Dell PowerScale (Isilon) Reviews

We have massive unstructured data. It's only used to keep up with our data growth.

Its scalability has been huge for us. Before that, we were using Windows File Servers and there were a lot of labor-intensive log-on activities to build all those servers. With Isilon, we just add nodes and grow capacity. We realized those benefits as soon as we had Isilon online.

We love the scalability with OneFS. It is a one-file system that just grows. It is able to keep up with our massive data and ingestion.

We don't use applications on Isilon, however, it manages the growth of our data and structured data.

The solution's flexibility for supporting various data workloads while keeping them protected is okay. It does the job. I didn't really think about it in terms of protection with its resiliency and its ability to grow.

It's important that PowerScale helps us secure data from cyber attacks, however, budgets control everything we do, so we can only use it as far as what our budget allows.

We lost our technical sales reps about two years ago. We haven't gotten one assigned to us and we'd love to have one.

We would like to see both performance and security improvements which are in all of the releases. We haven't leveraged S3 yet, however, at some point we're going to leverage S3. We're working towards the 9.0 releases. Therefore, we'd like to see some improvements in the protocols. 

I've been using the solution for five or six years.

OneFS seems very stable. I just wish support would get a little better. I realize with COVID 19 it's been hard to keep people.

The scalability is awesome, this is why we have it. 

There are challenges when providing economies of scale for a large cluster, however, it's nothing. It's hard to quantify that because it is just a cluster, but we've been pleased with the scalability overall.

In the past year, it hasn't been as great. They seem to just follow KBS. Prior to that, they were awesome. I'm hoping they get it together.

Negative

We just used Windows File Servers before Isilon. We didn't have any NAS to speak of. We might have used NetApp, however, that's not a scalable solution. We evaluated others and we chose Isilon.

It is very straightforward. It's a little complicated setting up, however, other than that, you just allocate file shares and maintain security patches, and management is easy. It's pretty similar to other systems. It's very straightforward once it's set up.

I deployed it myself. My implementation strategy was to just do it. I have a template that I modify for every deployment and I rack it a certain way so that we can manage the backend cabling, which is a really big deal. I rack it, set it up, and configure it.

We have it in our major data centers, including Seattle, San Francisco, and Phoenix. I do all the maintenance which includes dealing with failed hard drives. There are always errors popping up. I'm just keeping ahead of all the little things that come up, engaging with support, and so forth.

I did not use an integrator, reseller, or consultant for the deployment. I did it myself. 

We have seen an ROI. For example, we don't build Windows File Servers anymore and that eliminates that labor. We have massive data growth and it helps us keep up with adding nodes. However, we have no quantitative numbers for that to share.

The pricing seems reasonable to me. We always evaluate new storage platforms and we've stuck with Isilon.

The costs involved purchasing the hardware licensing and extending maintenance. However, that's with every product.

We haven't really looked into PowerScale's cybersecurity, including its ransomware protection.

We have some Gen 5 and Gen 6 nodes, and we have five clusters. We just purchased the newer Gen 6, A3000, and H700 nodes in our Phoenix data center.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten. If there was better support I'd give it ten out of ten.

It's an awesome product. I'd advise others to evaluate all the products and just pick the one that's best for them.

Things are in the details and I've always paid attention to that, however, you have got to handle deployment carefully and think ahead to what could go wrong. If you do that, everything will be fine.

We use the solution to store all our unstructured data.

The solution's most valuable features are scalability and flexibility. It allows us to scale storage capacity without downtime.

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is a little bit pricey, and its pricing could be improved.

I have been using Dell PowerScale (Isilon) for two years.

I rate the solution ten out of ten for stability.

Around 30,000 users use the solution daily in our organization.

I rate the solution’s scalability ten out of ten.

On a scale from one to ten, where one is difficult and ten is easy, I rate the solution’s initial setup ten out of ten.

The solution's deployment process is pretty extensive. It has a dedicated back-end network and then connects to the data center network on the front end. The solution can be deployed in a few days. Dell services did the deployment for us.

The solution's licensing cost varies based on capacity and performance requirements.

I am using the latest version of the solution. We partner with many third-party software products that can be used for different types of data replication. I would have users analyze their data and put as much of it on Dell PowerScale (Isilon) as they can. The solution stores all the unstructured data related to all my projects. It's the core of our data center.

Overall, I rate the solution ten out of ten.

I rely on Dell PowerScale to manage and store manufacturing data from NES systems. It is great for handling big data, offers scalability, and ensures data security, simplifying the storage and retrieval of manufacturing information.

The most valuable features of Dell PowerScale for its reliable performance and stability. The guaranteed performance, combined with the scalability through its scale-out capability, makes it an excellent choice. It is a top pick for my customers due to these qualities.

There is room for improvement in its handling of object storage. While it excels in managing file systems, enhancing features for more efficient handling of objects could make it even better, ensuring faster and smoother operations.

I have been working with Dell PowerScale for ten years.

The technical support is very good. They are quite helpful.

