VxRail Reviews

The solution is used in our organization for hardware consolidation. VxRail is also used in our company to run compute and database workloads. 

In our organization, whenever we require support from VxRail, we call a single support line where we get the issues resolved over the same call, whether it's a hardware or software issue with VxRail.

The present SaaS model license structure can be improved. Our company prefers perpetual licensing instead of the license that expires along with outdated hardware. Whenever the hardware for running VxRail needs to be replaced in our company, the license must be repurchased. 

In future releases from the vendor, I would prefer that other parts of the VMware environment, such as NSX, be integrated with the VxRail bundle. Presently, the vendor offers NSX as an add-on feature.  

I have been using VxRail for six years. 

I would rate the stability a ten out of ten. The solution is exceptionally resilient. Even when we are doing maintenance on VxRail, it doesn't hinder the product's functionality for end users. Managing system downtime for maintenance is a lot more seamless in VxRail compared to other solutions. 

When there are hardware failures on the system, it doesn't impact the end customers in VxRail. The downtime issues are managed efficiently in VxRail and it gets back to full-scale production without anyone noticing the outage. 

I would rate the scalability a seven out of ten. If nodes are being added to the solution after several years since deployment, a similar type and size of hard drives are required that were primarily used. As processor drives are constantly evolving, it's hard to obtain some specific types of processor drive models, which can be challenging to execute within the cluster. If the ideal hardware equipment can be procured, scaling the cluster is a straightforward process in VxRail. 

In our company, there are hundreds of VxRail users, it's a critical component of our daily operations and is used 24/7. In the future, our organization is planning to migrate more systems to VxRail and increase usage due to its satisfying performance over the past few years. In our organization, we have recently replaced the solution's cluster with hardware that will facilitate expansive use in the future. 

On rare occasions when we have reached out to customer support, we have experienced quick fault identification from the team and resolution over a single phone call. Whatever challenges we face in our company with VxRail, it's quite easy to overcome with the support from the vendor. I would rate the tech support a ten out of ten. 

Positive

We used specific servers prior to using VxRail, in 2018 our company switched to VxRail to virtualize our application. The traditional model of virtualizing at the time was using a standby storage with had a significant cost to enter the virtualizing space.

So, with VxRail, our company was able to start virtualization on a smaller scale and grow as we needed it, whereas traditional three-tier virtualization requires huge storage from the start. In our organization, we also evaluated three-tier virtualization with SAN storage, but we opted for VxRail based on its cost and features. 

I would rate the initial setup a ten out of ten. The Dell support team has done an excellent job with VxRail's documentation. Once the prerequisites of the system installation are met, the deployment process becomes extremely easy. 

The initial setup of VxRail in our organization took around 48 hours to make the complete cluster operational. Planning is the first step in the deployment of VxRail; there's a set of network requirements that need to be implemented. Once the aforementioned step is completed in our organization, we arrange for cabling off of the system.

Then, as part of the deployment process, hardware installation and configuration need to be performed. The integration of VxRail is quite straightforward. VxRail offers a simplified way to fill in key data, unlike network subnet ranges and DNS host names. Once the deployment process of VxRail is completed, the cluster gets auto-created.

In our company, I managed the VxRail deployment process along with one external Dell services professional. Only one person is required for the maintenance of VxRail on an ad hoc basis who can maintain multiple other solutions besides VxRail. The solution's maintenance process is straightforward. 

VxRail offers satisfying integration capabilities based on the VMware platform. The solution also integrates effectively with VMware vCenter and external backup systems. Our company has hyper-converged infrastructures, where sometimes VMs need to be migrated from VxRail to other systems. The aforementioned migration process can be implemented effortlessly using the solution. The VMware API is easily accessible to third parties, and the solution integrates seamlessly with VxRail. 

I would rate the pricing as seven out of ten. It's a highly expensive solution. Our company purchases VxRail with a five-year license agreement. But our organization makes additional payments in between for renewal of support or replacement of equipment. Our company about six years ago paid around five million rands to adopt a four-node VxRail solution. 

The solution allowed our organization to dramatically reduce its overall footprint in the data center from about three racks to less than half a rack. 

