Dell PowerEdge R-Series Reviews

We use Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers to manage all of our data. We have a lot of data that comes in. We're from the insurance industry, so we've managed data for 30 plus years of claimants who need to file claims for insurance for their property and homes. That needs a system that's robust, reliable, and secure. We looked at high availability servers by getting Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers.

The benefits of Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers are its resilience, cost-effectiveness, and easy manageability. Our IT professionals are quite familiar with the technology, and we receive great customer support as well. We appreciate the resiliency because we can spread out our load of service between three hosts. That gives us redundancy if we need to do maintenance, or if we have an issue with any of the memory or hard drives in any of the servers. The storage itself is built with plenty of RAID, which means that data corruption and data loss are reduced significantly.

It has benefited us by eliminating downtime. Our servers have been resilient, and we've been able to do maintenance without any issues. We have truly not had any downtime on the infrastructure at all, whereas before we implemented this resilience, there were occasional downtimes that the organization needed to deal with.

The only challenge we have with the product is keeping it in line with VMware, knowing that VMware has now gone with a different provider. We're in this race with the software versus hardware compatibility. With Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers, we knew where we stood with some of the parts. 

Licensing is also an issue, as we don't know what the costs are, what licenses we have, and whether the pricing will change. There's no transparency in what's happening or how our support works with VMware. They could improve by coming back and managing, maintaining it with a periodic check. For instance, after installation, they could return a year later to verify we're still applying best practices.

We have been using this particular solution for about four years.

We have been able to do maintenance without any issues. We have truly not had any downtime on the infrastructure at all, whereas before we implemented this resilience, there were occasional downtimes that the organization needed to deal with.

The system has provided operational success by eliminating downtime. The resilience is really the key part that we focused on. If we want to enhance our services, the support has been great. We bought our product with scaling involved, and we've been scaling it up anytime we've needed more storage. The price point for Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers is easily configurable. You can have a small business to an enterprise level, depending on what you want to build it with. This makes it easy because we can buy something and scale it up to a larger business if we grow.

With Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers, there is no one better in the industry for tech support service. I can vouch for having experiences working with other companies that have had different technologies and different support, and working with them is a completely different experience than working with Dell. That's what separates Dell from the other competitors. The Dell support is far better than anyone I've experienced.

We were required by our organization to have three reviews of competitors, and Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers came out ahead. HPE was one of them, and the third may have been Cisco UCS options. It was all standard, standalone servers per solution. That led us to go into the virtual environment.

It's easy to manage Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers because Dell makes it straightforward. The interfaces from the different storage and servers that we've used haven't changed too much. The deployment services we get in the beginning mean that we are onboarded quite effectively to the point that we can self-serve.

The solution deserves a rating of 10 out of 10. It's really that good. The Dell support is far better than anyone I've experienced. 

On-premises

We have a production setup in a factory for some of our services. The server can be a database server, file server, or even the Active Directory. We have multiple applications running on these servers, and we are very satisfied with these servers.

We are mostly using the 600 series.

Dell is certainly innovating. With the latest servers and technologies, I believe they are well aligned with the current need for AI solutions and the market demand.

We receive regular firmware updates ensuring security. We are quite satisfied with the updates and security. Dell also offers the Dell Assist feature which automatically keeps updating to the latest version available on the Dell website.

We have not experienced any security incidents or vulnerabilities with these servers.

These servers have been robust throughout their lifespan of five years, but I have observed that they work well even beyond that. Some companies continue using models that are expired because they have no reason to replace them based on the expiry date of the hardware.

Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers have had a positive impact on our organization's sustainability goals. We are very satisfied with these servers as well as with their service. Good service has a big impact on the product as well. If you have a good product but do not get good service, it creates a negative experience. Both need to be there.

Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers have helped to reduce unplanned production downtime by about 25%.

OpenManage console has an excellent user interface to configure and use servers effectively. It is a nice tool, but we are not utilizing it much. My understanding is that it is going to be discontinued.

We are very satisfied with Dell in terms of servers and service. We are happy with Dell servers. They are aligned with our services. They are robust. So far, we have found Dell to be the best vendor. Everything works fine and upgrades are also timely. They are also always innovating.

When interacting with customer support, it defaults to Arabic because of our region. However, most of the experts here are not familiar with Arabic. We would like English as an alternative language for easy interaction. 

