Nimble Storage is our primary production storage vendor. We use this with VMware on a daily basis including a new AFA5000 all-flash array for our DMS system.
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Nimble Storage is our primary production storage vendor. We use this with VMware on a daily basis including a new AFA5000 all-flash array for our DMS system.
These arrays perform very well and have allowed us to move many physical servers to virtual and run them from the Nimble arrays without any performance impact and there is actual performance improvement.
The most valuable features are -
1. Ease of setup
2. Ease of Management with Web UI
3. InfoSight - analytics sight that collects data for all Nimble arrays deployed
InfoSight has been very valuable in determining upgrade requirements, bottlenecks, etc. The latest update to the site now allows Per-VM monitoring within the Virtual Infrastructure now too.
No areas require improvement at this time. The arrays run very well and updates are flawless when completed.
I have been using this solution for more than five years.
We have had some stability issues with one array which has happened twice during subsequent software updates but is due to a bad Postgres database. Nimble has been very helpful and are even replacing the array with a brand new one for our troubles.
There are no scalability issues and the arrays can be upgraded with ease.
Customer Service:
Customer service has been top notch with Nimble and would be 10/10. They even worked with use to replace a faulty array.
Technical Support:
Technical Support is one of the best and is 10/10. The autosupport system they have in place that creates tickets for you automatically is great. You can even specify on the InfoSight webpage which ones you want to Auto-Close, etc.
Positive
Previously used Dell EqualLogic arrays but they were end of life.
The initial setup is straightforward. You connect the array to the network and power it up. You then run the Nimble Setup Manager which will detect the array on the network and allow you to complete an initial configuration. Once that is done you can then use the Web UI to finalize the configuration.
It was completed in-house with the assistance from Nimble when required.
Nimble has allowed us to run without much down time giving us a great ROI on our investment.
No other options for storage were evaluated.
Given the chance to evaluate Nimble it is highly recommended. Their CASL architecture is very fast and being able to get the performance from the spinning disk that you see on some flash arrays is great. They are always improving the product and software including the recent changes to the InfoSight web page that allows Per-VM monitoring now. There is also excellent support and customer service when you need it.
We delivered and implemented it for multiple customers.
There was some workload involved in these implementations. One project was in the financial sector. Another sector was for premium watches where they had workload with respect to their engineering labs. We majorly used this for their virtual environment and databases. They had a lot of issues with their current Unity, which was another Dell product, with performance issues. As they were looking to upgrade on the Dell platform itself, we proposed Dell PowerStore. Initially, we had everything on SSD drives, which are solid-state drives or flash drives. We moved everything—the databases and the VM virtual infrastructure—to Dell PowerStore. As it was a Dell product, it was easy to migrate. They saw the improvement with that.
Majorly, it is an NVMe architecture—an all-flash system that improved our performance with low latency. It was supporting mixed workload, which is virtualization and database. The virtual machines were Linux, Windows, and everything.
The major thing is when we had the previous solution, which was a hybrid storage having SSD and NL-SAS and SAS drives, it moved to flash, where we have a lot of latency benefits. They had some tiering as well, where it was supposed to do virtual provisioning of some percent. Then if it increased, only then it increases; otherwise, it is quite better. Previously, when we had the previous solution, we had to implement it and then we had to upgrade the switches side and the port SFPs for getting good latency and handling the workload. As I mentioned, it is a financial sector, so there were a lot of production issues as well. When the customer moved to Dell PowerStore, there were no such performance issues.
These were clustered systems. Everything was distributed. This is where, as I mentioned, there was the issue with performance previously. When we had this one, it started giving us good performance.
Dell PowerStore is expensive. The best thing is the way it delivers performance. It distributes everything through the flash drive. The automation they have is excellent. We can integrate directly with VMware and make the VMware team storage administrators. The previous mid-range storage had scalability issues, but with this, scalability was not an issue. It was easy to adopt and increase the nodes so that it could increase capacity.
Some features I mentioned earlier include deduplication, compression, and thin provisioning. When someone is asking for one TB, we are assigning one TB, but that is virtual provisioning and it hardly assigns initially—perhaps 100 GB. It increases based on utilization. This is one of the significant advantages.
We had different workloads—database, virtualization, and all. We were able to provision everything from this storage. They were able to achieve all their required performance. The consolidation part means all workloads were consolidated to Dell PowerStore only.
It is easy to use. The best thing is the way it delivers performance and the automation they have. We can integrate directly with VMware. That was the major thing—the performance and then the automation.
No complexity was present with the initial setup of Dell PowerStore. It was very straightforward, but the only thing we worked on by providing IPs and details regarding where to install and switch ports where it needed to be cabled.
The deployment was done by the customer and the Dell team and one of the third parties they had. We majorly did not get involved in that.
Previously, whatever mid-range storages they had, compression and deduplication were very limited. With this, storage efficiency is there. Performance and low latency are there, majorly. This is compared to the other products. ROI is there, but not on the CAPEX side.
I have been working with Dell PowerStore for the last five years.
Previously they had performance issues, but it has been almost two years since we implemented this solution. There are no such performance issues. The major issue is with respect to the cost and somewhat to support.
We had the previous mid-range storage where scalability was an issue. With this, scalability was not an issue. It was easy to adopt and increase the nodes so that it could increase capacity very easily.
Dell PowerStore customer service is good, but sometimes they usually take a lot of time to understand the issue. We need to explain to them how it has integrated. Sometimes it is their firmware issues where they come to us very late, after the disaster has already happened. Before releasing any firmware, I think they should do lab tests with respect to all the operating systems. We do observe that during firmware upgrades, after upgradation, there were some issues with disconnectivity between server and storage, intermittent issues. However, they released a new patch and it worked.
Positive
I have worked on Veeam, AWS completely, Rubrik, Avamar, and Data Domain. I have worked on many technologies.
I have worked on NetApp, Hitachi, and Pure Storage.
NetApp is majorly used for the file system and is not preferable for very heavy workload such as databases. Compared to Dell PowerStore, if someone is looking for file shares, NAS, or SMBs, majorly NetApp is preferable. When you have enterprise workload with respect to application databases and you have completely a block storage requirement, then people should go with Dell PowerStore compared to others.
Deployment of Dell PowerStore was done by a third-party team. We were there for the rack and stack, supporting them remotely. We provided all the requirements of IPs, which they shared in Excel. They have a portal where we have to update all the required IPs for their nodes and the DNS. We did that and it worked.
The deployment was not difficult because you just need to plug and play and all the distribution and the workload will be done in the background. It will not disrupt your workload.
Deployment of Dell PowerStore was done by a third-party team. We were there for the rack and stack, supporting them remotely. We provided all the requirements of IPs, which they shared in Excel. They have a portal where we have to update all the required IPs for their nodes and the DNS. We did that and it worked.
The major thing is the performance issues we had previously. Now, it is a primary storage for the client. It was the best way where they even reduced to 95 percent where they had almost weekly P1 or P2 tickets. It reduced to hardly once a month or quarterly once.
Dell PowerStore is expensive.
I have been working with Dell PowerStore for the last five years. One customer used the 5000T model and for the other customer, it was the 3000T model.
These were clustered systems. Everything was distributed. This is where there was the issue with performance previously, but when we had this one, it started giving us good performance.
Deployment was easy. It was not difficult because you just need to plug and play and all the distribution and the workload will be done in the background. It will not disrupt your workload.
Tech support for Dell is seven or eight, not more than that. Dell PowerStore is nine. We can put 7.5 for Dell and for Dell PowerStore, we can take it as 8.5 to 9.
My overall rating for this review is 9 out of 10.