VxRail has improved our organization's resilience of hardware footprint. The solution has enhanced our company's operations in terms of frequent backups compared to physical systems. The total time to recover data has also improved by leveraging VxRail in our company. 

The storage virtualization feature of VxRail has been the most vital part of our company's improvement in operations. The solution assisted our organization in achieving the latency we desired. VxRail is a full-time key solution. 

I would recommend VxRail as an excellent turnkey solution to any company focusing on applications rather than the hardware platform. Very limited management or maintenance is required for VxRail, and it's considered a safe solution. I would rate the solution as eight out of ten. I would definitely recommend VxRail to other users. 

The tool is an HCI. We use it in our organization. We have implemented the product in our DBC environment.

The solution is good. The solution has simplified our operations. It integrates everything into the same place. All our network, storage, and computing tools are integrated together. It is more easy to manage. The integrated management tools are good.

The support protocols have changed after Broadcom acquired VMware. We are concerned about the support. However, we haven’t contacted support yet.

I have been using the solution for almost six months.

The product is stable.

The product is scalable. We have 500 users in our organization. We need a couple of people for maintenance.

The technical support is good. The responses depend on the criticality of the incidents.

Positive

The implementation took three months.

The implementation was done by the vendor. I rate them a ten out of ten. I did not face any issues.

The tool is expensive. The affordability depends on our requirements. We chose the product because it was comparatively cheaper than other products and provided the required reliability.

At the moment, we cannot scale the solution. It is in our five-year plan. We are underutilizing the product. The system is normally run on VMware. VMware’s support was built-in. VMware has been acquired by Broadcom. Overall, I rate the tool an eight out of ten.

We use the solution to host virtual machines or servers. We host Red Hat Enterprise Linux and other application servers.

We have automated the build of the VMs. We have automated the complete process. If users need a VM, they go to a portal and fill out a form. The automation takes the details and builds a VM for them. Keeping it virtualized on VxRail makes the VM adaptive to scaling. When we have a resource contention, we can easily increase the capacity. It is a valuable aspect for us.

We don't want some of our applications on the public cloud. We want to keep them on-premise in our environment for various security and compliance reasons. VxRail gives us the flexibility that we usually get on the cloud. We can scale as per the demand with a quick turnaround. Once we get familiar with the tool, it is pretty easy to manage and build. The tool is easy to manage and easy to maintain. It provides amazing support and a good return on investment.

The product comes with a certain number of nodes. It is an underlying cluster. If I run a 4-node VxRail cluster, I need to add at least two more nodes to extend the cluster. If I want a certain amount of clusters and add only one node, I do not have the flexibility to do it. The product must provide more flexibility in adding nodes. The UI could be a little more informative.

I have been reselling the solution to my clients for almost three to four years. I am working with the latest version.

The stability is amazing.

The scalability of the product is the biggest selling point. We have 15,000 users in our organization. They use the applications that are running in the VxRail environment. We have many more customers using the tool. We have plans to increase the number of users. The scalability is a bit rigid, though.

The support is amazing if we get premium Dell support. The support is very good, especially in the South Central regions of the USA. We got Dell to come on-site to rack and stack our VxRail. The initial configuration and the management of the support have been excellent.

Positive

The setup is pretty straightforward. It is not complicated. There are specifications of what is required. We have to be ready with our architecture and how we want to design our cluster after the hardware setup. Once the architecture is ready, it is pretty straightforward to implement it in a VxRail environment. The maintenance is not complex. Virtual networking needs a bit of skill to manage. If we have the right resources, it is easily manageable and maintainable.

Dell professionals did the deployment and setup.

VxRail is the best solution in the industry if we want to host things internally in our environment and for applications that are not ready to go to the cloud yet.

We get special pricing since we are partners.

We are partners and resellers. Organizations that want to invest in the solution must investigate which applications are needed and which are not. If we don't make that decision correctly with the required data points, we will go into the cloud and get stuck with a lack of security. Once the user does the research properly, the best option for keeping their things on-premise with a decent cost and return on investment is VxRail. Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

We use the solution as a VDI for the desktop environment. 

One of VxRail's most valuable features is its small footprint in the data center. Additionally, the solution's simplicity is a significant advantage. You don’t have to configure or learn about storage software and administer many things separately. You can do all the administration jobs in one pane, bringing agility and simplicity.

