Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers Reviews

We are a solution provider and this is one of the products that we implement for our customers. Their use cases can be everything from storage to simple computing to network traffic analysis. We have a lot of customers that just do everything with these servers, and it's difficult to keep track of.

We will architect and help the customer identify the best solution for their software, and then essentially modify whatever they need. This might include adding cards, deploying their software onto the server, and then managing their inventory.

PowerEdge is good when it comes to dealing with the evolving needs of high-performance workloads that our customers have. Whatever software they're developing seems to be able to take advantage of it.

The system's management frameworks have enabled at least one of our customers to progress toward full automation. Their internal scripting works with automation, which means that they can leverage the tools that Dell has created and merge them with their own software. This is something that's benefited them.

iDRAC is one of the most valuable features, as well as having BMC.

The real advantage to Dell when I look at some of the other competitors is the support. The support is better than Lenovo and HP. For example, it's much easier to get replacement components, and we can get service out to customers as quickly as possible. There aren't as many hoops to jump through. It's just not as challenging. This is one of the big reasons we stick with Dell.

The iDRAC telemetry for monitoring PowerEdge system data and providing analytics is a good feature. We have a lot of the sensor data that we capture, and it's very useful to our customers. Being able to pull that out and tell them the consistency of their product is a good value-add to sell.

The big problem that we have at the moment is with the supply chain. If it were more realistic then we'd probably be able to expand some of these systems a little bit more. This might be more CPU options, different memory, or overall consistency.

Certain customers have requirements that they prefer. I've had some trouble where the customers are not happy with the Toshiba drives, and it's a challenge when it comes to specific requests for Dell to a non-deviate, and only use Seagate drives.

I have been working with Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers for approximately 14 years.

This product seems stable to me. Compared to products from other vendors, I don't have as many problems with them.

From a scalability standpoint, getting more systems or expanding capacity has never really been an issue.

I would rate Dell's technical support a nine out of ten.

Positive

Compared to other solutions, Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers are very good.

In general, the user interface on Dell's products, including iDRAC, is a little bit easier and more intuitive than those of competing solutions from vendors such as Lenovo and Supermicro. 

Our customers have seen a return on their investment with this solution.

The pricing for PowerEdge servers is reasonable. Our customers continue to purchase them from us. When it comes to pricing, often our customers are doing the work for us. They compare pricing and costs against other hardware vendors to see who is going to come out on top. More often than not, they choose Dell.

We do a little bit of support for our customers, depending on the contract that we have with them. When there is a problem with a sever, some people just want to replace it immediately. They don't really care about trying to replace single components. They just want to get their server up and running, so they swap it out. It's very much done on a case-by-case basis.

My advice for anybody who is considering this solution is that it's the support from Dell that really makes things easier for us. There is always a little bit of movement when it comes to the costs and getting the numbers where they need to be. But, at the end of the day, dealing with Dell means it's easier to support a customer, especially with critical response times. This is something that's been really beneficial for us.

Overall, this is a good product, and judging by the feedback from my customers, there are very few additional features that they want or need. Dell seems to have done a pretty good job with what is currently released.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

We run the 900 and 700 models.

PowerEdge Rack Servers powered by Intel offer good performance in handling the evolving needs of high-performance workloads and offer good value for money. 

The Intel Xeon scalable processor has helped to improve the performance of our targeted workloads. Dell's OpenManage console is easy to use. 

PowerEdge Rack Servers has affected the overall flexibility of our operations. We are able to build our data centers with multiple clusters, and that provides sufficient scalability for us to do bigger deployments.

The support that you receive from Dell after buying this product is very valuable.

The long lead times in receiving hardware could be improved. 

We have experienced issues with memory. We received help from the Dell team and this has been resolved. 

The security of this solution could be improved. We have very specific needs as an engineering company and require multiple layers of security. This is not offered when implementing the Dell hardware.

Dell's OpenManage console is easy to use but could be better by offering additional features. The console has not decreased the time it takes to deploy new data centers.

I have been using PowerEdge Rack Servers powered by Intel for over 15 years. 

This is a stable solution. 

This is a scalable solution. 

The customer service for this solution is very good. I would rate it an eight out of ten. 

Positive

We have used different solutions including Lenovo. We currently use Dell for all of our needs from our user hardware to our infrastructure data center. 