The installation is quite simple and the deployment takes only a few hours. In my organization, we have a total of 26 system engineers, and among them, 11 are trained to handle Dell PowerScale. These engineers are responsible for installing, maintaining, and providing support for the product. We conduct maintenance regularly, typically with a focus on remote support, offering 24/7 assistance. For on-site support, our goal is to respond within four hours.

While customers often perceive it as expensive, I find that considering its functions and performance, Dell PowerScale is reasonably priced. I would rate it as a five out of ten in terms of costliness. In addition to the standard licensing fee, there are extra costs for services and additional solutions with Dell PowerScale. Services like maintenance and support may incur charges. Sub-solutions such as CloudIQ are also additional and may be charged based on usage or quota.

I would highly recommend Dell PowerScale to others. Overall, I would rate it as a nine out of ten.

The solution provides file-based access for everyone. It's a simplified platform for user-based access to files. It's also very simple to do data center replication for disaster recovery with Isilon.

It's hard to think back to the beginning when we actually got it and how it helped us improve. Of course, it is leaps and bounds over any Windows-based file share that may have existed back in the early 2000s. However, it's really helped engineers manage and maintain it. It's a very simple platform to work with.

The file-based dumping for SQL backups is great. We use that fairly heavily, especially with the flash-based nodes on Isilon. It's been our go-to platform for user-based file access.

The solution's flexibility for supporting various data workloads while keeping them protected is great. We integrate and have Avamar-based backups with Isilon. The protection is great.

Our main goal is to do disaster recovery with whatever solution we use and Isilon makes it pretty simple to replicate those workloads over to our secondary data center.

Cyber security, including ransom protection, is good. We haven't really leveraged a lot of those features as we should. We know that they're there and we work with our partners to help us implement those pieces for us.

The impact PowerScale has had on our organization's storage efficiency is positive. It's tough to talk about efficiency, as we love using it and we dump everything into it. What it retains gives us a great DD compression on the array. We find ourselves overusing it, however, we do have it plugged into Cloud IQ. That helps us with alerts to let us know when we're getting close to our thresholds for capacity.

PowerScale has helped us free up our employees' time to focus on other business priorities. They're not spending a lot of their time managing user files. Everything's managed from the array itself.

PowerScale helped reduce our overall risk. It helped us reduce our overall risk mainly due to the fact that we're replicating between data centers. We don't have to worry about a single point of failure within our data center. I can check on the health of our arrays really at any time with CloudIQ, and everybody sleeps better at night.

If they integrated some functions, as they have on Data Domain with a cyber recovery vault, it would be ideal. They have immutable snaps that they can leverage, however, it would be nice to have something folded in with CyberSense where we could detect points in time when we need to do recovery for anything that may be compromised.

We've had Isilon for many generations. I'd say we've used it for the last eight to ten years.

We have had issues with internal load balancing between some of the shelves. That is an ongoing issue that support is trying to address. We're still waiting on a resolution for that, but that's really been our only issue with the stack that we have.

We haven't had any issues with technical support.

Positive

In terms of what we used before, I can't remember that far back. If we did it was probably some sort of Windows-based file share that was all manual controls. It's hard to compare what we used in the past as we did not switch from another vendor.

I was not directly involved with the initial development of the solution. My involvement was just the management of the storage engineers managing the system. We like to keep everything in the Dell ecosystem so it was easy enough for us to turn it over to the storage engineers.

It wasn't complex at all. Even the upgrades and controllers that we've done have been pretty straightforward, however, we've got two guys today that manage the environment.

It's deployed across two data centers.

The solution does require maintenance. We do continuous controller updates and the like, however, we do it in conjunction with support.

We have seen ROI, however, it's tough to compare since we haven't really looked at other platforms. It's been easier for us to use the platform we have.

The price is reasonable. The ease of use with the array and the functions that we get from it still seems to be better than other products that are on the market today.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten. It's still great, however, there are some internal issues that need to be resolved. That said, I understand it's always under continuous development.

I would advise potential users to not focus on the price tag right away. I know there are other cheaper solutions, however, they may not have the functionality that Isilon has and the same tie-ins that you'll get with the Dell ecosystem with features like Data Domain and Avamar, et cetera.

We use the solution for NFS. 

Dell PowerScale's performance is good. 

The product needs to improve CLI since commands are complex. The search option is also difficult since you must give the full path. 

I have been using the product for more than three years. 

Dell PowerScale is stable. 

My company has more than 1000 users for the solution, and it is scalable. 

Dell PowerScale's support is good. 

Positive

Dell PowerScale's deployment is complex. 

I rate Dell PowerScale a nine out of ten. 

We use this solution to manage large data sets. It makes it easy for us to consolidate data storage and multiple applications into a single platform for easier manageability. This means we only need to manage a minimal number of clusters. 

The solution is very flexible in supporting various data workloads while keeping them protected. It scales well with different performance node types. In terms of data protection, it replicates easily with the replication features of SyncIQ. 

We have multiple clusters across two data centers and have two main teams; our enterprise storage services team, and our HPC team who recently purchased a bunch of capacity from Iceland.

When it comes to PowerScale Cybersecurity and ransomware protection, we use a third-party solution called Superna. It is still important to us that PowerScale helps secure our data from cyber attacks. An attack can happen very quickly and be very damaging. Large data sets are difficult to protect, replicate and recover.  