Additionally, after the expiration of support, it is sometimes challenging to find parts like hard drives, especially for obsolete models. 

They are moving from OMSA to iDRAC, but iDRAC is complex, requiring additional plugin tools. These requirements make it a bit complicated. Other vendors are better in this aspect. They should provide a better way of access.

I have been with my company for nine years, and we have been using Dell PowerEdge Servers since then.

It is robust and flexible. It continues to work with the same performance even after the end of support.

It works well and does not need much downtime for maintenance. There is a feature to update the server while it is running, so there is no need to restart. It improves production performance.

It is quite easy to scale. It has impacted the flexibility of our operations in a good way.

We are very satisfied with the professional support. The language support can be better. Other than that, it is good. I would rate them a nine out of ten.

Positive

We have been using Dell for more than 15 years. We initially used IBM and then HP for a short period. HP had some service issues, which led us to move back to Dell. We chose Dell because of the service and robustness of the server.

Deployment is quite easy with Dell because it has a life cycle feature. This single module helps in configuration from the initial phase. That is one of the best features.

We have an in-house team for deployment. We mainly rely on partners for purchases, but we have technical experts within our organization.

The ROI of Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers is quite good. If rated out of five, I would say four.

It is hard to measure the total cost of ownership because we have a distributed environment. We have multiple offices and the budget is split.

We are at an entry level in terms of using AI. We are looking into automating things and making our process more efficient. We have not run any AI workloads on Dell PowerEdge servers. Data security is our main concern when it comes to AI. For implementing AI, we need to consider the security and auditing aspects. 

I would rate Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers a ten out of ten.

On-premises

Dell PowerEdge R-Series is primarily used in my organization for applications and databases, including services.

A specific example of an application that I manage with Dell PowerEdge R-Series is a single cashier system for casinos.

Dell PowerEdge R-Series servers in my company are very reliable and robust machines with the necessary support to host and run several applications and services at the same time.

The best features that Dell PowerEdge R-Series offers are its robustness and easy replacement of spare parts.

The easy replacement of spare parts has benefited me greatly, as if something gets damaged, the replacement can be done immediately, even without having to shut down the machine and take it out of operation.

Dell PowerEdge R-Series servers are very functional and operate at high performance.

Dell PowerEdge R-Series has had a positive impact on my organization by helping us support daily operations day to day without interruptions. A specific example where Dell PowerEdge R-Series has prevented interruptions is in the event of a disk failure, where it had an excellent response, allowing us to keep working even with the failure that occurred in the equipment.

I think Dell PowerEdge R-Series could be improved by improving its size. It would be useful if Dell PowerEdge R-Series were more compact or had a smaller design to optimize space.

I have been using Dell PowerEdge R-Series for 14 years.

I consider Dell PowerEdge R-Series to be stable.

The scalability of Dell PowerEdge R-Series is very good, with excellent scalability when it comes to projecting results.

My experience with Dell PowerEdge R-Series customer support has been very good and efficient.

We have always used Dell PowerEdge R-Series and did not previously use another solution.

I have seen a return on investment, with time savings and staff reduction. Perhaps not in monetary terms, but there has been significant staff reduction and time reduction when configuring or putting into operation.

My experience with pricing, installation costs, and licensing for Dell PowerEdge R-Series has been good, since the licenses that are purchased are perpetual and do not generate extra costs.

Before choosing Dell PowerEdge R-Series, we evaluated other options, specifically HP servers.

My advice to other people who are considering using Dell PowerEdge R-Series is that they are very robust machines that work very well and can be used in any type of industry. Dell PowerEdge R-Series servers are excellent for any organizational need. I have given this review a rating of 10 out of 10.

Private Cloud

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

My main use case for Dell PowerEdge R-Series is to use it as standalone servers but also as part of some clusters. I have some OpenStack private cloud deployed on them and some Ceph software-defined storage deployed on them.

In my OpenStack private cloud, I am using Dell PowerEdge R-Series servers to run the Ceph software-defined platform. Basically, every node is part of the clusters. It exposes the hardware, the storage part and you can add it to the cluster and create the pools of storage based on the disk types, for example, HDDs or SSDs or NVMEs. Those storage pools are then exposed using the Ceph platform to the consumers using some specific protocols, for example, iSCSI or even with Ceph's own tools as RBDs, block storage. That block storage is used also as a storage backend for the OpenStack platform. So basically, when I want to deploy some IaaS, some virtual machines and services on top of them, the VMs get the storage via Ceph platform from those Dell PowerEdge R-Series servers.

