What needs improvement with Dell EMC PowerEdge Rack Servers?

Dell has already started working with NPUs and AI, which is a good thing. Right now, data is everyone's primary concern. Every company wants to evaluate data to advance technology and improve its business. The server should work better on the data side. Data is a priority around the world. There are a lot of data platforms around, but it would be helpful if we could perform some basic data operations on the server so we don't need an extra vendor. Azure is their Microsoft Cloud solution, and they collaborate with data companies like Databricks. We are also on the cloud and work with Databricks, but they could add some basic features so an enterprise doesn't need to go for extra Databricks to do their data things. If data could be handled within the Dell server, we can achieve a milestone on all the low-level sites. Our company is global, with many sites in Sweden and small sites in other countries. We don't need a complete Databricks solution for them. We need Dell servers to handle basic data and talk to our application. We have to configure a bridge between Dell servers and use Databricks for analysis. We could save a lot of money if the fundamental data functions can be done within the server.

We use PowerEdge servers in conjunction with VMware, a VCF Rack, and VxRail. That has worked out well. We are using it for firmware upgrades and other similar tasks. It's a one-stop shop, but it could be better when the servers aren't on a VCF stack. Profile handling and upgrading standalone servers could improve, but they have gotten better over the years.

Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers are competitive, but there is room for energy efficiency improvement considering the thermal design and power consumption. The OpenManage Console offers smart features, but its impact is not significantly better than competitors.

The VxRail updates need to be faster.

The management of the security architecture could be improved. It takes some time and can be challenging.

One issue is the limited CPU options on the servers compared to the vendor, Intel. Dell offers fewer CPU options than available, which is a bit limiting and could be improved.

Their servers are modular, but there are specific applications for which I wish they would publish the specifications, such as the specs of internal connectors. If Dell doesn't provide a connector, I'd like to be able to provide it myself. The limited connectivity of the Rack Servers, due to having only three USB ports, is an area of improvement for Dell. Dell continues to use micro USB for the management port, and that cable type is increasingly more difficult to find. A shift to USB-C for the management port would be a welcome improvement from Dell.

When integrating the PowerEdge rack, we needed help from all the different companies to combine it with the servers. Each company has a system, and things must align with the server. It would be better if they integrated Dell and Ubuntu, for example. It would be easier to handle the mission.

PowerEdge is not that flexible. For example, it's difficult if I need something that is not in Dell's portfolio. We offer the flexibility to the customer. We can implement different things Dell doesn't have. If you have preconfigured systems, it's hard to transition them to what you need.

Dell could increase the training. My ability to use the product improved vastly once I became more knowledgeable about it. The sales desk and presales service could also improve.

The GUI could be improved. I primarily work with the command line, which enables you to do many things faster.

The pricing always has room for improvement. The support experience has room for improvement. As a secure site, we require personnel with specific clearances, and sometimes, the language barrier poses a challenge. English-to-Hebrew translation can impact various processes, particularly when troubleshooting errors necessitates collaboration with US or European teams across different time zones. Moreover, vendors occasionally request logs, which we cannot provide due to security protocols. The language barrier can make it difficult to clearly communicate our needs and issues to support personnel overseas. Therefore, we require more Dell technical support staff based in Israel.

The price has room for improvement. Given the market size, it isn't easy to compete with all the other vendors if the pricing is high.

The cost of the Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers is an area for improvement.

I want Dell to offer more virtualization platforms because the cost of VMware is getting too high.

The price distance increases with the higher-end, more complex servers, and there is room for improvement.

I would like for there to be more disc space.

The world market for CPUs is excited. We have new ideas popping up left and right like new accelerator cards because there are GPUs. Dell is already working with Kalray, for example, that builds accelerator cards. There are new FPGA cards available on the market that are not in the portfolio. The last time I looked was when buying the new 760 Servers because it changes every couple of months, and not all Intel CPUs were certified. The adoption speed of new CPU and GPU technologies has room for improvement. However, I know coming from the technical side this is a lot of work, and it's difficult. I know they are working on it and it's not something you do in five minutes. We have to stay fair. It would be nice but I know that now Intel and AMD come up with new CPUs twice a year. In the past, there was a new CPU generation every two years and now it's every six months. So the developers of servers and all the devices and programs are running to keep up with the speed itself.