Using this solution, provisioning is a lot easier because we have large capacity clusters and can easily provide storage space to users as needed. We realized the benefits of this solution shortly after deployment. The management of the solution is very easy. 

This solution has had a positive effect on our company's storage efficiency. We are able to add capacity as needed in order to scale.

The ease of use of this solution has been the most valuable aspect as well as the SyncIQ and snapshot features. 

It assists with eliminating storage silos because it provides SMB and NFS protocols. PowerScale has also helped free up our employee's time to focus on other business priorities. 

I'd like to see more Iceland products in the cloud so that we can port our data into different environments if needed. I would also like to see a virtual appliance or software-defined Iceland product.

Version upgrades and patches take a long time to complete. This could be improved. 

I have been using this solution for twelve years. 

This is a stable solution.

This is a scalable solution from a file data perspective. Scalability can be more difficult because you need three nodes minimum to start a cluster. You need a lot of other hardware to provide that service. This solution is not scalable in the cloud.

 I would rate the support for this solution a seven out of ten. The quality of support depends on the agent you deal with. 

Neutral

We have used other solutions but Iceland is the storage platform of choice for the large data sets that we have. We have a very strong relationship with Dell and their support is very good so we were very comfortable choosing Iceland.

The initial setup is straightforward. Dell came in to install the solution and update the operating systems. After that, some administration and management tasks needed to be completed, and then the setup was complete. 

Pricing for this solution is reasonable. 

This solution scales very easily. You just need to be aware of how much you scale as this can complicate the management of the solution. Scaling requires a strategy. 

PowerScale is easy to manage but more difficult to maintain. This is because it is a multiple node environment and the larger you get, the longer it takes. There are more risks when you make a change.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten. 

We have to deal with a lot of data, be able to get it across to and from different locations, and be able to store it. We use this solution for these purposes.

Overall, Dell PowerScale (Isilon) has made the management of the data and networks easier. Because we are using the same solution for multiple platforms, our personnel have become more efficient.

The fact that we were able to set it up, use it, and, for the most part, didn't have to worry about it after we had it set up has been valuable.

PowerScale's cybersecurity, including ransom protection, is very good. We've never had an issue with it.

This solution has helped free up employees to focus on other business priorities.

Data storage performance needs to be improved.

We've been using this solution for several years.

It's been very stable.

I would give technical support a ten out of ten. We generally don't need a lot of technical support unless something breaks.

Positive

We previously used another Dell product, and we switched because it became outdated.

Deployment usually takes about three to four months. We implemented it one network at a time.

Maintenance-wise, it requires standard stinging and patching to ensure that security is followed.

We haven't lost any data, and that's probably the biggest return on investment, being able to maintain data integrity.

A technical solution has to meet the requirements, and you have to know what you need in order to figure out what tool is going to best work for that.

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is a good product. It does the job, and it takes care of the data. I would rate it at nine on a scale from one to ten.

I use the solution in my company for our customers who are from the media, and as per the vendor, I can say that the tool is scalable for data storage.

The most valuable feature of the solution is the unlimited scalability. The tool has high availability and high storage capacity. The tool also offers flexibility in connection.

My company uses the tool's basic features, and some of our organization's customers moved to the product after seeing its functionalities. Our customers only use the scalability offered by the product for storage purposes, along with whatever the vendor provides as an extension for the tool.

As the product is used for basic purposes, there are not many areas in the tool that require improvement. The product is just fine for now. My company does not use many of the features of the product. I can tell what my customers want to improve in the product, and I believe that they don't want anything to be changed in the solution.

The support offered by the product is an area of concern where improvements are required. My customers don't receive much support. The support has slowed down a bit. For Vietnam, the support has to be worked on since it is slow in our country.

I have been using Dell PowerScale (Isilon) for three years. My company has a partnership with Dell.

It is a stable solution. We don't have issues so much with the stability part. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.

My company's customers are from the media involved in games and movies.

For scalability, there is just a need to connect to the right connections.

My company's clients are medium-sized businesses.

The solution's technical support team is slow in Vietnam. I rate the technical support a six out of ten.

Neutral

The product's initial setup phase is taken care of by the engineers from the product side, so my company does not have much experience in it. My company gets a deployment service from Dell, so we don't need to configure anything as everything is already configured. We just need the information for the configuration, though it is all completed for me.

The solution is deployed on the private cloud.

The solution can be deployed in a day.

The product cost is affordable. It was not very high and not too cheap.

Speaking about the integration part, just mapping the NIS server is enough. An NIS server can be integrated with the tool, making it possible to share parts with the client.

In the media, there is a need to switch files without connecting to the internet, so on the website, they don't use much of anything. Customers move the data to Dell PowerScale, especially the things they can't just use over the internet. We don't use AI for now.

The biggest benefits experienced by the users of the product revolve around the fact that the tool offers scalability.

I can recommend the tool to others.

If you have more data to store and need to scale up, then I recommend that you use Dell PowerScale (Isilon).

I rate the tool an eight out of ten.