VxRail Reviews

We primarily deploy the solution to medium-sized businesses from different markets, from automotive to sales to medical, etc.

The installation was really easy to perform. 

The most valuable aspect on VxRail is the one-click update where they are doing the updates all at once for the drivers, buyers, ID reg, and for the VMS. In one click it's running. It's great.

The performance is very good.

The update process is very convenient.

The price should come down a little bit. It has become better than it was at the beginning. There was a really big price difference between a hyper-converged infrastructure and the classic servers and storage. The gap is lessening, however, it's still there.

I first saw VxRail in 2016 when I was at EMC World in Las Vegas. I found it was a very, very interesting solution then, however, we didn't make our first installation until 2018.

The scalability is great. You can scale within the system easily. You just put in more disks and more memory. Even if you stop with one CPU, you can add a second one or you can go and just add another when customers come and say, "Okay we need more." We just buy another node and put it in. Within, let's say, 20 minutes, the node is within the cluster. It's quick and easy.

For us, we used to earn our money with installing and updating, etc., however, the customer's doing it all by himself now, even if he gets a new server or cluster, it's one each click.

Since we do not use the VxRail internally and we are just sending it to our customers, we have a technical team of about 10 people that are working in the service. Within this, there are three people who are working with VxRail.

How useful technical support really is in terms of solving the issue at hand depends on who you get. It's not only at Dell EMC. It's at Fujitsu, it's at HP, at Lenovo. It depends on which person you get on the other line of the phone. Sometimes it's great and there's no problem. Within a few minutes, the problem is solved. Sometimes you have to wait for the second or the third person that you get to be able to know what the problem is and be able to help you solve it.

I'd recommend the solution.

The big advantage of the VxRail is the one-click update. If you are using, let's say HP or Fujitsu, and use the standard VSAM cluster, then you have to update the virtual center, you have to update the host, you have to update the VSAM, you have to update drivers, etc. 

You also have to consider the HCL, whether the driver fits to that new VM version. For example, let's say from the customer side when they are working with the solution, there's no big difference whether the user is working with VxRail or the VSAM cluster. However, when you look at it from a maintenance and updating perspective, the VxRail really offers a superior system.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten. The product is almost perfect. It really does fit the needs of our customers.

We used it for hosting on the infrastructure.

We previously had a traditional infrastructure where we always had issues with the performance. The vendor then introduced us to VxRail and the performance improved drastically. That was one of the best things I can say about it. The time spent on reports and support went down a lot.

VxRail's feature that we found most valuable is its really good performance. That was one of VxRail's advantages. However, we switched out from VxRail because some of our use cases and workloads required a different solution.

I would say its support could be improved. One issue that we faced was that often a single file upgrade would cause an issue, whether it was an update for the hardware or for every component. They should have an option to only upgrade individual modules of the architecture. For example, there should be an option to upgrade only the individual VMware module and not rely on a single update file for everything.

The stability was excellent. It takes around three people to manage.

The scalability was good but we didn't make use of it. It's scalable from an architecture point of view but we never took advantage of that functionality.

The initial setup was a bit complex and they didn't manage to bring it up in the first attempt. Really, only the support people can do it and if something happened the support people need to have control of it. The second attempt also took longer than expected. It took almost two days to complete the full installation, which is longer than the claim that it should take around two to three hours for the full setup. 

We had three people involved in the deployment process.

It is implemented from the supplier side, not with our people. There were 35 VxRail guests involved in the implementation.

We did evaluate a couple of other options like Nutanix and HP before choosing VxRail.

In the end, we chose VxRail because we had been using Dell for a year. That was one of the main reasons. The second reason was cost. The third was the performance of the appliance. And the last reason was its architecture.

My advice to anyone looking to get VxRail is to really understand your use case because from our experience this solution doesn't fit certain use cases. So clearly defining your use case is very important when you're choosing VxRail.

The product was good, but as I said, it's not really flexible with different use cases. That was a lesson we learned from buying VxRail. It's not meant for all use cases, it is only meant for specific ones, which is why we had to switch. It's difficult for it to adapt. 

On a scale from one to ten, I would rate VxRail a seven.

