Sangfor HCI and Dell vSAN Ready Nodes are strong competitors in the hyper-converged infrastructure market. Sangfor HCI is favored for its cost-effectiveness and comprehensive built-in features, whereas Dell is noted for its performance and stability.
Features: Sangfor HCI is appreciated for its ease of management, auto-scaling capabilities, and simple configuration, including integrated security features at no additional cost. Dell vSAN Ready Nodes stand out with their robust storage profile management, support for various workloads, and integrated backup solutions.
Room for Improvement: Sangfor HCI could benefit from supporting more configurations and improving error reporting, integration capabilities, and backup features, alongside enhancing market presence and documentation. Dell vSAN Ready Nodes need better scalability and flexibility, improved alert systems for maintenance, and a more integrated cloud approach.
Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Sangfor HCI offers diverse deployment options, including public, hybrid, and on-premises, with customer support acknowledged for strong local presence but mixed reviews due to language barriers from overseas teams. Dell vSAN is mainly on-premises, with customer service seen as satisfactory but affected by recent disruptions.
Pricing and ROI: Sangfor HCI presents itself as a more budget-friendly option with straightforward licensing and fewer hidden costs, leading to better perceived ROI. Dell vSAN Ready Nodes, while competitively priced within their class, have higher initial and recurring costs that may affect ROI perceptions compared to more flexible alternatives.
The OPEX benefits are around 30 to 40% because the same engineer who manages vSphere can handle Dell vSAN Ready Nodes, eliminating the need for additional support engineers.
Whether we have pro support plus or just the basic level, they are helpful and reliable as long as we provide the necessary details.
There is always room for improvement in terms of response time and reaching knowledgeable staff quickly.
With VCF we have significant automation built-in within the VCF console within SDDC manager as the primary management console.
I would rate scalability around seven because 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.
A disk group for five disks can be problematic, and customers need to tolerate downtime if the disk is not available.
Dell vSAN Ready Nodes are useful as a product, but the lack of expansion with VMware has led customers to refrain from further upgrades.
A faster firmware lifecycle with the release of validated firmware catalogs more quickly would be a desired improvement.
In some cases, we have seen hardware failures and performance issues where performance suddenly deteriorates.
As a group under Comcast, we receive very good pricing from Dell due to our considerable business dealings.
The ability for single-team management without requiring a separate storage team for managing arrays and fiber channel switches is also a valuable feature.
I would say in-house management, administration, and storage policies are the three key differentiators compared to normal non-Dell vSAN Ready Nodes where we are leveraging external storage.
Dell's technical support is generally very good.
Dell EMC vSAN Ready Nodes are pre-configured building blocks that reduce deployment
risks with certified configurations, improve storage efficiency by up to 50%1
, and can help
you build or scale your vSAN cluster faster.14 Whether you're just getting started, and/or
expanding your existing VMware environment, Dell EMC is here for you every step of the
way with consulting, education, deployment and support services for the entire solution.
Sangfor HCI is an IT infrastructure platform built on converged architecture. It integrates server virtualization, distributed storage, and networking. Sangfor HCI provides a unified management platform that converges compute, storage, networking, and security on a single software stack. This approach delivers a simplified architecture, ease of use, and reliability for business-critical applications.
Hyperconverged infrastructure is a unified system of data storage. HCI combines storage, computing, networking, and management, unlike traditional storage solutions. HCI systems enable you to build your private cloud, expand to a public cloud, or have your own true hybrid cloud. Sangfor HCI presents two product models: The Sangfor HCI server appliance is a hardware version that enables easy deployment. Sangfor HCI software is the digital version combined with a third-party server that enables flexible deployment.
Sangfor HCI supports Windows systems on desktop and is web-based. Its range of use cases cover a wide spectrum of industries, from healthcare to manufacturing. It is applicable for mid- and large-sized businesses. The software is customizable. Users can customize the logo and contact information in the user interface.
Benefits and Features
Use Cases
Sangfor HCI can be applied tin various scenarios:
Reviews from Real Users
Gabriele P., Senior Software and Systems Engineer at SAMU.IT, says "It is flexible like a hyper-convergence system. You can add nodes, and you can scale to have better performance and stability. I also like the backup feature, the recovery system, and the web interface GUI to handle everything."
A Junior Solutions Engineer at a tech services company adds that "Sangfor has many solutions, and you can easily manage their machine servers with just one management. They're always striving for greatness, and they continuously update their products. For example, they have now built endpoint security within the firewall. They are continuously improving not only the security but also all other products."
We monitor all HCI reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.