There is an area for improvement with VxRail, specifically the upgrade process. Upgrading the is quite complex and almost exclusively requires Dell support. You can't do it alone, so you need to have support contracts running, which could be streamlined to improve the solution.

I have been working with the product for four years. 

We haven't had any issues. The solution always runs well, even during some hardware failures.

The solution is very scalable overall. However, the time to deploy isn't very quick, so if you need a large expansion, you must plan and project it with some time in advance. My company has 2000 users. 

Dell support is quick and assertive in addressing our needs. The Dell EMC team, particularly those supporting storage and standard systems, is very professional and productive. We have some assets with Dell ProSupport Plus, and they proactively help us predict failures, apply updates, and provide excellent support overall.

Positive

The solution's deployment is very easy. The major cause of delayed deployments usually comes from our internal processes rather than from Dell's side. Dell is always ready to deploy the equipment promptly.

On a scale from one to ten, I'd rate it a six in terms of ease of maintenance. It's not very simple to maintain because of the many integrated components, which add some complexity. However, overall, it is manageable and affordable.

VxRail has brought value to our environment. It has been running for about four years and performed very well. All of our users need to connect to the infrastructure to do their jobs, and throughout the product's lifecycle, we haven't experienced any problems. The solution has always operated well. 

VxRail does raise the price, but overall, it's well-priced. It's not more expensive than other similar solutions. If you were to create an in-house, tailor-made solution, you could potentially do it at a lower cost. However, I think a fully integrated solution like VxRail should be priced appropriately.

We plan to change our line of business infrastructure, which is currently based on traditional servers and central storage. However, we are also considering other options in the market.

I rate the overall product an eight out of ten. 

We run the applications on VxRail. We run all the applications that we have virtualized through VxRail.

By implementing VxRail, we wanted hyperconvergence.

We are a little unhappy with the last five nodes that we have bought because we have had them for less than one year, but the power supply already burned out, and three network cards from three different nodes had to be changed. With the other seven nodes, we were more or less happy because the only failure they had was the CMOS battery. There were some small issues, but with these last ones, we are a little dissatisfied.

Their support team is always very willing to help, but in the end, we are not 100% satisfied. To give you an idea, we have, for example, four support cases open for which we still do not know what the solution is. One of the cases is that we have a cabin through a Unity node, which is also Dell’s, but the other nodes have zero visibility with the cabin. The only solution that we have been told is to eliminate or clean all the network units that are placed there, which is a drastic solution involving the loss of service, so we are a little dissatisfied with that solution. Their support is very receptive. Our customers try to quickly raise the incident, and we try to open the cases quickly as well. To be fair, someone from the support team contacts you quickly, but it takes too long for them to find the solution. For this reason, we are a little dissatisfied.

VxRail has the ability to consolidate infrastructure from multiple locations. It is a fundamental part. Especially for geographical redundancy, it is furthermore necessary and mandatory.

In terms of VxRail’s ability to simplify our management of VMware, simplifying VMware management is impossible.

VxRail consumes a lot of energy. The rack we have has seven nodes and then it has a cabin and more features. In the end, it consumes a lot of energy, but it is normal. They are working 24/7 after all.

When it comes to reduction in unplanned production downtime, because we have seven redundant nodes, it is hard to know if VxRail is helping to reduce unplanned production downtime. If we had only one or two nodes, the experience would be different because then the node would have been active 24/7, but this is not the case. Because we have seven nodes, we have everything redundant.

At the moment, VxRail has not had any effect on the flexibility of our operations or business. VxRail has also not had any impact on our organization’s sustainability goals because we do not have any sustainability goals.

It is very powerful. We find that to be the most valuable aspect. The movement of devices between nodes is very easy.

The agility of the support team to provide you with better solutions should be improved. VxRail also has to be improved in terms of simplicity. Adding a simple node seemed like quite a project.

We have had it for five years. We had seven nodes, and last year, we bought five more nodes.

It is pretty stable.

In our infrastructure, we started with five nodes. We then increased them to six, and then we grew them to seven. It is not “plug and play” as they say. It took Dell’s technician almost a week to add the node so it is not that simple.