At a remote location where physical servers were deployed in order to address latency or process delays, one of these appliances is now installed and a low cost virtual environment is in place. This has also allowed snapshot backups to be taken with our Avamar solution rather than just performing file level backup with an agent.

Being able to perform upgrades and check the system through the VxRail Manager has been very helpful. It allows files to be uploaded, performs a pre-check against the system, then upgrades the appliance from the hardware up through the VMware environment.

My main issue so far is that the installation created a default datacenter name of "Marvin" and it cannot be changed. This can be a problem with multiple device\location deployments where all of the names are "Marvin".

As with any new product, we have had a few bugs that were address in the last upgrade we performed. For example, we had a host that would appear to become disconnected or missing from vCenter, but later return and be online. However, there has never been an outage or loss of data with any issues. In the above mentioned issue, the VMs still functioned and were reachable. This was correcting with a software update.

We have not had a reason to scale or add to the initially purchased appliance.

Customer Service:

Our customer service is outstanding. As with many Dell EMC accounts, there is a primary person assigned as our account representative. He maintains regular contact and interaction to ensure we are not only satisfied with our VxRail, but also our other Dell EMC solutions.

Technical Support:

The few times I have contacted technical support they have always been very responsive. I have never felt as though it was a low-level support person, reading a script. They all seem to have been top-level support individuals. As with other Dell EMC products, the appliance includes an ESRS gateway, so they have the ability to remotely access (if allowed) and proactively address issues that may occur through the dial-home service.

No, we did not have any previous HCI installations.

The initial setup was not really any more complex than some other HCI deployments. We completed a spreadsheet, with IP addresses and names, that was imported into a JSON file. This was then used to automate the deployment and creation of the virtual environment.

The implementation used a combination of in-house staff being onsite and Dell EMC personnel being on a WebEx. This was mostly due to being one of the early deployments of the system. I am not sure of the current requirements around new deployments.

The VxRail has allowed an environment to be created that is easy to manage and back up. This reduces the amount of time that is required by staff to manage and update systems.

At the time, VMware licensing was purchased separately. I have heard that now it is offered as part of the appliance. There is a permanent vSAN license included since it is required, but vCenter\ESXi host licensing should be validated in the purchase process.

We did look at some other solutions, but at the time we were only capable of 1G networking and this device was the only one available at that speed. However, it has performed great and has been easy to manage.

We are implementers of this solution. We have deployed this product in many Middle East regions. We are also customers and an IT service.

The last time I installed the solution, we were using version 4.7 and we are planning to upgrade to version 7. The solution is deployed on-prem.

We installed the upgrade and migrated from a traditional solution to the virtual machine.

It's a good product based on the features. You can upgrade the solution with only one click.

You cannot install another operating system such as Microsoft or Hyperflex or Nutanix. We have also had a hardware problem.

Hopefully, it can be installed with another stable solution, but I doubt that because it's based on VMware.

I have been using this solution within the past year.

The solution is very stable.

The solution is scalable.

For deployment, we used a consultant. We needed auto recovery because we faced a hardware problem. It was a board problem. That's why we engaged DNC to replace the board, and it was very easy to discover the node and deploy the process.

An organization can get ROI because the solution is scalable. It's cheaper to expand and add more resources than the traditional solution.

I would rate this solution 9 out of 10.

Before proceeding with any configuration and implementing the solution, you should prepare the prerequisite. Prepare the VLAN, the prerequisites, and the IP requirements before proceeding with any installation.

It is used for consolidation, modernization of infrastructure, and simplification. That's what most customers are looking for with this solution.

I am using its latest release.

Our clients value being able to upgrade with one click or a few clicks. 

The ability to manage everything from a single console is one of the key advantages that our clients see. They don't have to worry about how to manage the storage, how to manage the servers, and how to manage the virtualization layer. Everything comes in a single platform. As a result, IT teams are shrinking, and very often, the budgets are no longer for people. They're more for automation.

They're getting better with their one-click upgrade. The success factor is now between 85% to 87% with the latest release. They should just continuously improve on that one-click factor and make it more seamless.

It has been about a year, but previously, I have worked on the Fujitsu equivalent for many years.

It is very reliable.

