-performance mode, causing them to use more power because it helped make our company quicker which in turn helped with the generation of higher revenue for us. Power consumption was not much of an issue like a couple of years ago, meaning it has changed a bit. Our company has B Corp certification, causing us to look towards areas like the product's energy consumption since it is much more important now than it used to be in the past.

In terms of the concept of power or energy consumption of the product, I can say that it fits and helps meet my company's requirements because of the different power profiles we can deploy.

In my company, we don't use OpenManage Enterprise.

The overall flexibility of our organization's operations with the use of PowerEdge Rack Servers has been okay, as we usually use virtualization software on top of the product, giving us big-sized machines.

There are a lot of options that one can opt for when using the solution. I like how my company talks with people inside Dell to help us with what we need or figure out how to do something. If you look at the product from a broader perspective, it works really well as a large package.

I rate the overall solution a nine out of ten.

I integrate PowerEdge for customers who buy the servers and storage, doing the integration between them. I have helped integrate 20 to 30 customers.

Dell PowerEdge powered by Intel helps improve organizations that we work with a lot.

I like the integration between iDRAC and the system. It is very easy to update the framework and install the operating systems. 

Intel's Xeon CPU makes the system work very well and fast. I like this type of CPU. It has helped to improve the performance of targeted workloads by 70%.

Some customers took the machine to the extreme, which makes it a bit slower and delays the system. Since the customer can put a lot of VMs with a lot of data, it can use up the CPU memory to 20% to 25%, which slows down the system. However, if we reduce the CPU memory or split it to another, then it works very well.

I would like to change the physical rails to be more like how HPE rails are formatted and organized.

I have been using PowerEdge Rack Servers powered by Intel for almost three years.

PowerEdge Rack Servers have helped to reduce unplanned production downtime. The organization will not have downtime at all if you can migrate VMs between servers, but you need at least two. With two or three clusters, you can convert the machines.

The stability is very good, if you have at least two servers. Then, you have full redundancy of all the VMs and the system. If one server has downtime, then all the data in the VMs on the server convert automatically to the other. Therefore, you need at least two or three servers to have full redundancy.

Our customers can run the systems in their organization 24/7 without any downtime.

PowerEdge offers a lot of types, which is very good for customer scalability, from small businesses to large businesses. 

I have not used their technical support.

It is very quick to deploy. It takes something like 30 minutes to an hour for us to deploy.

I recommend reading the documentation before you deploy the product.

It makes the integration with a lot of storage systems cheaper. 

The pricing is very good because there are a lot of types of PowerEdge Rack Servers. You have the R540, R640, and R740. The prices are very scalable through the specific server, e.g., small businesses can take the R640 while large businesses can take the R740 or R840. Thus, Dell technologies touch on every organization.

I like Dell Technologies' products, such as PowerEdge and PowerStore, more than their competitors. It is very easy to work with Dell because of all their documentation for deployments. It is much easier than their competitors.

There are no issues with security in my experience.

I am hoping that some customers will use Dell’s OpenManage console in the future.

I would rate the product as nine out of 10.

We employ Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers within our vSphere cluster to support our business applications.

Virtual storage, bandwidth optimization with caching, SSD integration, and similar features contribute significantly to the overall performance and efficiency of the servers. These advancements provide a notable improvement in operations.

The PowerEdge servers have poor energy consumption performance.

For the sustainability of our company, we plan to purchase new PowerEdge servers. Our current servers have been in use for five years and are nearing the end of their life cycle. Therefore, we intend to replace them with new PowerEdge servers to ensure continued efficiency and satisfaction.

It contributed to reducing production downtime by approximately 20%.

One of the key reasons we integrate Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers, particularly the ID Rack model, is for its remote monitoring and administration capabilities. This feature is essential for managing the servers efficiently, allowing remote access and administration without the need for physical monitors or on-site presence.

Using SD cards for installing the hypervisor is not particularly reliable. Its customer support should be improved.

I have been using the servers for fifteen years.

It offers excellent stability.

Tech support can be slow to respond at times, and there are occasions when they seem hesitant to trust our assessments. This can lead to prolonged troubleshooting processes, often requiring us to provide extensive logs for investigation. I would rate it seven out of ten.

Neutral

We utilize various types of servers, with a predominant focus on HPE models.
In my view, there isn't a significant distinction between them; they essentially perform the same tasks but in slightly different ways. There are variations in management tools, however. Customers seem to prefer Dell, possibly due to their positive experiences with the products and alignment with specific guidelines or regulations.

Deployment was straightforward, and to be honest, not much different from other solutions.

Overall, I would rate it nine out of ten.