The initial setup is straightforward. We had 10 staff members involved in the deployment. The server bill team set up the hardware and the DMR team ran the virtualization layer over it. The security team completed the checks. We have about 55,000 users supported by this solution.

The licensing is expensive and inflexible. 

For anyone looking for a reliable storage solution, I would recommend PowerEdge. 

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten. 

I use a mixture of versions of this solution including R440 and R430.  I also use FX2S for the blade chassis and FC630 and 640 for the actual blade servers.

We use the blade solution as a host cluster environment for virtualization of multiple servers and the standalone R440 and 430 for best practice when we don't want to necessarily complete virtualization. We use physical servers in different locations in order to have different firewall contexts, so we can push data across. We use the physical servers as simulated distant ends in a test environment out at the actual sites.

This solution has helped us reduce our rack footprint. It reduced our power consumption including size and weight. For example, we could increase the number of systems we were deploying in Iraq if we needed to. 

The solution decreased the time it takes to deploy systems due to needing less hardware. When we started to manage all of our servers in a cluster, it increased our oversight management. Ease of management with a smaller hardware footprint has equaled faster deployment.

The most valuable feature of this solution is the fact that it is a reliable server and does the job we implemented it to do. 

We are leaning away from this particular product because Dell's VxRail solution makes us buy four nodes at a time which is not scalable. Other solutions such as Cisco offer more innovation on this front. 

The switching for this solution is lagging behind other products. Cisco has built the best iOS that other solutions need to match. Dell has recently done an overhaul to allow networking switches but it still can't scale the way we need it to. 

I have been using this solution for seven years. 

This is a stable solution. 

Blade servers are not scalable anymore.

The initial setup is not complex but it is counterintuitive, specifically the chassis. The FX2S chassis holds up to four half widths blades and has a pre-built two-module network card and eight ports that mirror each other.  

The PCIe slots on the back of the chassis are hardwired and challenging to set up.

We did not use the automated server of OS deployment features. We installed the hardware and then installed the software manually. We are a dark site. Dell could be a little bit more friendly to dark site management. There's a huge customer base out there that just cannot utilize a lot of their solutions in a classified environment.

The pricing for this solution is reasonable. We pay a basic premium with a military premium on top of that. 

This solution has met my needs. We have not run with the latest versions of this solution due to security concerns. 

This solution has helped me to view the health and status of our environment in a user-friendly way. The TPM features have helped us a lot because, from a configuration management standpoint, there are trusted platform modules that operate consistently.

For anyone considering this solution, I would recommend looking into all the finer details to understand how it could be integrated. Ensure every facet of the solution is going to meet your needs.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten. 

We are a web hosting company, so we host websites. They are predominantly high-value websites. They tend to be very intensive applications, so we use CPUs with lots of cores and memory. We try to get as much performance as possible out of these machines.

At the moment, we are using Dell R640 and 740XD, and we have some 540s for backups.

Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers are very good for handling the evolving needs of high-performance workloads. Even though we do not use the very latest generation servers, they are in line with our customers' needs. Our customers do not know or care what the specs of the servers are. They just want the results, which speed from websites or whatever applications they are running. We have a very strong reputation in the industry for producing those fast results, and at the moment, Dell servers support that very well. Our knowledge perhaps is not as good as it could be on some of the latest technologies. We do not even use NVMe storage yet, but I am quite interested in seeing some of the new technology for NVMe support.

Due to our environmental compliance, we are very aware of our consumption, and it is pleasing to see regular improvements in that area. We are regularly looking at and reviewing our power consumption. We replaced some of our older Dell models with newer ones, which are way more efficient. They are very good in terms of energy consumption. There is a useful calculator available on their website to work out how much we are going to be using, so we can tell in advance. Before we populate a new data center cabinet, we can see how much we should expect it to be using. That makes it a lot easier. We then do not underfill or overfill a cabinet. We can maximize the use of the space by knowing with some degree of accuracy how much power is going to be used.

I like the reliability and ease of swapping out failed equipment. It is very easy to replace power supplies and drives.

We use older-generation servers. We are two generations behind. There can be remote access management and iDRAC improvements, but I do not have many complaints about that.

From the licensing model perspective, it might be useful for enterprises to get an overall enterprise license, rather than licensing each server. That is one option because we tend to buy the service with the licenses, but some of our older equipment does not have them.

I have been using Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers for about ten years.

They are very reliable.