Scalability is a misunderstood notion in the hyper-converged environment. Very often, people misunderstand what and how things are being scaled within a hyper-converged environment, and this is applicable to every solution out there. So, from a scalability point of view, in terms of the technology itself, it is fairly easy, but in terms of dollars and what it means, very often, people are a little bit surprised about it. If you want to upgrade your storage, you don't necessarily upgrade just one hard drive. If you're in all-flash storage, every node has to be upgraded. There are rules around disk groups and things of that nature, so it becomes a bit of a challenge, and sometimes, it is at a price that customers do not expect. The pricing and how things are evolving over a period of time are very often misunderstood by customers.

I don't deal with them. I am more on the presales and delivery side. I'm sure there are challenges around that, but I'm not aware of any concerns at this point.

It is very straightforward.

It varies. It could be $100,000 at the smaller end and millions and millions of dollars at the higher end. 

It is a very reliable and simplified solution. If you're looking for simplification of operations, this is a great solution to implement.

I would rate it an eight out of 10.

We use this solution mainly as a middleware application. We work in banking and use VxRail to run all of our mid-layer applications.

We would like to have on-premise technical support.

A more containerized approach in regards to the interface would be better.

I have been using this solution for one year.

VxRail is very stable.

We haven't had problems with bugs, We recently updated VxRail and we haven't had any problems.

If there are any issues, we just open a ticket and are connected with an engineer who helps us solve the problem.

We use two solutions: Vxrail with a hypervisor on VMware; and HyperGrid, with a hypervisor on Microsoft Windows, 2016. Both solutions are different and have separate pros and cons.

The initial setup was not complex. 

We had an integrator from Dell to help us set up everything. I can't remember exactly, but I believe deployment took only one or two days.

Pricing its depend on your requirement well licensing is very simple all VMware and other license cost including in VxRail. But If an organization wants to buy a VMware enterprise license, then they need to pay separately.

VxRail is a good solution, but it all depends on your strategy. We could build our own VMware cluster by buying a separate product. Technically, I could purchase a server and then built my own solution, but with VxRail, everything comes in one box, including licensing, Dell EMC and VMware — It's nice and simple. Although, if an organization wants to buy a hypervisor layer on Microsoft, then that's another story. There are many solutions available for this, including Cisco, which uses Unity to provide a hypervisor layer. HyperGrid uses Windows 2016 on its host operating system. It all comes down to your strategy and roadmap. You need to select your hypervisor first. If you go with VMware, then VxRail is a great choice; however, if you're not using a VMware hypervisor, then there are many other options to choose from.

On a scale from one to ten, I would give VxRail a rating of nine, simply because there is always room for improvement.

We use this solution for middle customers and headquarters. It's very scalable and works fine. I can roll out the system in thirty minutes and the customer can work with it. 

The most valuable feature is the quick installation. I build the system for the customer and then it is quick and easy to manage. The price is a little bit on the higher side but the system and management are so quick and easy that it's worth it for the customer. 

I would like to see integration with vCenter if possible.

In terms of stability, it's an easy solution. 

I can start with two systems for a robot, or I can start with a bigger system that has twelve or more nodes, and I can add the customer's workload. 

We had a big project in Germany that started with one cluster. It expanded over a year and a half to a fourteen cluster system.

In the beginning, we had to put in a lot of requests with their technical support. Now, we have fewer tickets. The support is okay.

The initial setup of this solution is not complex. Take it out of the package and implement; it's very easy.

We implement the systems ourselves.

We use Dell EMC products and this solution was the best one for our customers and projects.

We typically use G Series, but for a certain customer, we have the P Series to handle the application workload. The P Series has more performance which you may need for your application. All of the other clusters are G Series. 

I have some colleagues who also use this solution. This is a good product of the future.

I would rate it a ten out of ten. I love it.

We have our internal servers allocated to the solution.

The tool's price is competitive and it is easy to use.

The tool needs to improve its price.

I have been using the solution for two years.

The tool is scalable and I would rate it a nine out of ten.

We used VMware before. We switched to the solution because we needed a system with more performance and scalability.

I would rate the tool's setup an eight out of ten. The tool's deployment got completed in a few hours.

I would rate the solution an eight out of ten. The tool fulfills our needs.