We are quite satisfied with our latest configurations. We don't have big complaints at the moment. The response time could be better. Everyone is very busy nowadays. It's important to get issues resolved fast.

The pricing structure could be improved.

There might be room for improvement in terms of efficiency, particularly with PowerEdge servers. However, it's worth noting that this issue isn't unique to Dell but rather a general concern across the industry.

There have been certain environmental concerns, but they don't pose a significant issue for me as my focus is on maximizing performance, especially in providing a fast API environment for both my customers and myself. Larger customers might benefit from servers that strike a better balance between performance and environmental considerations.

You select the server based on the product. It could be an option to remove discs and just have a virtual option. If you remove the room you need for discs, you could make it smaller. It would take up less room that way.

They gave us a satisfaction survey, and we did not go below nine, so we are very happy with the solution. We are loyal customers. Obviously, the price could be lower.

The cost can be improved. For other use cases, we use Hitachi servers, which are a little cheaper but have similar functionality.

The price is very high.

At the moment, I do not have an area for improvement. We have a cloud-first strategy, and hardware is starting to become more and more secondary, so we are not betting on it. My expectations for it are that it will work while we migrate to the cloud, and it will remain as reliable as it is now so that in the future, we continue using it for the uploads that we need to have locally.

Lately, we feel that we need an improvement in our servers. Surprisingly, we have seen some servers here that do meet these characteristics. They are slightly smaller servers. On ships, we have racks to be able to mount devices, and both the servers and the communication devices have to be small. They have to be small in depth. We need servers with the same power and the same characteristics as in the office or on land, but we would like them to be smaller. They will be more practical when it comes to being able to handle them and place them at locations where we have space restrictions.

I would like them to be more flexible when implementing more capabilities.

The price is the only thing that can be improved.

I would like enhanced latitude in the machine assembly process. The current constraints, limiting configurations to a select few, often lack inherent rationality. This rigidity makes it challenging to construct servers that are meticulously calibrated to specific requirements. Ideally, we should strive for a system that allows for the bespoke tailoring of servers, ensuring perfect alignment with each unique need.

Historically, servers required a large number of processors, with a maximum of four being accessible at a time. While processor capabilities have improved, some brands still offer servers with eight processors. Nowadays, with more powerful processors, the need for multiple processors has diminished. We've recently encountered more issues with graphics processing units. Access to specific card models can be limited, and sometimes we require smaller cards than those offered by Dell.

There can be more visibility on the equipment remotely. It will help us to provide a better response in case of a breakdown because we are not always monitoring them. It will enable us to be more reactive when there is a breakdown at the level of the ventilation disk or the temperature. We are currently using another software that connects us to the server. It is called Grafana. It allows us to be connected to the servers and gather information, but it is not always that straightforward to get these two connected. It would be great to have one general console to manage all of the servers. I do not know if Dell has one, but there should be one general console to obtain the temperature or detect if a disk is malfunctioning. We should be able to get information about disks, extractor fans, and other things related to the equipment because we do not enter the bays all the time. A centralized system would mean greater visibility into the equipment and maybe the capability to manage several servers, just like a console.

Enriching the operational efficiency of Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers could be achieved through the strategic implementation of a central management console hosted in the cloud. Such a cloud-resident platform would empower administrators with enhanced visibility and granular control over the entire server fleet, fostering agility and optimizing performance.

The price could possibly use improvement. Dell servers are not the most affordable, and pricing is always a consideration. Otherwise, I don't see any specific areas for improvement. In a future release, having a ten-gigabit LAN onboard from the start would be a significant advantage. It would eliminate the need for aftermarket upgrades.