We tend to buy quite high-spec servers, so we do not need to upgrade, but storage-wise, typically, we always have an empty base in the servers we deploy. So, we have plenty of scope for scaling.

We do not use their support. We use a third party. We rarely need to get support because the equipment is so reliable. 

We used to use HPE many years ago. We moved to Dell because their servers were more customizable. We were able to use our own disks, for example, whereas HP would not allow us to do that. They had to ship the disks, and that was the main reason we moved.

Dell is just a little bit more logical. Even when you open up the box and carry out the replacement tasks with the components, it seems a little bit more logical. In every generation, there is a change, but when you open up a new box, it does not take long. Without reading the manual, you can figure out what needs to be done. We have never been disappointed with the new products that do come out, so we are quite involved now and attached to the Dell ecosystem.

They are very good in terms of deployment. Our automated system is there, and there is no problem with using our deployment tool with it. I cannot think of a case where we have hit a problem. It has been fast. There is nothing to do with the hardware. There are no obstacles.

We looked at Supermicro, but we never found them very reliable. The chassis and the build felt a little bit more flimsy compared to Dell. Dell servers felt a lot more like enterprise hardware.

In terms of the impact of PowerEdge Servers on our organization’s sustainability goals, we have not recycled much old equipment. I am not sure what to do with it. I do not know whether they have any incentives for returning old hardware. One thing we need to factor in is how to dispose of older hardware.

For the simple needs that we have, I would rate Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers an eight out of ten. 

We use Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers for application servers, database servers, and virtualization. We also use them for hyperconvergence.

By implementing Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers, we wanted to reduce the footprint in the data center and the costs. We also wanted to have better performance and, above all, durability because we keep them for a minimum of seven years.

Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers are well placed in comparison to their competitors in terms of energy consumption. They are even better now with the AMD processors.

At the moment, Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers perfectly meet our needs. We have never reached the limit, or there has always been a solution offered by Dell to manage the evolving needs of the high-performance workloads. It is always evolving, and there are no issues.

With regards to the durability of the servers, the advantage is that we keep the servers for seven years before changing them. That is important for us. It allows us to avoid using them for nothing. The support is also there afterward. There is performance too because we are putting fewer of them.

Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers have helped to reduce unplanned production downtime. We have very rare breakdowns with it. That is why we keep them for seven years.

Using Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers has affected the overall flexibility of our operations or business. It has had an impact on the growth because we can deliver fast. We can grow very quickly because we have a growth of 40% per year, and we have a supplier who can react and install very quickly, which allows us to grow.

The speed of delivery is something super valuable. Reliability and performance are also valuable.

Their support can be better. The speed of their support is not always great because the access to the data centers is sometimes complicated, so there is back and forth. This is where there is room for improvement.

We have a lot of issues with OpenManage. We are currently in talks with Dell to be able to roll it out within the company, but we are struggling because we are a bank, and there are many things that are out of bounds. It seems that the people working on it are not familiar with this type of business, and it is struggling to function properly. We would definitely like to have something better integrated. There is definitely some improvement needed in this software.

One area for improvement could be the capacity to evaluate all of our servers with one console. They might already have it, and I might not be aware of it, but it would be great to have one console that could tell us what, for example, the overall consumption from our servers is. I should be able to know about every rack too. That would help me with my choice related to the new generation and the model I should go for. Because of the rack configuration, I must be careful with each rack’s consumption. I must be careful that it is not too stretched. 

Currently, I use one of their suppliers for PCs to get this kind of information. If I could obtain the information directly from the server itself, it would be more interesting.

I have been using Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers for more than ten years.

Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers are stable. I would rate them a ten out of ten in terms of stability because I have no problem.

The scalability is very good. I would rate them a ten out of ten in terms of scalability because I do not reach the limit as far as my needs are concerned.

Their support needs improvement. Delivery times are quite substantial, and customer service is very important to us.

I would rate their support a seven out of ten. They can improve the response time because it is always the same system. Bearing in mind that our teams are already pretty highly skilled, their support does not need to ask the same questions, such as:

• Have you updated it?

• Have you done the tests?

Generally, when we identify a problem, it ends up being that one, but we lose quite a bit of time doing the tests because we have to follow a certain procedure. They do not want to change the part until that procedure has been followed and completed. That is how we end up losing time with the support.

Neutral

We have had some from HPE and other brands. I switched because I have been working with Dell for several years now, and above all, because of the server’s modality and direct delivery. The delivery is very fast which is not the case with the others.