It is a very expensive support, so it is logical that they will assist you quickly, but in the end, for the resolution itself, in many cases, you go around 1,000 times. You waste a lot of time, and they do not find a solution right away.

Neutral

This is the first solution of this type that we've used.

The ROI cannot be measured. In the end, it is a horizontal service that we have to provide, and we have no other option but to give it. The cost does not matter.

It is very expensive.

We also evaluated HP and other solutions, but in the end, we chose VxRail because other colleagues were using it and we already had that knowledge close to us. We said, “Well, let’s take advantage of the know-how.”

We did not consider public cloud infrastructure before choosing VxRail. Due to our business characteristics, a public cloud is not an option. We must have everything on-premises.

At the moment, it does cover our objectives. I do not yet know about the competition. We are now evaluating alternatives, and we cannot yet compare. I would rate Dell VxRail a six out of ten.

Foreign Language:(Spanish)

Título: El movimiento de dispositivos es fácil, pero el soporte es insatisfactorio

¿Durante cuánto tiempo utiliza Dell VxRail?

Lo tenemos desde hace cinco años. Teníamos siete nodos y el año pasado compramos cinco nodos más.

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

Ejecutamos las aplicaciones en VxRail. Ejecutamos todas las aplicaciones que tenemos virtualizadas a través de VxRail.

Al implementar VxRail, queríamos hiperconvergencia.

Comparta cómo Dell VxRail ha mejorado su infraestructura de TI. Si no fue así, explique por qué.

Estamos un poco descontentos con los últimos cinco nodos que hemos comprado porque los tenemos desde hace menos de un año, pero ya se quemó una fuente y hubo que cambiar tres tarjetas de red de tres nodos diferentes. Con los otros siete nodos estábamos más o menos contentos porque el único fallo que sentimos fue en cuanto a la batería CMOS, Hubo algunos pequeños problemas pero con estos últimos estamos un poco descontentos.

Su equipo de soporte siempre está muy dispuesto, pero al final no estamos 100% satisfechos. Para que os hagáis una idea, tenemos por ejemplo cuatro casos de soporte abiertos de los que todavía no sabemos cuál es la solución. Uno de los casos es que tenemos una cabina a través de un nodo de Unity, que también es de Dell, pero los demás nodos tienen visibilidad nula con la cabina. La única solución que nos han dicho es eliminar o limpiar todas las unidades de red que allí se encuentran colocadas, lo cual es una solución drástica que implica la pérdida del servicio, por lo que estamos un poco insatisfechos con esa solución. Su apoyo es muy receptivo. Nuestros clientes intentan comunicarnos rápidamente sobre el incidente y nosotros también intentamos abrir los casos rápidamente. Para ser justos, alguien del equipo de soporte se comunica contigo rápidamente, pero tarda demasiado en encontrar la solución. Por eso estamos un poco descontentos.

VxRail tiene la capacidad de consolidar infraestructura desde múltiples ubicaciones. Es una parte fundamental. Especialmente en el caso de la redundancia geográfica, además es necesario y obligatorio.

En términos de la capacidad de VxRail para simplificar nuestra administración de VMware, simplificar la administración de VMware es imposible.

VxRail consume mucha energía. El rack que tenemos tiene siete nodos y luego tiene una cabina y más funciones. Al final consume mucha energía, pero es normal. Después de todo, trabajan 24 horas al día, 7 días a la semana.

Cuando se trata de reducir el tiempo de inactividad de producción no planificado, debido a que tenemos siete nodos redundantes, es difícil saber si VxRail está ayudando a reducir el tiempo de inactividad de producción no planificado. Si tuviéramos solo uno o dos nodos, la experiencia sería diferente porque entonces el nodo habría estado activo 24 horas al día, 7 días a la semana, pero este no es el caso. Como tenemos siete nodos, tenemos todo redundante.

Por el momento, VxRail no ha tenido ningún efecto en la flexibilidad de nuestras operaciones o negocios. VxRail tampoco ha tenido ningún impacto en los objetivos de sostenibilidad de nuestra organización porque no tenemos ningún objetivo de sostenibilidad.