The way we can manage the environment through the solution's GUI could be improved. You need different management tools at the moment for doing different things, and it would be helpful if there were one global tool you could use to monitor and manage updates.

One area where PowerEdge could improve, and it might not be unique to Dell, is the challenge of keeping technology consistent over the years. Due to the natural growth of IT, there are differences in processors, memory, and technology advancements each year. When expanding our environment, it becomes a challenge to match the technology of the same line. A more seamless bridge between old and new hardware could simplify administration and enhance the overall user experience.

The product must improve its integration with VMware. It is really important to us. They should make the management more out of the box so we have less maintenance.

Currently, the solution does not have the in-process memory encryption technology. All Intel and AMD processors are now integrating with their CPUs. Dell can add that to the processor so that whenever it does any processing, it will just encrypt those into the memory. That is a new technology most cloud providers are following through with right now.

I am generally very satisfied with Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers. However, there is room for improvement in technical support.

The solution must increase the space provided. It is still an issue. The terabytes are never enough.

Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers could improve the bezels in front of it. Because they always change the bezels, it's strange when you come with the customer into your cell room and see ten different bezels hanging.

The product must provide more options to add GPUs to the machines. It's always a challenge. If we don't think about it when buying the machine, we cannot do it afterward.

There is room for improvement in certain aspects of the deployment process as it is a bit complex.

We are generally very satisfied with Dell, but there is a suggestion to potentially revisit pricing, although this is a common consideration with most products.

For the next release, I would like for PowerEdge Rack Servers to be a bit more compact.

We wanted to have two storage cards during the onboarding process of the solution, which were available only on the more expensive version of the boxes that we usually use for work in our company. It would have been easier for my company to deal with the product if the two storage cards provided during the solution's onboarding process of the expensive versions of the solution were available for the slightly simpler versions of the tool.

I'd need to research the product more. Maybe it needs a little bit more support. We have storage and would like to manage more backups without adding extra storage devices. Maybe it's already there. I need to look at it more. Some hypervisors don't seem to have any extra storage. However, it may already be there, and I haven't found it yet.

I'm currently not running into specific cases that I'd say we could improve. Of course, the most important features are security and sustainability. Those are subjects that Dell does a lot of work on. The whole industry works a lot on it, but everyone also sets goals of being sustainable. Working together on those subjects, I'd say could help us achieve those goals together. Sustainability and the data center is a hot topic. I work for the airport and we want to be the most sustainable airport in the world. So starting with our IT stack could benefit. The most important for us is once someone gets access to a system that we don't want them to have access to, it probably won't be physical access. What will a system do to detect besides all the software we have in place? And right now, I'm not really aware of what the PowerEdge stack does for us in those scenarios, but that's an interesting use case. I would like more resilience because, for all companies, cybersecurity is important. Once something goes wrong, then we'll see the whole business go along. Within the IT department, we have to be ahead of that.

The scalability has room for improvement.

Training needs to be improved. I feel we are not getting the best benefit out of the PowerEdge servers at the moment because we do not have in-depth knowledge on how to fully configure them. The PowerEdge servers are fine. It is our training that needs to be improved. Their support can be better. Getting to the right person for support is a challenge.

I would appreciate the capability to carry out live updates without the need to take the system offline.

The BIOS interface could be improved; it is very poor. PowerEdge is very good overall, but if you compare the BIOS interface with HPE, it is not very good. HPE's is very advanced but Dell's is very simple.

Perhaps they could make it more power efficient. They're pretty good, but there's always room for improvement. Also, they could try to reduce heat generation.

Dell hardware is not as stable as HP. I have not seen any issues with HP in five years, but with Dell, I am getting multiple issues. It's not stable. They need to verify why it has multiple issues and why Dell hardware is not as stable as HP hardware.

What annoys me about every server is just how loud they are when they're turned on, but that's just a function of the server. It's protecting itself. I can't complain that it's noisy when I turn it on, because it's not in its rack yet. It's sitting on a desk near me. That's just how servers work.

