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Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] vs Dell vSAN Ready Nodes comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [...
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
90
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Dell vSAN Ready Nodes
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
21
Ranking in other categories
HCI (10th)
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2133501 - PeerSpot reviewer
Assistant VP, Information Technology at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Effective deduplication feature, but lacks a unified architecture
Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series could be improved by reducing the number of nodes. Currently, the architecture separates data, computing, memory, and storage into different parts. For example, if I need around 200 servers with a requirement of TB of storage, I would need 200 clusters, which can be quite cumbersome. Other solutions like Dell and Nutanix have a single combined unit that includes computing, memory, and storage, which can reduce the number of nodes required and also reduce licensing and power consumption. Therefore, I suggest improving the architecture of the Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series by combining computing, memory, and storage into a single unit, making it more efficient and easier to manage. It will also reduce the number of nodes required and licensing costs and help to reduce power consumption. I would like to see improved internal integration capabilities in the next release. Currently, it is constrained only to VMware only. So, there is no integration part of the RAC or IEL or anything, and it isn't easy to manage it. If I want to hold another partner, then that part will not be possible. So, you have to manage that particular integration. Another feature could be in terms of memory usage.
KuldeepSingh4 - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Solution Architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Experience improved efficiency and customer satisfaction with enhanced integration and management capabilities
Scalability involves two types of environments: VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) and non-VCF environment where we use VMware Validated Foundation. With VCF we have significant automation built-in within the VCF console within SDDC manager as the primary management console. For non-VCF environments, it depends on customer choice. For small environments, we do manual scalability and sometimes use Terraform scripts to keep the host ready and add in the cluster automatically. For large environments with frequent scalability actions, we propose the Terraform solution that builds ESXi, does necessary configuration, and automatically starts up for associating with the existing environment. If scaling is infrequent, with one or two hosts per month, it is a manual job. From a challenge perspective, it seems easier, with just a few pre-checks regarding make and model compatibility, disks, and server health on the hardware level.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"I like Cisco Intersight."
"The automation is a valuable feature, it's interesting."
"The most valuable feature of Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series is the integration with everything in a much smoother, such as in physical and virtual environments. VMware NSX is a simpler solution but, Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series is more robust compared to VMware NSX."
"We are providing this solution for the customer or converting the customer from a traditional environment to a hyper-converged environment which consolidates all management and support on a single port. This is the main benefit of using the hyper-converged versus the traditional."
"Its most valuable feature is its flexibility."
"The management from the switches to the hyper-convergence solutions are quite good and well-developed."
"The most valuable feature for our company is that it works internally. We have a lot of internal projects for optimization."
"The solution is stable."
"Dell EMC vSAN Ready Nodes is scalable"
"The tool's most valuable feature is high availability."
"If I consider the overall product, I would say that it is an excellent solution that offers very good performance and stability."
"vSAN ReadyNodes offer easy scalability, which has proven beneficial for storage needs."
"Dell's technical support is generally very good."
"No concerns regarding the footprint in the data center."
"The tool's most valuable features are compression and its usage in Kubernetes."
"The solution immediately expands storage area when you add nodes."
 

Cons

"Cisco should combine its features with its prices."
"It needs more detailed documentation."
"Stability is really poor, especially the storage stability. We lost data. There were disruptions of clusters and that's one big pain point of the solution. It's not stable enough, the documentation is not good, there's not much documentation available. For every call we need a tech engineer."
"Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series could improve by having the documents be more readily available and the support could be more flexible."
"The initial setup can be complex."
"The product does not have a cloud version...The product should be made more flexible in terms of integration capabilities."
"You cannot just apply the VSXi updates. You are dependent on Cisco HyperFlex for metric services, analytics, and everything else. I don't like that dependency."
"We would like to see better integration in the next release of this solution."
"Sometimes we experience performance issues and disk failure issues frequently. Sometimes it impacts another disk group situation."
"I would want VMware to ensure that when there's a hardware failure on a host, it should gracefully migrate the VMs to another host available in the cluster without restarting, which would be a great improvement."
"This product is not sufficiently scalable."
"Dell EMC vSAN Ready Nodes is a great hyper-converged system that is a perfect platform for supporting any kind of workload. The only workload that it's not designed to support is big data."
"The deployment is done by doing it one by one and could be simplified."
"Dell vSAN Ready Nodes' deployment is complex."
"Although vSAN ReadyNodes work well, a faster firmware lifecycle with the release of validated firmware catalogs more quickly would be a desired improvement."
"When customers want to expand capacity but all the drive slots are full, they are forced to buy new servers or nodes which adds more costs with licenses and hardware, rendering it less scalable than other storage setups."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is no additional licensing cost other than the cost for each part."
"They are not the cheapest on the market. But there's an old saying I like to quote: "If you know that you are getting what you pay for, it's fine if it's expensive.""
"The pricing is a bit expensive."
"Our licensing costs are large, but it is combined between all of the Cisco products that we have."
"There is a license required to use this solution."
"I would like a clearer licensing model. It should explain a bit more what you receive if you buy the more expensive license rather than the standard one."
"I would like the pricing to be cheaper."
"Cisco is quite expensive, but not in the initial first buy."
"The tool's pricing is competitive compared to others. The tool's licensing is based on annual subscriptions."
"There is a problem, which is the lack of an integrated price structure."
"My company makes yearly payments towards the licensing charges attached to the solution. The solution is expensive."
"The solution is more expensive than a traditional array. The prices are skyrocketing."
"The price of the solution was reasonable."
"Comparing the price of Dell vSAN Ready Nodes to other solutions it is not expensive."
"We have a four-year contract to use Dell EMC vSAN Ready Nodes."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Marketing Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
9%
Educational Organization
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
17%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
8%
Educational Organization
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business24
Midsize Enterprise17
Large Enterprise57
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise11
 

Questions from the Community

How do I choose between Cisco Hyperflex HX Series and Nutanix Acropolis AOS?
Cisco HyperFlex HS series vs Nutanix Acropolis AOS Cisco HyperFlex gives extended hyper-convergence functions from core to edge and multi-cloud environments. It helps IT and OT teams deploy hyper...
How does VxRail compare with Cisco HyperFlex HX Series?
VxRail provides stable solutions for technical problems while at the same time not being too expensive for a company to invest in. Even if you are working with a limited budget, this platform offer...
What do you like most about Dell vSAN Ready Nodes?
If I consider the overall product, I would say that it is an excellent solution that offers very good performance and stability.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell vSAN Ready Nodes?
There is no specific licensing model for vSAN ReadyNodes as it is linked with Broadcom VMware's solutions rather than Dell's. As a group under Comcast, we receive very good pricing from Dell due to...
What needs improvement with Dell vSAN Ready Nodes?
I would want VMware to ensure that when there's a hardware failure on a host, it should gracefully migrate the VMs to another host available in the cluster without restarting, which would be a grea...
 

Also Known As

No data available
vSAN Ready Nodes
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

BluePearl Veterinary Partners, Ready Pac Foods, Bryant University, Bellevue Group, KPIT Technologies, City Harvest
Rackspace
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