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Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers vs ExtremeSwitching comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
7.3
Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers deliver reliability, cost savings, and efficient management, enhancing performance and financial outcomes for organizations.
Sentiment score
5.2
ExtremeSwitching provides ROI in 1-5 years, saving costs despite high licensing, with free maintenance and potential for capability expansion.
By not having to worry about it, I would estimate we save two to four hours a week, depending on what's happening, such as if we need to spin up a new server, which would contribute to more time if done the old way.
In my immediate case for antenna analysis, Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers offer a reduction from days of computing to half a day or hours.
The value of uptime to us is critical.
The return on investment is high.
In the future, we can convince the customer to make use of 100G capability to suffice their requirement, but at the moment we are using 40G only.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.5
Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers' support is responsive and reliable, with effective solutions and generally positive user satisfaction.
Sentiment score
6.6
ExtremeSwitching's customer service is valued for responsiveness and expertise, but faces challenges in availability and depth compared to competitors.
It has always been scheduled maintenance, which says a lot for a production environment, as we haven't had to call in a trouble ticket for the actual hardware during its entire run.
Typically, the contacts we have on-site are very knowledgeable, they come in within a day and usually have it fixed and taken care of if there are issues.
When we had a power supply failure out of the box, we called support, and they delivered the replacement within four hours as promised.
Requiring improvement in the technical support provided to customers.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers provide scalable configurations, supporting growth with expansion capabilities despite some concerns about advanced scalability limitations.
Sentiment score
7.1
ExtremeSwitching is highly scalable, supporting growth and flexible infrastructure, making it ideal for businesses needing adaptable systems.
The scalability of Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers is excellent.
Any outages or blackouts are limited to particular servers, not affecting the whole chassis or enclosures.
We bought our product with scaling involved, and we've been scaling it up anytime we've needed more storage.
ExtremeSwitching is highly scalable, and I would rate it as nine out of ten.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.1
Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers are praised for their stability, reliability, robust construction, and efficient uptime, enhancing user confidence.
Sentiment score
7.7
ExtremeSwitching is stable for small to medium businesses, with reliable support, but struggles with large-scale operation issues.
Over four years, we've had less than 1 percent downtime.
There is a feature to update the server while it is running, so there is no need to restart.
We have truly not had any downtime on the infrastructure at all.
The stability for ExtremeSwitching is excellent.
 

Room For Improvement

Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers users seek performance, management, design improvements, better support, pricing adjustments, and flexible configurations.
ExtremeSwitching should enhance support, usability, integration, pricing, response time, reliability, and expand AI, security, and product offerings.
We need to know about any upcoming updates so that we can plan accordingly.
The beneficial aspect of that feature was that we could skip the PowerStore and just have the Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers alone, as they also served as storage, which helped us save money.
This forces you to go up to a larger server to get the desired processor, which increases the cost.
ExtremeSwitching's software stability could be improved, as it sometimes crashes.
Because I am not a networking specialist, I do not know much about the things in detail.
 

Setup Cost

Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers offer competitive pricing with perceived value and reliability, often providing better deals than rivals like HPE.
ExtremeSwitching offers flexible pricing between Cisco and HP, with cost-effective options via bulk purchases and affordable licenses.
They have been stable and running for years without performance downtime or significant disc failures.
Some customers find it cheaper due to contractual agreements, while others find it expensive, especially when scaling up.
The software associated with servers, like VMware subscription licenses, drives costs.
ExtremeSwitching is priced in the mid-range, not too expensive nor too cheap.
 

Valuable Features

Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers offer scalable, reliable performance and ease of management with powerful Xeon CPUs and integrated tools.
ExtremeSwitching is valued for ease of use, performance, scalability, security, and affordability, appealing to small and medium-sized enterprises.
They keep running for at least five to seven years without any issues.
With PowerEdge Servers, I don't need a one-to-one ratio redundancy, which leads to about eighty percent downtime reduction.
One of the valuable features is Active Directory, which helps in managing the network.
The most valuable feature of ExtremeSwitching is the Extreme Fabric, specifically the switching fabric.
 