I just want to emphasize that I do enjoy working with the iDRACs because I think it's one of the best ways to manage the server out there, comparing to other vendors. It's one of the best ways to manage the server using the iDRAC and the whole feature set around that.

The best features Dell PowerEdge R-Series offers start with the simple KVM interface, console, through the specific configuration on the BIOS level, on the network cards level, on the power supplies, on the performance mode or balanced mode.

The reliability of Dell PowerEdge R-Series has positively affected my operations because we use one of the Dell PowerEdge R-Series servers as a main router for our connectivity to the internet. If that goes down, basically the whole network goes down. I have managed to keep it up without any problems in the last ten years or so.

Dell PowerEdge R-Series is one of the best platforms that I have in my data centers, the most reliable. I didn't have any single failure. I have some disk failures, but that's about it. So I have servers that are in production since 2010, for example.

I have been working in my current field since 2013.

Dell PowerEdge R-Series is stable.

I cannot say much about Dell PowerEdge R-Series's scalability. I don't really know what to say.

My experience with customer support is great. I didn't have that much interaction with them because everything worked great. When I need those people, they were helpful.

I previously used different solutions based on the fundings. I have a lot of different vendors in my setup. I do prefer the Dell ones when I am able to secure the pricing.

I evaluated Supermicro and Cisco and HP before choosing Dell PowerEdge R-Series.

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is great. It was really great because I managed to get good pricing and outcompete some other vendors.

I did not use Dell deployment services, an integrator, reseller, or consultant for the deployment. I have an ongoing project right now, but I cannot say more about it because it just started.

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is great. It was really great because I managed to get good pricing and outcompete some other vendors.

I evaluated Supermicro and Cisco and HP before choosing Dell PowerEdge R-Series.

On a scale from 1 to 10, I would rate Dell's professional services or technical support for this solution about eight. It's not 10 because I had some issues around the scheduling part, but they did a great job in the end.

My advice to others looking into using Dell PowerEdge R-Series is to go on. You cannot fail with them. I would rate this review a 10 out of 10.

Private Cloud

Other

Dell PowerEdge R-Series plays a role in my company's AI initiatives. For example, it is involved in AI-driven data analysis and automation like edge computing.

I don't find specific features of Dell PowerEdge R-Series particularly valuable, and I have no comment on that. The improvement Dell PowerEdge R-Series has brought to my company is reliability.

I have no comment on which areas Dell PowerEdge R-Series could still be improved, as I don't know.

I have been using Dell PowerEdge R-Series for 10 years or longer, starting at Vodafone with my current employer and having prior experience with it for 20 years at previous companies.

I am not aware of any crashes, downtime, or performance issues with Dell PowerEdge R-Series, as none are known.

I can't say much about the expansion of applications with Dell PowerEdge R-Series, but it seems to be working quite well and it works.

I rate Dell support as good. On a scale from one to ten, I would say nine. There are sometimes challenges with maintenance renewal, particularly with responsiveness, which sometimes takes a long time before we get feedback.

Positive

I have used a different solution before Dell PowerEdge R-Series in parallel, such as Hewlett Packard Enterprise, or HPE. We did switch to Dell PowerEdge R-Series, so it's moving more and more towards Dell rather than merely adding it.

I have not seen a return on investment because we don't use them until they stop working. Instead, we do a refresh when the systems reach end-of-support or even earlier since we work on end-customer projects. Internal IT handles it differently, and for end-customer projects, there is always a defined lifecycle—such as three years, four years, or longer. Then we do a hardware refresh, if necessary, or not. If the end customer no longer needs the infrastructure or desires something new, then it will be replaced.

The trend towards Dell PowerEdge R-Series is due to economic aspects, reliability, maintainability, and delivery times, which are also significant factors. I consider the pricing and licensing of Dell PowerEdge R-Series to be at market standard. For Dell in general, I would rate it a nine on a scale from one to ten. The challenges regarding responsiveness occur because we submit it, and then it goes to the UK, where our contact person is, who then forwards it. It would be beneficial as a suggestion for improvement to have a portal where you simply enter the serial number to request support renewal or anything else via the workflow. I rate this review a nine out of ten overall.