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

La potencia que tiene es valiosa y el movimiento de dispositivos entre nodos es muy sencillo.

¿En qué áreas se podría mejorar Dell VxRail?

Se debe mejorar la agilidad del equipo de soporte para que brinde mejores soluciones. VxRail también debe mejorarse en términos de simplicidad. Agregar un nodo simple parecía todo un proyecto.

¿Utilizó anteriormente diferentes soluciones hiperconvergentes? En caso afirmativo, ¿cuál y por qué cambió?

No, esta es el primera.

Antes de elegir Dell VxRail, ¿evaluó otras opciones? ¿De ser asi, cuales?

También evaluamos HP y otros, pero al final se eligió VxRail porque otros colegas lo estaban usando y ya teníamos ese conocimiento cerca de nosotros. Dijimos “Bueno, aprovechemos el know-how”.

No consideramos la infraestructura de nube pública antes de elegir VxRail. Por nuestras características de negocio, una nube pública no es una opción. Debemos tener todo en las instalaciones.

¿Qué opina sobre el precio y/o la licencia de Dell VxRail?

Es muy caro.

¿Cuáles son sus impresiones sobre la escalabilidad de Dell VxRail?

En nuestra infraestructura, comenzamos con cinco nodos. Luego los aumentamos a seis y luego los aumentamos a siete. No es “plug and play” como dicen. Al técnico de Dell le llevó casi una semana agregar el nodo, por lo que no es tan sencillo.

¿Cuáles son sus impresiones sobre la estabilidad de Dell VxRail?

Es bastante estable.

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

El retorno de la inversión no se puede medir. Al final es un servicio horizontal que tenemos que dar y no nos queda otra que darlo. El costo no importa.

Cuéntanos tu experiencia con el servicio y soporte al cliente.

Es un soporte muy caro, por lo que es lógico que te atiendan rápidamente, pero al final, para la resolución en sí, en muchos casos, das 1.000 vueltas. Pierdes mucho tiempo y no encuentran una solución inmediata.

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

5.

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

De momento, sí cubre nuestros objetivos. Aún no sé sobre la competencia. Ahora estamos evaluando alternativas y todavía no podemos comparar. Calificaría a Dell VxRail con un seis sobre diez.

When it comes to our infrastructure, VxRail has been performing well for the last three years. I also worked with a client who uses the solution in their setup.

Based on our requirements in the VxRail environment, we can increase or decrease the resources as needed, without needing to reconfigure every server at a specific time. This solution ensures uptime, providing 100% availability so servers can operate without downtime.

The solution works with VMware on the software side. It's an integrated EMS product with hardware provided as a bundle by Broadcom. Unlike Nutanix, which focuses solely on HCI, VxRail includes VMware software, offering a complete solution without the need to choose operating systems like Windows or Linux separately. The solution also has AI capabilities.

It has a good interface. However, during upgrades, some aspects get broken, requiring us to follow up with the VMware team to fix them. It's not a major issue though.

I have been using the solution for more than four years. Currently, I’m using version 7.0.

The solution is stable; its performance depends on the load you put on the cluster. It should work perfectly if you allocate resources—such as memory and storage.

The solution is scalable.

It is more than satisfactory, it is really good because they always respond to emails and issues immediately. They don't take their own sweet time, especially during critical times.

It is easy to deploy. It can be done within a couple of hours. However, the deployment time depends on the number of nodes. In a low-node-count scenario, we can deploy it in three to four hours. One person is sufficient for deployment. There are two aspects to deployment: hardware and software. Stacking alone takes time as it involves installing equipment in the rack, which takes a couple of hours to complete properly. After stacking, another couple of hours are needed to configure all nodes into a cluster.

We have a single deployment package we can upload and proceed with. It automatically applies the package to each node by putting them in maintenance mode, which makes it very easy. I have not faced any issues with this process, including with my clients.

The solution is on the higher end of the price range compared to Cisco and Nutanix.

Based on my direct usage of the solution, I find Dell more mature in product maturity than Nutanix and Cisco. However, I rate Nutanix as a close second, considering Cisco's relatively late entry into the visualization market. I must mention that I cannot accurately rate these products since I have not used them. This assessment is based on my research and understanding; my opinion might change if I gain direct experience with the products.