Categories and Ranking

Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers
Ranking in Data Center Networking
4th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
211
Ranking in other categories
Converged Infrastructure (3rd), Blade Servers (5th), Rack Servers (1st)
ExtremeSwitching
Ranking in Data Center Networking
7th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
LAN Switching (7th), AV Over IP Switching (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Data Center Networking category, the mindshare of Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers is 0.9%. The mindshare of ExtremeSwitching is 6.3%, up from 4.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Center Networking
 

Featured Reviews

Syed Masuood - PeerSpot reviewer
Handles workloads and diverse applications efficiently
We have a lot of VMs on Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers. On a single server, we have probably hosted 14 or 15 VMs. Out of these, 8 to 10 are continuously running, and four of them are backup VMs, so it can handle a good workload. For cybersecurity, it is only accessible on the intranet; it is not accessible through the web. We use it for local development purposes, and it is behind our firewall. Its security is strong. We handle a lot of test data for government and confidential customers. It is safe and strong locally. We have not experienced any security issues. Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers have helped to reduce unplanned production downtime if we need to replace a hard disk, instead of completely shutting a server, there is a hot swap feature. It is quite good in that aspect. Usually, for any activity, there is a downtime of about 30 minutes. It has saved a lot of time. We have tried AI workloads for a development environment for a government customer in Singapore. The servers are hosted in Singapore. It is an ML-based engine with AI. It is a government project where data is processed, and we run it on Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers. The benefit of running AI workloads on PowerEdge Servers is that it is easy to allocate memory. The application we are running is memory intensive. It is pretty easy to scale memory and storage.
Shrikant Teggi - PeerSpot reviewer
Excellent support and reliable performance drive positive experiences
We have been working with wireless for the last seven to eight years. At the moment, the customer has decided to go with a different brand. We are only dealing with the wired switches, not the wireless ones. We use ExtremeSwitching only, not Enterasys. Enterasys was the old one. I am not a networking person, so at this point in time I do not have much working experience on the switches. We have a separate team here who are working on these products. We have not reached that stage yet, but definitely in the near future we may use this kind of feature. Recently they have introduced platform one, which is an AI-based automation tool. That is definitely on the cards. Maybe in one year, we may start using that option as well. First of all, the product is robust and they are also coming up with new features. The second part is the support is excellent from ExtremeSwitching. They maintain delivery time and follow through on their commitments properly. The performance we expected, we are getting from ExtremeSwitching. All these requirements we have are being met with the product, features, and support. It is cost effective. I rate ExtremeSwitching a nine out of ten.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
21%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Educational Organization
6%
Manufacturing Company
21%
Computer Software Company
12%
Construction Company
7%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

When shopping for a rack server, would you go with Dell EMC Poweredge or Lenovo Thinksystem?
Our organization ran comparison tests to determine whether the Dell EMC Poweredge or Lenovo Thinksystem rack servers were the better fit for us. We ultimately decided to go with Dell EMC Poweredge....
What do you like most about Dell EMC PowerEdge Rack Servers?
It has helped us reduce unplanned downtime by 20% to 30%.
What needs improvement with Dell EMC PowerEdge Rack Servers?
Mainly, I would like to improve the speed of storage response. We would like to improve our performance by using disks without rotation. The price is better now, and I think it will be better in th...
What do you like most about ExtremeSwitching?
The product offers a single management platform for multiple models of switches. The tool also allows users to manage multiple sites from a single dashboard.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ExtremeSwitching?
I would rate the pricing for ExtremeSwitching six to seven out of ten.
What needs improvement with ExtremeSwitching?
Regarding what could be better with the product, I am not aware of how much AI functionality is provided in ExtremeSwitching. Everyone is talking about AI, so there should be AI facilities provided...
 

Also Known As

PowerEdge R
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

NxtGen Datacenter, Medien-Service Untermain (MSU), Exasol, IndigoVision, Dayco
Blue Waters
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers vs. ExtremeSwitching and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
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