VxRail Reviews

Our goal is to deploy a new CITRIX environment - migration from actual legacy model (hardware) to this new solution.

Still waiting deliverance - delayed due SARs-COV2 restrictions.

The solution is good in terms of being resilient with resources. For example, it can process memory well.

We are packaging it with an HCI solution from VMware which pairs well with VxRail. It improves the solution. 

The pricing is very, very good.

The overall performance is going to be elevated, giving the customers a better experience.

I can't speak to any missing features or weak aspects of the system just yet. We haven't had a chance to really dig in.

Currently we're still in the process of implementation .

The solution is stable. We haven't really worked on it yet, however.

We plan to scale the solution to 3,000 users and therefore we have a good idea of how much it can scale for us. We are pretty happy with it's potential to scale.

Technical support has been very good. We're very satisfied with the level of support they give us.

We previously used an older version of the solution. We switched so that we could change the load solution.

The solution hasn't really arrived yet. We're still in the process of the implementation strategy. We're working with our reseller in order to implement everything.

We're not sure how long deployment will take us in the end. That's yet to be seen.

We are going to deploy the solution in perhaps three months, we expect. At this point, we're going to plan the installation, plan the rollout of our actual solution between HPE Blade and the old solution. We're going to install VxRail, deploy Citrix environment, and so on.

We're getting our reseller to also implement the solution for us. Dell EMC offers installations and we've opted to let them handle it.

I wasn't involved in the negotiation of terms, therefore it's hard to discuss the ROI we expect.

We've found the pricing to be pretty good.

For the license option, we're buying a five-year solution. It's a full box. We buy the hardware and software solution for five years. Therefore, there's that VMware solution, licensing for five years, and the hardware valid five years of warranty. At this moment, there are no other fees.

We evaluated two other options before choosing this product. The first was Nutanix and SimpliVity from HP.

We're a customer of Dell.

We have knowledge about the VMware solution. With VxRail, we will be increasing our knowledge. Therefore, we're expecting to improve our internal solutions and the overall solutions for our internal consumers.

While we haven't implemented it yet, we're expecting it will improve our environment a lot. We're excited to be working with it.

Overall, from what I have seen so far, I'd rate the solution at an eight out of ten.

We use it for provisioning the applications for customers. There are no specific sets of installations for using the solutions. We meet the customers' needs through their requests. 

It is easily scalable, easy to manage, and has rapid provisioning. 

In the future, they could provide faster performance. 

VxRail has many components integrated into one solution. Instead of integrating many components, having a single component with VMware as a solution; this could be useful.

We have been using the solution for around three years now.

It is a stable product.

It is an easily scalable product. It is a perfect fit for use in small and medium businesses. For the larger enterprise, you can use it, but again it depends on the use case. If you have a specific use case that fuels for VxRail, definitely it can be used.

The technical support is good but could be better.

We have used other solutions in the past like Nutanix and SimpliVity but VxRail definitely has more advantages. Mainly it uses the VMware vSAN technology, and it is ever-evolving. It integrates with a large ecosystem of solutions. When you consider a large enterprise, these organizations require solutions that include security, scalability, and all the network components in place and integrated. VxRail is more capable of handling these complexities than any other product.

The setup is very simple.

We provided the deployment service and depending on if all the prerequisites are met, we can have it all completed in one day.

The price would be in the middle to the expensive range. It is not cheap. There are different licensing models as well which can meet the requirements of the customer.

I would recommend VxRail, it works for most of the use cases. 

It is good to understand you can't have 100% of all the applications installed. It's never possible with a product like this. At the end of the day, it's a good solution. Whenever there is a need for IT infrastructure requirements, you can definitely consider VxRail. 

If there are very specific requirements or things that are very specific to traditional infrastructure, they can go with that, or for intensive cloud-native applications, they can go with cloud. VxRail comes in the middle. It can extend to use all the applications but do have a proper study to get the right solution for you. 

I rate VxRail an eight out of ten.

The cover points feature in VxRail is remarkable. It's unique. It has an intervention failover system as well as an automatic failover system, reaching clusters existing in VxRail. This makes all files act as a single file with a large and huge resource, and, of course, with customized administration, configuration, and resources. It provides automatic failover for redundancy and data recovery.

If they can provide deduplication compression through the traditional hard drives, as Cisco does in the HyperFlex system, it will be very cost-effective, especially when it comes to archiving workload. 