Overall, I rate the product a nine out of ten.

We are using VxRail for the whole infrastructure of our company. We are using VxRail E660F.

The most valuable feature is that it is VMware-embedded. VxRail HCI is on VMware, and we can use VMware vCenter and vSphere. Our infrastructure consists of servers and VMware, and by using VxRail, our experience and familiarity have not changed because VxRail HCI is on VMware.

If they continue developing their product regarding VMware, it will be one of the best products in the HCI space. In terms of additional features, there is nothing missing because, for data protection, they also have the CDP option for VM. They can protect the VM at any point in time.

I have been using VxRail for two years.

We never had any problems with stability. It is very stable.

It is scalable. Currently, we have almost 40 VMs on VxRail.

Only the IT admin works with VxRail. Only the IT admin can monitor and configure VxRail.

We create tickets for support. We are using the Dell portal and if we have any problem with VMware or hardware, we just create a ticket with their support. We do not need to go to the vendor hardware, or we do not need to go to VMware. We can contact them through a single point.

I would rate their support a ten out of ten because once I created a ticket in the afternoon and in about half an hour, I got an email from someone about the problem. He wanted to have a phone call with me. I appreciate it.

Positive

We were using the traditional servers and VMware. We moved to VxRail because we wanted availability and 100% uptime. We do not want any downtime in our company. We want everything to be online 24/7.

Its initial setup is very easy as compared to vSAN, traditional models, and VMware vCenter because everything is automated, but you need to prepare your data, for example, your IP address for the cluster and your username and password.

It is expensive as compared to other products in the same category.

You can use it if you are familiar with VMware because VxRail is VMware. Everything is VMware.

I would rate VxRail a ten out of ten. It is more expensive than other products in this category, but because of the performance, experience, and data protection that you get, it is worth the money.

The big portion of it is the VDIs, XenDesktop VDIs. I would say that our biggest deployment for VDI is approximately 15,000 users.

Our team actually maintains the solution and deploys the updates, etc. We have two people that handle all maintenance-related issues. Mostly me but I have support from another person.

VxRail does not require fiber switches or external storage. It's easy to replace and manage. It's centralized management through VxRail Manager.

The upgrade process is still not finished up. Sometimes during the upgrade process of VxRail, we experience errors that have nothing to do with reality and I cannot troubleshoot them without calling Dell and bringing in an engineer to figure it out.

If the VxRail upgrade fails on one of the particular nodes in the cluster, it doesn't stop, It pauses. When a problem's fixed and you retry it, it starts from the beginning.

For example, If I have 32 nodes in a cluster and I have a problem with the 31st node, I have to start from node 1 to check everything. To get to node 31, it takes up to three hours.

I have been using VxRail for three and a half years.

Stability is not related to VxRail. It's related to vSAN. Because VxRail has nothing to do with vSAN. VxRail's just aiding automation and the orchestration processes to vSAN, the VMware vSAN. Overall, the stability is pretty good if the hardware is stable.

The scalability is 10 out of 10. I can add or remove hosts at any time. I have no problem with that.

I'm really pleased with the technical support because it's centralized. It's not just VxRail support, it's hardware support and vSAN support, VMware support. If I call Dell for any problems relating to VxRail, I don't have to call anybody else.

In any case, if we need VMware engineers, it's just a matter of internally bringing somebody on the call, and then we figure it out together.

The initial setup is straightforward. As soon as I prepare a JSON file I have no problem.

Usually deployment depends on the number of nodes — it's taken up to two hours.

I was not involved in the licensing of this solution.

If you're interested in using VxRail, use your judgment. There are multiple solutions and all of them are geared toward different use cases. Some people will prefer HyperFlex, others will prefer to go with Nutanix, VxRail, or, for god's sake, vSAN ReadyNodes.

VxRail has some limitations. For me, it's limited from doing what it's supposed to do because it's provided by VxRail — it's automated and orchestrated by VxRail. For example, I cannot use VMware Update Manager. I have to use a bundle, which is produced by Dell, and usually, they are at least a month to a month and a half behind VMware.

Overall, on a scale from one to ten, I would give VxRail a rating of eight.