We've been using Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers for a long time, and they are really the workhorse behind the scenes for our business, whether it's documents or something else. In the past, it was our ERP system, our SQL Server, and nowadays, besides that, we also do some production technology stuff, some PLCs, some data collection, so Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers run all that technology behind our business.

Our use case for Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers includes our SQL Server that runs our ERP system, as well as typical office tasks like Excel files, Word documents, and marketing materials; basically, typical file storage, and our PLC analytic systems that we run.

We've about 130 people in our organization. Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers have supported our growth. We've had tremendous growth, increasing probably by four times when I started, so Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers have been behind the scenes, enabling us to grow the business. When we started, we were a small business, and we've now grown into the medium business range. We use a lot of enterprise features that small businesses don't. It has been great that PowerEdge was there when we were a small business, and now that we are a medium-sized business, there is still a solution for us.

My favorite features of Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers have been the redundancy and reliability. The redundancy built into the system allows us to replace components like a hard drive without shutting the server down, and that has always been the best feature ever. 

We've quadrupled in size since we started, which is a great story showing how PowerEdge servers have enabled that growth over the years.

To improve Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers, I would like to see the return of the dedicated Hyper-V cluster storage product line that was discontinued, which I found to be a really nice product. 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.

We've been using Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers longer than I've been with the company. I've been with the company for 20 years, and we've been a PowerEdge customer since before.

Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers have been able to scale with our growing needs. We've grown about four times compared to when I started, and as technology has advanced, so have we, with PowerEdge always providing a solution.

I find Dell's customer service and technical support exceptional. All the support personnel have been very knowledgeable and quick to respond, making overall support great with the Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers and the enterprise products.

Positive

Before Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers, I don't know what they were using.

They are easy to deploy. Deploying Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers was made easier with ProDeploy; I've deployed servers in the past, but I prefer to focus on high-level stuff now, and having ProDeploy take care of the deployment was really helpful.

It's just my team of three maintaining Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers.

We have seen a return on investment through the redundancy and reliability of Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers, which keep the technology running seamlessly in the background. My managers do not have to worry about it at all. As long as it keeps running, no one else in the company knows it's there, and that is the best testament to the product.

The pricing of Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers has been a little problematic. It was sticker shock with our most recent purchase compared to the previous one, and there's a gap in pricing at our current level because what we do isn't very compute-intensive, resulting in a mismatch where we fit into an in-between category without an exact solution available. We don't need a lot of processor power or a lot of memory. We need a medium amount of those, but the solutions available are a little bit too large for us.

We have evaluated other solutions from time to time, but we use a lot of Dell products, so it's always made sense to go with Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers.

With Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers, right-sizing the equipment is important. I've found that many IT people overestimate their needs in terms of compute and memory, so utilizing Dell's tool to determine current usage and discussing the company's trajectory with C-level executives helps in making informed decisions for future growth. I don't know the name of that tool off the top of my head, but all the Dell reps know it and recommend running it when purchasing new equipment.

I would rate Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers a nine out of ten.

On-premises

My main use case for Dell PowerEdge R-Series is to create virtual machines or virtual servers for the plant's operation.

Dell PowerEdge R-Series has made tasks easier in my day-to-day work, mostly for load distribution or for when we perform maintenance on a server or a host that we have.

I consider performance and administration to be the best features that Dell PowerEdge R-Series offers.

Regarding performance and administration, the specific aspects I find most valuable are mainly the use of virtual servers or virtual machines, being able to access them remotely from anywhere, and it has given us very good performance in terms of usage and the company's operational performance.

Dell PowerEdge R-Series has had a positive impact on my organization as it has reduced costs and improved the operations side in terms of servers used for applications, file server, and others.

Dell PowerEdge R-Series could improve a little bit in resource management.

Mostly, I would like the part of creating a virtual machine from scratch to be more efficient or simpler.

I have been using Dell PowerEdge R-Series for around five years.

Dell PowerEdge R-Series is very complete, and I do not see what could be improved regarding how it could enhance further. My advice for other companies that are considering using Dell PowerEdge R-Series is limited, and I do not have any recommendation or warning for those who are evaluating this solution. I would rate my overall experience with Dell PowerEdge R-Series a ten out of ten.