VxRail doesn't allow the mixing of old flash clusters and hyper clusters. When I'm starting with an old flash cluster and it comes to archiving workload, I will also need to attend the new cluster. So, I either manage two different clusters, or I pay and upload my work with the archiving mobile hard drive, which is not cost-effective at all. The main key is to allow mixing between two types of clustering, like Nutanix, or allow deduplication of completion over the period of shared hard drive on SAV. It will be much better.

I have been using this solution for four to five years. I have used three generations of Dell servers. 

It is very stable and durable. It only depends on vSAN, which is the number one software that defines storage. 

Currently, more than 500 users are using VxRail in our company. It's capable of delivering for all types of workloads. Technically, it depends on the hyper-converged instructions. This means that you have 100% assurance of its compatibility with all of its components. It should also carry all types of workload dispersing, that is, from the normal traditional virtual machines to high-performance computing, such as HEP workload, heavy database, artificial intelligence, and business analytics.

They provide good support. You can reach them, especially if your system is at ESRS, EMC functional support. You can just chat with one of their technicians. They collect the logs and discover the issue. It takes almost a couple of hours from opening the ticket to resolve it. They are very good.

The hardware replacement takes 24 hours. They have their own stock here in Egypt.

It is easy to install and implement the VxRail clusters. The initial setup was a piece of cake for us. 

We manage the storage, compute, and virtual machines as well as networking through the perfect channel. 

We do all kinds of deployments. We check whether the customer wants to deploy it on-premises, cloud, or integrate with the public cloud to tier and replicate.

VxRail is very cost-effective and affordable in the long term. It is more recommended when it comes to financial life, but it may depend upon the license. VxRail comes with VMware licensing, which may not be that cost-effective as compared to others. With VMware, it's an auto check competition. VMware is an expensive solution, especially for Nutanix. Nutanix have their own hypervisor called Acronis, which is very cost-effective against the VMware.

Nutanix is cheaper for the hardware but not for the software. If you ask the Nutanix partners to deploy Nutanix over Cisco servers or Dell EMC servers, the cost will be higher. Nutanix wants to compete financially. Therefore, they propose their software over the Supermicro server, which is a very cheap Chinese server. In fact, I don't like their terms of service.

HyperFlex has the highest price, and it is very expensive. I don't know why. It may be because this is a UCS system, which comes from Cisco and is already expensive. When it comes to HyperFlex, they need the labor to deploy Hyper-V, Citrix, or any other hypervisor.

I also deal with HyperFlex and Nutanix. In fact, I prefer VxRail. 

When comparing with HyperFlex, VxRail is much alike HyperFlex. It is very cost-effective, and it doesn't have too many conditions like HyperFlex. When you start with building clusters in HyperFlex, you stick to the selected nodes forever. It is not the same in VxRail. You start with pNode in VxRail, and then you add eNode, sNode, etc.  

HyperFlex has its own limitations. They say we can create up to 64 nodes, but, in fact, there are only 52 storage and 52 nodes compute with no mixing between two workloads. On the other hand, in VxRail, you can really create up to 64 nodes, which means the double amount of nodes to carry more servers, more computing in the clusters. 

There are too many concerns about HyperFlex, especially related to performance. HyperFlex source the deduplication compression. You don't have the option to enable or disable the deduplication compression, which means that deduplication ends the performance. In VxRail, you can enable or disable the deduplication compression. So, you can gain a net performance against the storage, and you can move the storage against the performance. You can balance the full configuration. 

When it comes to the software, Nutanix is great. The main concern is that Nutanix doesn't have its own hardware, and it is integrated with different types of servers to deploy its own system. Nutanix just has a contract with Noble, Supermicro, or HP to develop its own system, which is okay for some types of users. However, many types of users request and prefer the full software or hardware that comes from a single vendor so that they can achieve the maximum and ultimate support.

I would rate VxRail an eight out of ten. They should allow the deduplication compression over the hard drives and mixing of the hyper and the old flash clusters.

VxRail is a simple, efficient solution. It's easy to upgrade and scale the solution. If we increase our user base, we can easily scale it out. We have several thousand using it now. 

When we have a vulnerability or we need to upgrade VxRail, it takes a long time. It takes eight hours each time we upgrade. 

I've been using VxRail for six or seven years.

VxRail is stable. However, it's not a central solution, so we can lose some information, logs, and data when we remove a node. The efficiencies must be improved. For example, in Nutanix, when you move or remove a node, you get any errors or warnings, and you can work as well. But removing nodes in VxRail could cause some issues. You have to put the node in maintenance mode then reboot the rest.