The calculation for any return on investments is always a complicated matter. It is always complicated, but as far as durability is concerned, we always see some because we can absorb the costs over a longer period of time. So, that lowers our investment’s cost. In comparison to the competitors, they are in a fairly good position, and it is still the case today, but the ROI is difficult to calculate as we are still growing.

We do not know why they have increased the price by 25%. This is a very steep increase. In my opinion, it is not justified, but it is the same case with everyone. Margins should certainly not be increased.

With regards to the licenses, I do not use any licenses from Dell.

I would rate Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers a nine out of ten because there are a few areas for improvement. Overall, it is a good product.

Foreign Language:(French)

livraison rapide, fiable et utile pour réduire l’empreinte de centres de données

Depuis combien de temps utilisez-vous les serveurs Dell PowerEdge Rack?

J’utilise des serveurs Dell PowerEdge Rack depuis plus de dix ans.

Quel est votre cas principal d’utilisation pour cette solution? (Décrivez votre environnement).

On utilise les serveurs Dell PowerEdge Rack comme serveurs applicatifs, serveurs de bases de données et de virtualisation. On s’en sert aussi pour de l'hyper convergence.

Veuillez décrire comment les serveurs Dell PowerEdge Rack ont amélioré votre organisation. Si ce ne fut pas le cas, veuillez expliquer pourquoi.

En implémentant les serveurs Dell PowerEdge Rack, on voulait réduire l’empreinte en data center pour réduire les coûts. On recherchait aussi une meilleure performance et surtout, de la durabilité parce qu’on les garde minimum sept ans.

Les serveurs Dell PowerEdge Rack sont plutôt bien placés par rapport à la concurrence en termes de consommation d'énergie. Ils sont encore meilleurs maintenant avec leurs processeurs AMD.

Pour l’instant, les serveurs Dell PowerEdge Rack répondent parfaitement à nos besoins. On n’a jamais atteint la limite, on a toujours eu une solution proposée par Dell pour gérer les besoins évolutifs de nos charges de travail à haute performance. C’est toujours évolutif et il n’y a aucun souci.

En ce qui concerne la durabilité des serveurs, l’avantage c’est qu’on garde les serveurs sept ans avant de les changer. Ça, c’est important pour nous. Ça nous évite de consommer pour rien. Il y a également le support derrière. Il y a la performance aussi, comme ça on en met moins.

Les serveurs Dell PowerEdge Rack ont aidé à réduire les temps d'arrêt de production imprévus. On a très peu de pannes dessus. C’est pour cela qu’on les garde sept ans.

L’utilisation des serveurs Dell PowerEdge Rack a affecté la flexibilité globale de nos opérations et de notre entreprise. Elle a eu un impact sur la croissance parce qu’on livre vite. Nous pouvons croître très vite car nous avons une croissance de 40% par an et j’ai un fournisseur qui est capable de réagir et d’installer très vite, ce qui nous permet de croître.

Quelles fonctionnalités avez-vous trouvé les plus utiles et pourquoi?

La rapidité de livraison est quelque chose de super important. La fiabilité et la performance sont également importantes.

Dans quels domaines les serveurs Dell PowerEdge Rack pourraient-ils être améliorés?

Leur support pourrait être meilleur. La rapidité de leur support n’est pas toujours bonne parce que l'accès aux data centers est parfois compliqué, il y a des allers-retours. C’est là qu'il y a un point d'amélioration.

On a beaucoup de difficultés avec OpenManage. En ce moment, on discute avec Dell pour pouvoir la déployer dans notre société mais on a du mal parce qu’on est une banque et il y a beaucoup de choses qui sont fermées. Il semble que les personnes qui travaillent dessus n’ont pas l’habitude de ce type de secteur et cela a du mal à fonctionner correctement. On aimerait vraiment avoir quelque chose de mieux intégré. Il y a clairement un effort à faire sur ce logiciel.

Pour ce qui est d’un point d'amélioration, ce serait bien d'avoir la capacité d'évaluer tous nos serveurs avec une seule console. Ils l’ont peut-être déjà mais moi, je n’en ai pas conscience mais ce serait utile d’avoir une seule console qui pourrait nous dire quelle est la consommation globale de nos serveurs, par exemple. Je serai capable de le savoir par rack aussi. Cela m’aiderait dans mon choix vers une nouvelle génération et le modèle sur lequel je devrais me diriger. Puisqu’on est sur une configuration de racks, je dois faire attention à la consommation par rack. Je dois faire attention à ce que ça ne tire pas trop. En ce moment, je passe par un de vos fournisseurs de PCs pour avoir ce genre d'informations. Si je pouvais passer directement par le serveur lui-même pour obtenir ces informations, ce serait plus intéressant.