On-premises

My company is a reseller and integrator. We function as a system integrator. 

We resell services to SMB mostly, covering different use cases from financial to IT, and we have several clients in the crypto markets as well. 

The SMBs that I'm installing this for a range from 50 employees to 200. They need the server specifically for an on-premise setup of infrastructure.

In Dell PowerEdge R-Series, the most valuable feature is the management. It began with Dell OpenManage, and today it's the cloud-managed service. This is the most value of Dell PowerEdge R-Series servers. 

Mostly, organizations get Dell PowerEdge R-Series for the very strong maintenance and support contracts Dell has in Israel. And of course, the OpenManage platform. 

The benefits of the OpenManage platform include integration to SIEM, to RMM tools that our clients are using. 

It provides a very visible point of view on the whole infrastructure, not only for servers but also for storage, servers, and all the add-ons.

If I could improve Dell PowerEdge R-Series servers, I would definitely focus on integration to third-party products such as HP and others. Many of our clients not only rely on both Dell and on other services as well, including cloud services such as AWS and Azure. More integration to third-party services would be a great upgrade. I don't have something specific that I remember regarding the interoperability that isn't working right now, but I believe more integration equals more value.

I have been using Dell PowerEdge R-Series for about 20 years.

Dell PowerEdge R-Series product is overall very stable, very mature, and support is excellent. This is the main reason we continually choose Dell over the competition.

We find that the product can scale with their workloads. Scalability with Dell PowerEdge R-Series is very easy because Dell has a wide range of services, both hardware and software. We can easily scale with hardware by adding more racks or more capacity to a single platform. With software, it's also very scalable with OpenManage. We can add more servers to one platform.

I have worked with customer support. In my opinion, customer support is very good. On a scale of one to ten, I would rate it a nine. I rate it a nine as, from time to time, there are downs. Mostly they are okay.

Positive

The pricing and licensing of Dell PowerEdge R-Series servers are market competitive. They're okay. There are ups and downs when it comes to comparing them to the competition. Overall, they're okay. I've been in the business for a long time.

There's always room to improve. On a scale of one to 10, I would rate Dell PowerEdge R-Series a nine, which is very good.

On-premises

Other

We specifically outline our use cases of Dell PowerEdge R-Series as using it for VMware virtualization and databases running bare metal.

Dell PowerEdge R-Series benefits my company. It provides superior price performance compared to other vendors. 

The features of Dell PowerEdge R-Series that I appreciate the most are the central management and the surrounding software as they're integrated and easy to use. 

It's supporting growth and operational success. We're buying more and more PowerEdge R-Series instead of other vendors like Cisco and HP, and we're growing with additional hardware.

Dell PowerEdge has features that specifically cater to the needs of small or medium companies. It's the cost-effectiveness and good quality of the product that make the difference.

I would recommend Dell PowerEdge R-Series enhance more features such as AI. We're not there yet. 

Additionally, reduced cabling and improved power consumption management would be beneficial improvements.

I've been working in my current field for 25 years and I have been using Dell PowerEdge R-Series for four years.

Regarding stability and reliability, the software performs excellently and the hardware has proven robust. We haven't needed to replace any hardware components in four years of operation.

Dell PowerEdge R-Series scales with the growing needs of my company as we add more servers and expand the clusters, making the process straightforward.

Our company has 7,000 people.

The customer service and technical support are exceptional, with fast response times and prompt solution delivery. 

I would rate the customer service and technical support a nine out of ten.

Positive

Before choosing Dell PowerEdge R-Series, I used Cisco UCS and HP servers, however, we have now moved exclusively to Dell.

The deployment is very easy. 

The biggest return on investment when using Dell PowerEdge R-Series is the relatively low initial investment and maintenance contract renewal costs compared to other vendors, making it more economical overall.

The pricing, setup cost, and licensing have been very competitive compared to other vendors, which influenced our decision to choose Dell PowerEdge R-Series.

The main difference between Dell PowerEdge R-Series and Cisco is that Cisco offers better management perspective due to its concentrated nature. 

We use Dell PowerEdge R-Series, where we can utilize standalone servers rather than blades or a managed solution.