I haven't used Dell EMC support. My colleagues made a ticket with Dell EMC one year ago, but it's a strong solution. When we have an issue, it's usually not a problem with the hardware solution or the infrastructure. We more often have issues with the system close to the baseline solution, like the VMware app or Zoom. When we have trouble with those solutions, we make a support ticket with VMware support, etc., not Dell support.

You don't have to be an expert to install VxRail. To install the node, you just follow the steps from Dell EMC, and you can install the solution in one sitting. It only takes one person to install. We have 30 engineers on my team, but only three are responsible for maintaining VxRail. 

We have a three-year subscription.

I rate VxRail seven out of 10. Maybe when they put out the new version, I'll rate it eight. I would recommend it to others. 

We use it for our applications, which are all homeward applications and on a Windows-based server. VxRail has performed well so far. 

With VxRail, there is a single vendor with the hardware, software, and maintenance. Thus, there is a single vendor with whom we can contact. With other products of HPE, you have to procure different vendors and pay the hardware to HPE, the software to VMware, and the maintenance to someone else.

• They should add automation and activation going forward.
• VxRail is missing some of the features that Nutanix has in its product.
• Next release, we would like to see online applications.

It is very stable.

It is scalable. When you are buying it, you have to buy a minimum of three nodes. After that, if you want to add more nodes, you can buy can buy them. You can also add-on additional compute and storage.

The technical support is very helpful and answers questions whenever we have issues with the product.

The initial setup was straightforward.

Compare the VxRail product to Nutanix. Nutanix has more features, but its pricing is higher.

We went with Dell VxRail because we have a good relationship with Dell EMC. The second reason was the price. We procured a very limited edition of VxRail. 

We are currently looking at buying a full featured edition of a hyper-converged product. For example, we are considering buying Nutanix, HPE SimpliVity, VxRail (the third edition), or Cisco HyperFlex solution.

Most important criteria when selecting a vendor:

• Stability
• Scalability
• Technical background of the company
• Price.

We use it for our database, all in Flash. So we have excellent performance, and it has resolved all our issues. No issues at all. And the support is very fast.

This solution is very good. It's a product from the other line, and it's very efficient for us. It has worked very well for us, and we haven't encountered any critical issues with it.

The solution is very expensive. And it's not scalable for small businesses, just medium to large enterprises. The pricing could be cheaper. 

Another area of improvement is support. It could be faster. 

We have been using this solution for about four years.

The solution is really stable.

It is a scalable solution. It handles big data of our database, about three or four million customer services.

Overall, the support is good. But sometimes, it takes a long time for the support to respond. 

The initial setup is very complex. 

Our partner also provides us with implementation and deployment support. We're not capable of troubleshooting it ourselves. We need technical support to handle it, and sometimes, it takes a long time to get the support.

Deployment takes a long time, but three people are enough. One admin, one manager.

The license is very expensive. 

Overall, I would rate the solution an eight out of ten. It's a very good and effective product, though somewhat expensive. But in terms of performance and stability, it's worth it.

We have four to five clusters, and one of those clusters is an OT environment. We work in the oil and gas sector. We have deployed VxRail in three sites, mainly as a DMZ zone. We have another cluster for our internal network and a new VxRail cluster is going to be deployed and dedicated to SAP HANA.

The major advantage is the blueprint. You do not need to separately manage the sand or network part because it all gets virtualized.

The upgrading and virtualization of VxRail are easy to use. Compared to some of the other technology we use which requires a 32 GB memory minimum for one VM, VxRail does not require this additional memory. 

The SCL database sends out a warning and you have to download the adjacent file from the Dell website. You have to upload and retest it. We cannot always connect our systems to the internet which means we sometimes miss these important updates. 

I have been using this solution for five years. 

This is a scalable solution. 

The support for this solution is really good. I always use the chat medium because it is easy to open a ticket and get assistance. 

I would rate the support for this solution a ten out of ten. 

Positive

We previously used the initial generation of VxRail but experienced some issues. We went with another vendor but faced hardware-level stability issues and so we returned to VxRail.

The main issue during the initial deployment is if there are any errors, you have to completely re-image the nodes. There is no option to fix the issues and resume from where you stopped. This adds many hours to the process. 

We always follow what Dell recommends and their best practices.

We evaluated Nutanix for Discover FLeX and Dell. The Nutanix hardware is really stable and they still follow the chassis architecture. 

Dell changed from the chassis form factor to different nodes, so installing different nodes each time is easy, but when you have too many nodes it needs more space.