Avez-vous utilisé différentes solutions auparavant et si c'est le cas, pourquoi avez-vous changé?

On a eu des serveurs HPE et d’autres marques. J’ai changé parce que je travaille avec Dell depuis plusieurs années et surtout pour la modalité du serveur et la livraison en direct. La livraison est très rapide, ce qui n’est pas le cas avec les autres.

Que conseillez-vous à d'autres sur les coûts d’installation, les tarifs et/ou les licences?

On ne sait pas pourquoi ils ont augmenté les prix de 25%. C’est clairement une forte augmentation. Pour moi, elle n’est pas justifiée mais c’est la même chose pour tout le monde. Il ne faudrait surtout pas augmenter les marges.

Sur la partie licence, je n’utilise pas les licences Dell.

Quelles sont vos impressions sur la scalabilité de cette solution?

La scalabilité est très bien. Je leur donne un dix sur dix en ce qui concerne la scalabilité parce que je n’arrive pas à la limite, par rapport à nos besoins, en tout cas.

Quelles sont vos impressions sur la stabilité de cette solution?

Les serveurs Dell PowerEdge Rack sont stables. Je leur donne une note de dix sur dix pour la stabilité parce que je n’ai pas de problème.

Avez-vous constaté un RSI (Retour Sur Investissement)? Si oui, de quelle manière (p.ex. métriques/points de données)?

Le calcul sur le retour sur investissements est toujours compliqué. C’est toujours compliqué mais on en a par rapport à la durabilité de toujours puisqu’on amortit sur plus longtemps. Donc, cela fait baisser nos coûts d'investissement. Par rapport à la concurrence, ils sont plutôt bien placés et c’est encore le cas aujourd’hui mais le RSI est difficile à calculer car nous sommes en pleine croissance.

Décrivez-nous votre expérience avec le service client et le support.

Leur support a besoin d'être amélioré. Les temps de livraison sont assez longs et le service client est très important pour nous.

Je mettrai sept sur dix pour leur support. Ils peuvent améliorer leur temps de réponse parce que c’est toujours le même système. Sachant que nos équipes sont déjà bien pointues, leur support n’a pas besoin de demander systématiquement les mêmes questions, telles que:

• Est-ce que vous avez fait les mises à jour?

• Est-ce que vous avez fait les tests?

En général, on cible un problème et ça finit par être celui-là mais on perd pas mal de temps pour faire des tests parce qu’il faut dérouler une procédure. Ils ne veulent pas changer la pièce tant que cette procédure n’a pas été déroulée jusqu'à la fin. C’est de cette manière que nous finissons par perdre du temps avec le support.

Comment évalueriez-vous cette solution sur une échelle de 1 à 10 pour le service et le support?

7

Sur une échelle de 1 à 10 (1=le pire, 10=le meilleur), comment évalueriez-vous les serveurs Dell PowerEdge Rack? Veuillez expliquer pourquoi.

Je donne aux serveurs Dell PowerEdge Rack un neuf sur dix parce qu’il y a quelques points d'amélioration. Dans l’ensemble, c’est un bon produit.

We have one PowerEdge Rack Server that we got a little while ago that is running Hyper-V and some Windows VMs and we just got a new one, which will be running SQL. We use them for Windows networking tasks. One is a file store server and the other is an application server.

These servers have expanded our storage for our call recording. We no longer have to offsite our calls prior to needing them, within the lifecycle of the call requirements. Before, we'd have to ship off some call recordings after two years, but we can now keep them onsite longer. 

They have also optimized some of the infrastructure and allowed us to reduce our footprint in the server room. We were able to upgrade two servers into one and virtualize them when we got the PowerEdge.

Some of the apps that are critical to our business are Office 365, Sage, which is a finance payment company in the UK, and AWS for some of our hosted solutions that are public-facing, because we don't want them coming in directly to our data center. The integration of these apps' workloads with our PowerEdge Rack Servers is of high importance. We're able to put our applications on them that integrate these services and have them automated and run without worry.