Different types of applications that are now trendy in the market, like AI, are still big topics that are not mapped correctly in the server and storage environment. Knowing those kinds of activities and definitions will help us more to position these kinds of servers for the client.

It takes a long time to deliver the hardware. The riser cards can be better. The riser cards are where the PCI cards connect. They need to have more than two riser cards in the server because it can be difficult to connect sometimes.

Unfortunately, PowerEdge Rack Servers do not support NVMe storage. OpenManage Console is slightly confusing, especially after upgrade releases. There isn't a manual for what to do with lifecycle management and in what sequence. I have to rely on user forums instead of Dell in these cases.

I would like them to add more NVMe slots. That would be good. That way, it would have better performance, e.g., enough storage for better performance than a spinning disk. There is some improvement needed in the site (with its arrangement) when trying to find some configuration or troubleshooting matches.

The specs for the benchmarks are very good, but the firmware and software are lacking. There are some issues with the Linux kernel and the long-term support (LTS) for some of the firmware's dependencies. It is causing the kernel to dump. The support for the Linux brands isn't optimal. We would like them to optimize the kernel drivers for benchmarks. There are some issues that need to be solved with our model in regards to UEFI and firmware.

It is not good in terms of its energy consumption for a large-scale deployment. I probably would go for something more dense, like blades or any type of small scale hardware service solutions, to lower the heat and power consumption. However, for small environments, this solution is okay and easy to maintain.

Some customers took the machine to the extreme, which makes it a bit slower and delays the system. Since the customer can put a lot of VMs with a lot of data, it can use up the CPU memory to 20% to 25%, which slows down the system. However, if we reduce the CPU memory or split it to another, then it works very well. I would like to change the physical rails to be more like how HPE rails are formatted and organized.

I don't know much about the new Intel CPUs, but they need to put more than two CPUs in the servers. It may be an Intel limitation, but I'm not sure.

The time it takes the machine to boot up, when I turn it off and on, could be quicker.

I would like to see more information about server health and the server's state, on the front. HP has a little screen that shows server utilization, how many disks there are inside, and the power consumption. HP also shows an alert if there is a malfunction of any device inside. Those kinds of features would be useful for Dell customers.

I don't really know where PowerEdge could be improved. I really like these servers. Even VxRail works great with them. Maybe they could change the logo to something more beautiful.

Dell needs to focus more on SMB's, helping us get the most out of our products. For example, at events there should be very specific SMB sessions where there are Dell technicians, engineers, and Dell executives meeting with us and finding out what we need. Dell is big on promoting the fact that they're part of our team and that they want to be our partners, and I would like to see them actually partner with us. Do it less with the big Fortune 500 companies and do a little bit more with us SMB's.

The data analytics for this solution could be improved.

The flexibility of using the cards could be improved.

We are leaning away from this particular product because Dell's VxRail solution makes you buy four nodes at a time which is not scalable. Other solutions such as Cisco offer more innovation on this front. The switching for this solution is lagging behind other products. Cisco has built the best iOS that other solutions need to match. Dell has recently done an overhaul to allow networking switches but it still cant scale the way we need it to.

One of the things that I've noticed is that over time, the system degrades, meaning that little things don't work. For example, the hard drive would need to be replaced or iDRAC would not be functioning properly. We may have to flash the firmware. It is not like some other hardware where it just runs without issues for four or five years. With Dell, generally, there are little hiccups here and there.

The solution could improve by making the warranty policy better, which is a little bit complex because our local service partner Smart Technologies has long delays. Whenever we open any case for any customer, it takes more than five days. If we could handle it by ourselves, we could have the issue solved in one day. They should work on a way to fix these delays.

I would like to see the pricing improved.

The shipment or delivery times could be improved. Sometimes we have to wait six Weeks before we get the server. It could even be longer. Sometimes it is many days for my customers

They could improve on the processor and security for the next release of the solution.