I would recommend VxRail because after using the solution for many years, I still prefer VxRail.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten. 

Our whole company uses it. We have VxRail in our solution center, which designs software and hardware solutions for our customers' new opportunities. For example, recently, we were asked to develop a Kubernetes environment that the customer wanted to use and researched several different organizations, such as Red Hat's OpenShift.

We wanted to test capabilities on Tanzu, and VxRail was a great home for that, so we brought all the software into the VxRail and showed the inner workings of the data flows for this new capability to the customer. In the end, they didn't necessarily need a VxRail, but that's the beauty of it. It's a vanilla platform to reside modernized software on.

The VxRail is built on two specific platforms that have been in the industry for the last 15 to 20 years: the 1-U socket and the 2-U socket platforms from Dell. They're in their sixteenth generation of those platforms, I believe, so they're very stable. 

VxRail is in its third generation, I think, and I know there are consistent updates to that material on nearly a monthly basis. Most of my customers are federally focused, which means some of this material comes into an environment where few people will have access to that environment.

I would like to see Dell take a crack at simplifying the process of moving from a node to a cluster and assembling everything into the appliance. It would be great if Dell could provide a pathway where a customer could actually install it without the certifications. Of course, I can't say how you would dumb down something so complex. That's a challenge, but it would be valuable.

It would also be helpful if they added some warnings to prevent users from making mistakes when upgrading stuff with VMware, like a notification that says, "Hey, this upgrade should be done through the VxRail manager." Those could steer customers off the path of decoupling that cluster or pulling a node offline when it doesn't need to be.

These things have room to grow in the industry. As more organizations look to develop what they currently have, Dell could provide a pathway to taking integrating the older hardware with the new hardware. I think that would be valuable, too. There are a couple of things that I'd also like to see them improve upon. One could be to actually deliver a cluster to the customer from their manufacturing facility that is already put together. That might be a good opportunity for them.

The VxRail platform is stable. Anytime you're dealing with technologies, you'll find a bug somewhere. There's always a challenge that must be overcome, but once the initial cluster has been stood up, we find it's one of the most stable platforms today.

If you want to scale VxRail, you buy another node and add it to the cluster. That process is straightforward. It will re-image the new node, give it the same firmware, and provide the same orchestration as the rest of the node. Scalability is probably one of the biggest reasons people choose VxRail.

I've contacted Dell tech support on many occasions for VxRail. I always put in a case with Dell on all the service tags of the nodes before taking on any support mechanism. I recommend starting that process early. One of the main reasons we put in a case is to do some maintenance or make some changes.

We always consult with Dell on best practices initially. It helps to provide them with as much information as possible about the health and wellness of that initial cluster. It generally depends on the service agreement you get from Dell, but we'll get a response in five or 10 minutes after putting in that initial case.

I've never had problems with Dell support, but I always recommend pro support from my customers and organization. Depending on the size of your organization and how much Dell hardware you have, they'll assign a technical account manager to your team or to the Dell team, so you always have a consistent point of contact if things don't go as planned. That's helpful if you have a technical account manager assigned to your organization.

VxRail is a hyper-converged system that's automated and consists of nodes. Those nodes are one or two U-servers depending on the requirement. Bringing the VMware automation and lifecycle management platform together is difficult, so we recommend having a certification to do that assemblage. 

It assembles these servers into nodes in an appliance. Once the appliance is set up, it's simple to manage the solution and the box. However, assembly and automation are complex. You want to make sure that the firmware is all the same between the nodes.

We've seen situations where we had a five-node cluster, and one firmware was not mapped to the others. We recommend working with Dell on those challenges, but our architects are also really well versed in those nuances. And if you want to deep dive into a technical requirement, I have several that have done that for a living.

I rate VxRail eight out of 10. I would say it is the go-to solution for hyper-converged infrastructure. 

The scripts that bring all of those servers into a node and cluster situation are proprietary to Dell. Anytime you're using that proprietary stuff, you need to be trained on it. Let's say, for example, you are in one of those systems, and you're working with some software that may not be acting like it should. Or it may have a feature that you want in a new generation. In some cases, there may be some dependencies on vCenter, vSAN, or Vsphere, which are all part of that integration.

One might be tempted to start to upgrade it outside of the lifecycle management that's inherent to the VMware platform. I've seen architects go ahead and update it right from the VMware console when they should be using the VxRail manager. Knowing how to do those upgrades is very important to getting the clusters to see the proper nodes together.