Moving on to the new PowerEdge Rack Server that we have just purchased will definitely reduce downtime and allow more flexibility in our workloads, going forward.

While it's not specific to the PowerEdge side of it, I do like the new feature in the Dell servers, the BOSS system [Boot Optimized Storage Solution]. That is really nice. I don't know if it's unique to Dell, but I like it.

And when it comes to handling the evolving needs of high-performance workloads, the PowerEdge Rack Servers are fit for purpose. They do what they need to do. 

I am also grateful for the security features, including the signed firmware, drift detection, and BIOS recovery.

I haven't done any energy monitoring of our servers because I don't have a big enough server farm to need to monitor our power consumption at that level. It's not like I need to turn off half of our fleet to save costs during downtime hours. We have a very small footprint as far as service systems go. Having said that, the PowerEdge servers are probably more energy efficient than the older ones we have because the older ones are a lot bigger. They have a lot more active hard drives and spinning disks. These new servers are nice, clean SSDs. Overall, power consumption will have gone down.

I use the Dell OpenManage console on occasion when I'm investigating an issue with the server, but thankfully, that doesn't happen very often. Using the console is pretty straightforward. I don't have any complaints about it. 

What annoys me about every server is just how loud they are when they're turned on, but that's just a function of the server. It's protecting itself. I can't complain that it's noisy when I turn it on, because it's not in its rack yet. It's sitting on a desk near me. That's just how servers work.

We've been using Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers for a couple of years and we've had at least one Dell in our system for going on 12 years now.

The servers that I have, have been humming away without me having to deal with them in any way, outside of Windows issues. Those issues have nothing to do with PowerEdge. They are the standard Windows issues. Overall, they've been working the way they're supposed to, so I have nothing bad to say about them.

I would imagine they scale very well. Our IT infrastructure has not been overly affected by having these servers. They are easily scaling to our needs and the equipment we have purchased far outpowers our business requirements, but they will be there when we need them.

I haven't had to contact Dell's technical support for the server side. The only technical support from Dell we've had so far was for laptops.

We had HPE ProLiants, but I haven't bought any of those since the last one several years ago. We've gone to Dell since then.

They have good longevity and good warranties. If there were an issue (and we haven't had any) they are covered.

I'd like them to be cheaper, but that's not the world we live in and that's not where the pound is at. 

The price was acceptable for what the product is. If I tried to build my own server, the cost difference would be negligible. And the brand support that Dell provides and the functionality that comes with the PowerEdge Servers made up the difference. So it makes sense. I don't have a problem with the cost. It is in line with what I'd expect.

I considered public cloud servers before choosing PowerEdge Rack Servers, but that solution wasn't fit for purpose in this case. We have some public cloud stuff that is useful in some cases, but we wanted hardware onsite for this specific device.

In terms of native OS security features, we use Active Directory and we have BitLocker and some other things enabled. We mostly use them for compliance and because we have them. Nothing has forced me to look outside of the native-provided solutions.

To protect ourselves from malware and other firmware attacks, we have Mimecast for email endpoints and we have ESET Endpoint Security for all of our clients and servers.

The PowerEdge Rack Servers do what they say on the tin. I like them. And our latest one was delivered really fast. We ordered it on the 7th and it came on the 18th, which was unexpected and nice. That's a good turnaround time.

We use Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers powered by Intel for Windows Servers and VMware Servers.

With Intel’s Xeon scalable processors in our PowerEdge Rack Servers, we have been able to reduce the number of servers we need when we change our workloads to the new generation, once every five years or so. I can feel a big improvement in terms of workload.

Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers powered by Intel

• are easy to use 
• are easy to manage with Dell's OpenManage Console
• have extended support for five years.

When it comes to handling the evolving needs of high-performance workloads, they're good. They deliver like they're supposed to.

And while I haven't had to use the BIOS recovery, it's a nice feature in case there is a problem.

I've been using Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers for 15 years.

Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers powered by Intel are reliable, so I can say that they have reduced unplanned production downtime.

We use PowerEdge in a VM environment, so it is scalable.

We haven't used Dell's tech support.

We are also using HPE and Lenovo servers right now.

Deploying PowerEdge is straightforward. To get it up and running takes about an hour.

We always implement with in-house team.

We've been using the Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers for a long time and have found them to be very reliable. With the extended support, we can use them for five years, so it's a good investment.

The pricing could always be better.