All of the servers are in cluster mode and when PowerEdge Server is down, others are affected. It doesn't automatically upgrade the firmware. We have to manually process it because we have forgotten about the firmware and virus updates. We would like to see the upgrades done automatically. In future releases, automation would be required.

The performance could be a bit better. If they want to coordinate between the different fast CPUs with the memory or maybe if they put some polling systems that are a bit better it could possibly increase the performance of the servers. It would be great if the product had some wireless capabilities.

After purchasing the product, customers have not been getting the support that they need in the early stages of getting set up. They can provide customers a little bit more education as to what they get with certain warranty levels. The data is there if the customers dig, but a lot of times, the customers don't dig. Some of the other server models come out a little bit quicker than Dell. It would be good if Dell is quicker to market on new, larger drives when they become available. Sometimes, we do get hit on that against a couple of competitors. Dell vets them a little bit longer than like the super micros to keep their stability and quality level up, but they lose a little bit of ground to a super micro. It would be good if they can release features and models as soon and as fast as they can. It would help them to stay more competitive.

The company needs to invest in more marketing exposure. Users need to know that Dell servers compete with HP Servers. in the region, the Middle East, many more companies work with HP. They could change this. The solution could still use some more analytics. It would be helpful if we had the power of an open managed application. It should be more hands-on in terms of how are you going to manage your server. In order to do that, you need more visibility into the health of the server itself.

System security can be improved. They can add more power and security for ESXi version 7.

I would like to see a virtual view of the solution after creating and configuring it.

The only way you could improve it is, for the purpose of HPC installations, is IOPS and the only way to improve it is to get a more powerful machine to deliver more IOPS. Basically, you need more CPUs and you need more RAM and you need a faster backbone. We were running on 100 gigabits Infiniband. Until they get new technology and density, it would be nice to see four nodes in a one-year package instead of a three-year package.

The only thing that could be improved is documentation. The product is highly customizable with a lot of options for each component. These options are not easily understood. It would be great to offer more user-friendly interface/Documentation to build up the system.

There are certain aspects, features, and functionality on the motherboard that need improvement. If they had some software components that would have helped because I don't like creating electronic waste. We don't like upgrading for the sake of upgrading. With that process, we tend to lose the newer features which would have come in during that time. If they could have done something during that time where the new features could have been included, or improved upon the existing ones then it would have been brilliant. In the next release, I would like to see some means by which they could improve the functionality on the motherboard. It would be a very large help and increase the life of these products.

It would be easier if the remote connection to the server could be done through the USB port. From the server, we should be able to connect to a laptop or a management workstation through a USB port.

I can't think of any features that are lacking on the solution. It works well for our clients for the most part. It would be nice if the rack servers had an HCI solution as an option.

The design, in terms of power efficiency, can be improved. Improvements should be made in terms of field expandability. Scalability, in general, has room for improvement. Support for virtualization support can be better.

I would like to see better IOPS, i.e. the disc speed. That is the main limitation for scaling up the number of users. Nowadays, there are web servers that have greater endurance in the lifecycle than the Dell EMC PowerEdge, so that's what I would like to see improved most. If Dell EMC can provide us with more IOPS, a higher disc size using the SSDs, and better battery endurance in terms of the lifecycle, i.e. three to seven years, I would be satisfied. With the Dell EMC PowerEdge Server, there is a limitation on the hardware life cycles. Another place Dell EMC could improve is with GPUs. If we can get more benchmarking done, some optimization, and more scalability for certain apps, it would be better. Dell EMC could improve the sizing and scaling performance that we can get with the server, including some better optimization that we can scale up. Another need for improvement is to consider the implementation of other forms of desktop virtualization.

They should improve the centralized management interface. When you are going to deploy something, for example, VMware or RedHat, it should be easier to deploy a lot of servers. Now you have to do one at a time. The way that they condense the information on the Dell EMC website is not so good. They should improve the website. When you need to find a download or documentation it's very hard. The information on the website is very distributed. It's hard to find the information we need.