My advice to other companies considering Dell PowerEdge R-Series is to try the proof of concept and experience its excellent performance. 

I rate this solution a nine out of ten.

The use case for Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers is digitizing and processing of data, but I can't say more. I can't be more specific.

The benefits my company has realized from using Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers range from collating information to simulating different physical objects such as antennas and radar type applications.

What I find valuable about Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers is the adaptability to configure, based on one or multiple processors, taking advantage of the number of cores, the ease by which it works with the Tensor Cores of the GPUs, and that's the most value in terms of processing speed and large scale problems. 

Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers play a role in our company's AI initiatives, however, that's a new area for us. We've been exploring the idea of collaborating, in terms of how we can leverage AI for our data processing, and more importantly to better be able to predict different scenarios. But I'm not involved in that aspect of it just yet.

Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers could be improved in areas such as cooling. I've seen some demos of Dell working with Vertiv to manage things such as that, so a combination of air cool and liquid cool. 

That's one aspect. The other aspect is the form factor; it's pretty big, takes up a lot of space. However, as the technology of the GPUs improves, we could probably do the same workload with less add-ons, and that would simplify that problem. From what I've seen here, Dell is already working with partners to address these concerns.

I have been using Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers in my organization for about five years.

Reliability was a big issue for me when I switched to Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers. The previous solution had reliability issues. 

Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers scale with the growing needs of my company. It works since we can deploy images quickly. We can hot swap things. As we scale, it's just a matter of having the vision to have enough space and physical infrastructure to do that. As far as the server resources and software resources, it's pretty easy.

I assess support from Dell as excellent; what I most appreciate is the regional support. At the enterprise level, there's always someone to talk to, to reach out to. 

The sales reps stay in the loop and they constantly stay in touch. It's fairly easy to pick up a phone and call someone and get to the right place. What I appreciate is even if they don't know or they're not immediately sure of a solution to our problems, they'll quickly point us in the right direction.

Positive

Before selecting Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers, I didn't have such good luck with HP. HP Enterprise doesn't work for me. I've had some successes with custom-built servers, but in terms of price, eventually at scale, they become cost-prohibitive. That's one of the reasons why we moved towards the Dell solution over the years. In terms of cost, reliability, the ability to work directly with them to spec different systems and get them supplied on a decent lead time works. The other vendors don't work so effectively.

The deployment is easy. I can I can dump images on the server and just send it off and install it. It's hot swappable in a sense, the way we had it configured. It's very easy.

The speed of Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers is valuable to me. The benefit for higher speed and more accurate results is less development time and faster time to market in some aspects, and better return on the investment overall. 

In my immediate case for antenna analysis, Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers offer a reduction from days of computing to half a day or hours. It's ten-times improvement when combining processor cores and Tensor Cores in the same form factor. In terms of radar analysis, we can process more objects; it's four-times improvement in the number of objects we can keep track of at the same time.

My experience with pricing, setup costs, and licensing of Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers is somewhat skewed. In the beginning, we used a lot of resources, in terms of dollars, to try to do everything ourselves. What we're finding over the years is Dell works with other partners to make that easier, so we can actually save a lot of time by having other people with the right expertise do things. That's not so much an issue anymore because we've figured out how to keep our costs moderate by working with Dell directly and their partners.

I did have another solution addressing the same needs before Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers, and that's where the competition comes in. 

My role in using Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers is to figure out what the system needs for the work, or for the processing that we need and assist with purchasing of that stuff. On a technical level, I'm also collecting the data from our instruments and making sure that data is processed to provide usable, actionable information.

My advice to other companies who are considering Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers is definitely to get directly with Dell. Get direct contact with the support group and that will get you to the engineering level. Dell will work with you to develop and spec a system. Once you spec it, if your ambition is to scale and grow, that can always be part of it. That initial, direct working relationship with Dell is my best recommendation of where to start. Trying to do it on your own, you won't necessarily understand. You may understand the current technology, yet you may not understand where that technology is going or the vision of Dell. Dell can show you that vision, and you can now architect a system that takes advantage of that in the future to minimize your replacement costs down the road. So before you do anything, pick up the phone and start working with one of the engineers or application engineers; that works best.

I'd give Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers a rating of ten out of ten. Those guys are easy to talk to and easy to work with.

On-premises