When I compare PowerEdge Rack Servers powered by Intel to the other vendors like HPE or Lenovo, I can say that it's a bit better than them. It delivers good value. Dell provides longer support for operating systems when compared to HPE. We also considered all the public cloud servers, but they were not a cost-effective solution for our college. When we buy the on-prem service, we can use it for five years, and with a physical solution, we see a return on investment after about two years. If we were to use public cloud, we would lose after two years. This solution saves us about 1 million shekels (about $289,000 at the time of the review).

Dell's PowerEdge Rack Server is the best solution that I've seen, compared to other vendors.

It is used for data center service.

PowerEdge Rack Servers powered by Intel are good for handling the evolving needs of high-performance workloads with classical use cases.

My company has thousands of customers. We are resellers as well as implement Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers in our organization.

My organization provides software or application stacks for many organizations. So, Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers add a lot of benefits for integration and testing purposes. It is also a solution for small-scale deployment at remote locations.

PowerEdge Rack Servers have affected the overall flexibility of our operations or business.

For labs, when you don't need a high SLA, HA, or other expensive support and maintenance fees, then it is very easy to deploy these servers. You pay CapEx but the usage for day two is easier.

It is easy to manage, maintain, and install.

The new stuff with AI, Hyperscale, and HPC for all sorts of general compute purposes makes it the best solution that you can have today.

PowerEdge Rack Servers’ approach to security with its signed firmware, drift detection, and BIOS recovery is very good. This is the natural behavior today in the market. All vendors provide it, including Dell.

It is very easy and seamless to use the Dell OpenManage console for the lifecycle management of PowerEdge Rack Servers. It is one of the best solutions in the market today to manage the lifecycle of services.

It is not good in terms of its energy consumption for a large-scale deployment. I probably would go for something more dense, like blades or any type of small scale hardware service solutions, to lower the heat and power consumption. However, for small environments, this solution is okay and easy to maintain.

I have been using PowerEdge Rack Servers powered by Intel for 25 years.

PowerEdge Rack Servers powered by Intel are easier to handle in regards to upgrade and maintenance than any other solutions. It saves us over 50% of our time.

Usually, it is a very good solution for small-scale environments and environments that have difficulty providing services since the maintenance of PowerEdgeRack Servers is easier relative to any other solutions. Therefore, if you go for small-scale deployments, then PowerEdge Rack Servers powered by Intel are very simple and cost-effective.

The technical support from Dell is good. If you have an issue, the tech support is better than Lenovo and about the same as HPE. 

I would rate Dell's technical support as 8.5 out of 10, which is very good. While the technical support is very good, they are not perfect. You need to wait, and sometimes you need to escalate, which is a process. At the end of the day, it is economies of scale.

Positive

The rack and stack takes a couple of hours, maybe less. The overall installation depends on the use case. In general, it takes about two to three days to have a full working solution.

Intel's Optane memory has helped save money when adding memory capacity, compared to adding the same amount of DRAM.

The use of Dell's OpenManage console has decreased the time it takes to deploy new data centers.

The overall pricing and licensing are fair according to the market.

Because it is pay-per-use, there is a large offering from the application and software. This is what the customer requires, and I need to provide whatever they want. If they want to use the cloud, i.e., hyperscales as a solution, then I need to provide an application that will run on top. For me, it is a no-brainer. It is whatever the customer wants. 

In general, going to the public cloud has its benefits since the CAPEX is low and the OPEX is pay-per-use. However, you need to arrange your application and software in a way that will modernize and utilize the cloud economically. This is the downside of things.

We are a big company, so we are always evaluating everything.

For general purpose small-scale deployments, it has easy rack and stack and maintenance. For edge locations, this is the best solution that the market currently has to offer. 

Today, we are looking at other solutions other than Intel, such as AMD, because of the cost as well as the quantity of the cores that you can get for the same amount of use or footprint. 

There are also other solutions that are more cost-effective, but you can currently only get them on the cloud, like AWS Graviton, which is based off of ARM processing units. Currently, ARM is being provided only on cloud services. I haven't seen anyone provide ARM on-prem. However, if somebody provides a cost-effective, on-prem ARM, then we will consider going for ARM processing units.

I always prefer Dell because it is easier to maintain.

It used to have a very good effect on IT staff's productivity. However, the problem has now moved from the infrastructure to the upper layer.

I like the R640 model the best. 

I would rate Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers as nine out of 10.