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NetApp HCI [EOL] vs VxRail 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

NetApp HCI [EOL]
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.6
Number of Reviews
32
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
VxRail
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
132
Ranking in other categories
HCI (1st)
 

Featured Reviews

MB
Crashed continuously, complex to deploy, and bad after-sales support - NETAPP FIXED the problems in 2022
Their after-sales support, SLA, and third-parties availability should be improved. NetApp's support is very difficult to engage. We have an SLA of onsite support within 24 hours. but they don't respect the SLA. Its stability was very bad. It has been crashing continuously. In one year, we got three crashes, which is unbelievable for an appliance that is guaranteed for 10 years without any crashes. In 2022, NetApp Italy, driven by the country manager Davide Marini, fixed all our issues and added additional computation power for free. This is a great example of customer care. They could have done it right the first time of course, but admitting the errors and putting in place such a remediation plan has been a very professional behavior.
Rami Jadallah - PeerSpot reviewer
Streamline management and integration with seamless upgrades
The primary reasons customers choose VxRail include ease of management, ease of upgrades, and integration with VMware. The hyper-converged infrastructure simplifies software and hardware upgrades. Customers prefer the single pane of glass management and integration with VMware, which makes it easier for them to proceed with decisions involving VMware products.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"In terms of helping us with storage persistence across private and hybrid clouds, we do store data internally and in Azure. It has allowed us to consolidate a number of workloads, across our old NetApp and a number of our older storage arrays, into a single unit and have that unit also working with Azure."
"It allows me to move a VM set and require extra performance. I can easily move them onto it and have it just run."
"We're trying to move to a much more API-driven management of all of our products, and NetApp's product is, from all the SDS providers we have seen, the most fully-baked API out there."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the SolidFire interface."
"The ease of deployment is a positive feature that allows us to scale easily."
"The most valuable feature is the convergence."
"HCI has helped with storage persistence across private and hybrid clouds for the last year. It's faster and more reliable with minimal downtime, as it doesn't require any maintenance."
"The multi-vertical aspect is what is most valuable for us. The main reason we wanted a multi protocol was because Amazon was not able to provide us with access to the same data as we could get from Linux and Windows lengths. That was our value proposition for this solution."
"The recent technologies and management features that have been implemented."
"VxRail has high performance and has great efficiency. There is a single place for us to manage all of our virtual machines. The ability to right-size instead of overcommit VMs is a large benefit."
"The low latency and response times and having a virtualized environment within a single computer are valuable. I have no physical elements, and I can optimize or balance my data depending on the sales volume that I have in a specific store."
"The technical support from Dell was very good."
"Dell owns the EMC, EMC owns VMware, and there are many other interconnections throughout the industry which allows a fully integrated solution from a technical perspective."
"VxRail supports straightforward scaling, allowing you to add as many nodes as needed for upgrades and simplifying the upgrade process."
"This solution ensures uptime, providing 100% availability so servers can operate without downtime. It works with VMware on the software side. The solution also has AI capabilities. The solution is stable. The solution is scalable. Customer service and support is more than satisfactory. It is easy to deploy. It can be done within a couple of hours. Overall, I rate the product a nine out of ten."
"The solution is perfect for the lifecycle management of hardware."
 

Cons

"I would like to see the implementation process improved."
"There's a limitation with a block in the file. That's where I see that it's not very efficient for upgrades and for management."
"I would like for them to fall a little closer to like the VMware release model. The new features and new solutions tend to come from the VMware side. I would like for NetApp to follow along closely with VMware's release schedule."
"I would like to see higher level graphics support because we are going to be doing some virtual desktop for our CAD software, and I want to be able to support AutoCAD and Cantillo on remote desktop machines."
"In the next version I would like to see bigger GPU types and insurance for including transparency."
"It is difficult to get acclimated to all the new features quickly. The onboard process could be improved to bring clients up to speed faster."
"I would like to have the ability to replicate to multiple sites."
"My biggest pain point is the installation part. I would like to see the appliance itself remove the entire switch that goes behind it and figure out how to do all the cluster interconnects within the box itself."
"The agility of the support team to provide you with better solutions should be improved. VxRail also has to be improved in terms of simplicity. Adding a simple node seemed like quite a project."
"At present, VxRail is a hyperconverged state of the art product being installed in a legacy way. We need hyperconverged install teams."
"The update for the graphics integration and the media drivers isn't included in the VxRail update."
"VxRail is a closed system with an out-of-the -box solution approach, it has basic 3 layers, Hardware, Network, Storage, Software, (Virtualizing) Applications. Release notes and improvement tips, patches from the back office, the business units, should be frequent and up to the patches which are coming from different vendors as far as the operating system application and also the technology itself is concerned."
"Dell wants to implement the disaster site in the new year, but they haven't decided yet. I hope we will have the opportunity to sell VxRail with this disaster site. It is not really clear at the moment, but hopefully, we will get some good news from the customers in the new year."
"When we have a vulnerability or we need to upgrade VxRail, it takes a long time. It takes eight hours each time we upgrade."
"I wish for the performance environment to be improved."
"I can't speak to any missing features or weak aspects of the system just yet. We haven't had a chance to really dig in."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of the solution is okay but could improve."
"Licenses run on a yearly basis, and there aren't any additional fees other than the standard licensing fee."
"There are the overall infrastructure costs. Even though the initial costing was higher, we calculated for year-to-year for five years. That brought us into a position where we decided, we have to go for HCI rather than having distributor systems."
"Its pricing is lower than our previous solution."
"You still have to pay for the licensing for VMware and Red Hat licenses separately. It's not all inclusive at this point."
"Its price is comparable to the competitors in the market."
"This solution reduced our maintenance costs. We were going to have to pay one to two million dollars to put in compute nodes. We are avoiding those costs."
"Its price is aligned with the market. In addition to the standard licensing fees, there is an integrator cost."
"A typical node that I would sell to a customer has a list price be between $80,000 and $100,000 per node. Organizations typically start with four nodes. That's the hardware, software, VMware licensing, everything. Customers typically pay about half of that - approximately $45,000 to $50,000 a node. On average, it costs about $200,000 to get your foot in the door."
"Pricing is competitive."
"It is reasonable. Compared to the legacy hardware that we had so far, we are not paying way more, but we have very good performance. Its price is good."
"It is expensive as compared to other products in the same category."
"The cost was cheaper compared to other virtualization solutions."
"The solution is very expensive."
"The current VxRail pricing structure is quite opaque for me, especially considering the recent changes."
"Most of hyper-converged solutions require additional licenses for the virtualization layer (like VMware)."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Real Estate/Law Firm
19%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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Comparisons

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Also Known As

No data available
VCE VxRail
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

American Showa, Children's Mercy, Coca-Cola, Consultel Cloud, Evangelische Landeskirche in Wurttemberg, Imperva, Surface Mount Technology
World Wide Technology Inc, Renault Sport Formula One Team, 8x8 Inc, Brownes, Canadian Pacific, Canopy, Denton, EDF, Unilin, Xerox
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