Dell VxBlock System Reviews

We use the solution to manage our network and virtualization environment.

With a converged infrastructure, it's easy to troubleshoot from network to server issues from a single point of reference.

The ease of management is another valuable feature.

The solution could use a clearer description of working methods to tell people more about its use cases.

I have been working with VxBlock for about three years.

The solution is stable.

The solution is scalable, but it is not too easy since it has to do with OEM management by increasing storage.

Customer support has come through for all the technical issues we have faced.

The maintenance of the solution is not difficult, and a separate team handled the setup.

Staff members deployed the solution with input from a third party.

One should compare solutions vis-a-vis the price and the efficiency, as what Dell might offer at their price might be offered either at a better price or at a lower efficiency, but that depends on one's use case and how comfortable they are with the other solution.

I think Dell has a complete solution that provides both computers and storage.

I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

Its performance is very good.

It is a good product, but for us, it is like a black box. We are not really sure about its internal components, and how to do the terminal upgrade, and how to make sure about the security of the device. We understand how it works, but in order to do the upgrades, we have to get help from the company. We cannot do it ourselves. In another model that we had, the internal team could do the upgrade but not in this one. There is no clear process for a new upgrade or update. They should provide a software intelligence tool that has a dashboard where you can see the current firmware, the latest firmware, and the documentation and the process for the upgrade. 

For VxBlock, we have different management consoles. There is no single management console that you can use to manage all components inside VxBlock. Their scale up and scale out process is also not clear. Their support is also a little bit slow in responding to the cases.

We have been using this solution for six to eight months.

It is very stable.

It is easy to scale, but we didn't try scaling it.

I don't have much experience with them, but they are a little bit slow in responding to the cases. In Saudi Arabia, the support for Dell EMC is not that good. Their support should be faster.

We have tried hyper-converged infrastructure from Nutanix. I prefer Nutanix because you can scale it very easily. The upgrades and updates are very simple. Their support is also great. We have very good experience with their support.

It is a little bit complex because we are using Epic EMR in our main core application.

I would rate Dell EMC VxBlock System a seven out of ten. It is a good product, but their support is not that good. Support is one of the main factors based on which we evaluate a product.

We use the solution for database applications, using all the core features. We're a customer of VxBlock.

The most valuable features of the solution would be its good default features and the compressions. Those are the features we use regularly.  

For VxBlock, the consistency of disc quality could be improved. 

I've been using this solution for almost six years. 

The product is very stable. 

The product is scalable. 

We've used technical support from time to time and they are very good. 

We made some comparisons with other products - WMC and HP 3par but have never used them. 

Setup is fairly straightforward, deployment took between two and three weeks. 

I would rate this product a nine out of 10. 

The monitoring and management parts are the most valuable. Monitoring is specifically valuable because you have one console to monitor everything. This console is called Vision.

We are finding it a bit challenging in terms of the management of a specific VxBlock component. Currently, we have different units as a part of the block storage. We have one for Cisco equipment and one for Dell. When we have an issue in the infrastructure, Dell EMC VxBlock System should automatically detect it and send a notification to VC support, but, unfortunately, it is doing that only for one unit. It is not working for Cisco components. We have informed them about this area of improvement, and they are working on this.

The way different parts are integrated should be improved. We should have one console to log in to see all the infrastructure in terms of each machine and hardware.

I have been using this solution for three years now.

The system is quite stable. We have not faced any major issues. The issues that we faced were just minor and manageable.

In terms of scalability, it is good. The beauty is that we can scale whatever we want. We can add more compute nodes, storage nodes, or memory. We have a variety of users from different groups.

Their technical support can be improved because, sometimes, when you report an issue, it takes a while for them to respond.

It is complicated with the latest technology because you have to connect with the switches, servers, storage, and everything. All the components have to be connected so that the system can work properly. It might take three to five days, which is a lot of time.

We used an integrator.

Its price is high. That's why people are now moving to hyper-converge.

I would advise to stop using the normal spinning disk and going for an all-flash disk on the storage because of the performance issues.

I would rate Dell EMC VxBlock System a six out of ten.

We use VxBlock mainly for the OLTP workload, so all online transaction processing and most of the daily transactional application servers system. So VxBlock can take care of all our call databases each year and covers most of the customers we have using that system. We also went ahead and connected the other systems like HPU on Twitch.

So we work with clients who have different environments. For example, IBM is running Oracle, and we have customers using that setup in the banking sector. And when they implemented VxBlock, they doubled the speed of their operations. A process that used to take eight hours now only requires four hours, so they're getting a return in terms of performance. Then there is the issue of business continuity. The tools embedded in VxBlock are much more racked and easier to manage than most of the other tools on the market.

Since VxBlock is built and configured at the factory, the core back-end is very racked. It's at least 99 percent problem-free because it's factory-built. So from an informational point of view, everyone trusts that VxBlock has been tested well at the factory and has been configured to their requirements. So the rest of the add-on connections are in the core, providing a good foundation in the backend for it to run on. It's very well designed.

I want to get more information from the vendors. The hardware lifecycle is not documented very well. For example, now you can buy a piece of equipment, but you don't know if the hardware will still be in production next month or next year. Most customers expect to run this hardware and still be supported for the next five years or so. I think the projections about the lifetime of the hardware and the systems need to be better documented.

I've been working with VxBlock for maybe eight years now.

VxBlock is very stable.

VxBlock is highly scalable. We have many clients using it, and most of them are government agencies at the ministerial level, and they have thousands of users. For example, one customer has around 3,000 users. Another has 7,000 users now, and they're in the process of scaling up. So by next year, it'll be approximately 10,000 users. And that's just the primary users who are getting services directly. There are many more indirectly using VxBlock.

Support is straightforward because they have one single support entity. Different vendors supply the internal components, but the support is from one source. So that makes things simple.

As I mentioned, VxBlock is part of a more extensive system, and it is one of the fastest solutions. However, we still deploy some of their competitors depending on the customer requirements. Some other solutions are designed to work specifically for Oracle databases, whereas VxBlock is heterogeneous. It can take any workload. 

The initial setup is done at the factory. It comes pre-built, and onsite integration is plug-and-play. Irrespective of the hardware environment, it takes no more than two days per site. It takes about one or two people to deploy VxBlock. Since we are integrators, we do most of the pre-planning for the implementation. This entails making sure the environment is ready to receive and start using the equipment. So we ensure everything meets the criteria and is prepared for deployment. We spend more time on planning than implementation. If you take the time to develop a perfect plan, your deployment will be smooth.

The cost of the license varies based on the kind of software and the components you are using. It's a subscription mainly for the software that runs on the VxBlock hardware. If the software says that the subscription has expired, then you have to renew it. So basically, if the customer is running Oracle, they have to renew Oracle, but they have to renew VMware subscription licenses if they're running VMware. So the cost is dependent on that. We have customers running VMware, Microsoft, etc. So it varies from customer to customer.

I rate VxBlock nine out of 10. If you're thinking about implementing VxBlock, you need to have the right team. You need someone who understands the differences in hardware rather than someone who specializes in a particular product. So you should have a person on your team with a comprehensive understanding of the hardware. Also, some countries might be out of the service area for most vendors. In that case, you should have a contingency plan if you need a hardware replacement. It can take a long time to deliver your parts if the vendor has no presence in that region.