Dell PowerScale (Isilon) Reviews

The solution has helped improve our service, lower the running cost of the solution, and made it more scalable so we could address more customers at the same time.

We use the solution internally to support our own managed servers and run our own support center. From a business point of view, I like the way the solution cooperates.

Dell PowerScale works well to help our organization manage and run its storage from any location. We used to have systems at different locations, which required a lot of coordination. We made it work, but with the current solution, one guy can do the work that earlier required two or three full-time equivalents.

Dell PowerScale has helped us to reduce or eliminate data silos.

I rate the solution's flexibility a six out of seven for supporting various data workloads while keeping them protected.

It did not really limit risk. It gives a lot of operational flexibility in a way that reduces risk because then the solution is better up to date every time you use it and is consistent across the different data sources. That's good and adds value, but we were already doing that in the old situation. Dell PowerScale just made it easier.

When envisioning the future of our containerized solutions in terms of cloud integration, we will adopt a hybrid strategy. Some of our customers are not able to move to the cloud, where we have to support them. We're following what the customer can do. In many cases, their initial transition into the cloud was not as successful as they thought. In the Dutch market, people are now a little more business-minded while looking into the cloud. That's why I believe that hybrid will be the way forward.

As an integrator, the needs of our customers drive our decision-making process when it comes to selecting a cloud, on-premises, or hybrid environment for containerized applications.

The pricing could be reduced.

I have been using Dell PowerScale (Isilon) for two years.

Dell PowerScale is a stable solution, and not many escalations were brought to my notice.

The solution's technical support team is good, knowledgeable, and quick.

On a scale from one to ten, where one is bad and ten is good, I rate the solution's technical support seven and a half out of ten.

Neutral

I see a return on investment in that my people can do more for more customers in less time. The team now covers a larger number of customers than it did in the past, so I did not need to hire new staff for that.

Dell PowerScale clearly delivers what it promised to deliver.

Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

Dell PowerScale helps to capture large amounts of data in a short time. 

The tool comes with cheap disks and works fast for video content. 

Dell PowerScale needs to reduce its price. 

I have been working with the product for ten years. 

The solution is stable. 

Dell PowerScale is scalable. 

The tool's support is good. 

Dell PowerScale's installation is fast. You need one engineer to handle the deployment. Its maintenance is easy because of its high redundancy. 

I rate the product a ten out of ten. 

We use the product for ETA data storage.

Dell PowerScale is a scalable solution. It allows non-disruptive upgrades and maintenance of the system.

The product’s expansion capacity, pricing clarity, and ease of use need improvement. There could be power sizing tools available similar to OneFS or H-Series.

We have been using Dell PowerScale (Isilon) for three or five years.

Our organization has 100 to 200 Dell PowerScale (Isilon) users. Its scalability is an eight or nine out of ten.

We used NetApp before. We switched to Dell for better scaling features.

The implementation is simple. I am unsure about the deployment time as I work in the pre-sales department. But it might take approximately five to ten minutes to complete.

It is an expensive product with a high storage capacity suitable for large data requirements. They do not have an option if a customer wants to purchase 20 TB storage space.

I recommend Dell PowerScale (Isilon) and rate it a seven out of ten. It doesn’t have an HTTP protocol. There are other alternatives like Unity and Pure Storage with essential features.

We utilize Dell PowerScale for storing files as it is the sole solution that possesses advanced features that meet our customer's needs.

Dell PowerScale can be deployed on-prem and in the cloud but I prefer a Hybrid model and primarily use AWS, Azure, and Oracle.

The flexibility and the user-friendly interface are the most valuable features.

The cost of Dell PowerScale is currently high and there is room for improvement.

I have been using Dell PowerScale for seven years.

I give Dell PowerScale a ten out of ten for stability.

I give Dell PowerScale a nine out of ten for scalability.

The technical support team is responsive.

Positive

The initial setup is easy for an engineer. The time required for deployment, however, depends on the environment. If we're transferring data to existing infrastructure, a few hours should be enough. But if we're working with a new infrastructure, we must first fulfill certain requirements before we can migrate the data.

We implement the solution for our customers.

The price of the solution is high.

I give Dell PowerScale ten out of ten.

We are a Dell partner.

Many of our customers in the banking and parts sectors utilize Dell PowerScale.

Three to four engineers are required to maintain the Dell PowerScale.

I highly recommend Dell PowerScale.

My customers are using the solution in a few areas, such as DFSA and pharma, for their application.

The most valuable feature of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is all the capabilities together.

The price of the solution could be reduced.

I have been familiar with Dell PowerScale (Isilon) for approximately one year.

I rate the stability of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) a ten out of ten.

My clients have been satisfied with the support from Dell PowerScale (Isilon).

The setup of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is not difficult for our team. However, it could be complicated for my clients.

The length of time of the deployment depends on the infrastructure. If there are more servers it could take more time. However, typically it does not take more than one day.

We did the implementation of this solution for our customers.

The price of the solution can fluctuate. The price can be competitive or other times not. The price of the solution could be better.

I rate Dell PowerScale (Isilon) a ten out of ten.

We are an integrator. The main challenge our customers have had with this solution is the unstructured data they have coming in. 

PowerScale is flexible in supporting various data workflows and custom applications, from legacy equipment to newer functionalities. 

The solution's cyber security and ransomware protection are definitely a plus. Some of the other key benefits include performance, availability, and being able to have a data lake. It offers a single repository for multiple storage types with access at multiple points. 

PowerScale has the ability to scale data across our business, predominantly in an on-premises environment. We are able to scale to different segments within divisions.

This solution is able to create efficiencies in data storage and provide better control of data environments with an easy-to-use interface. 

This has been a valuable solution for our business overall. It offers business continuity and replication features. 

PowerScale helps our clients consolidate data storage and multiple applications onto a single platform for easier manageability. By doing this, overall performance is improved and data is better protected. 

The legacy file system for Epsilon didn't scale into the cloud and didn't have a separate OS. It would be key if this was made possible.

We have used this solution for four years. 

This is a very stable solution and we have not experienced any outages. 

This is a scalable solution. 

The customer support for this solution is excellent. 

Positive

We evaluated NetApp.

This solution is scalable, fast, and reliable. With the new NVMe technology that has been built into it and the bleeding edge of switches and NVMe, I would definitely recommend this solution. 

I would rate this solution a ten out of ten. 

We connected our mainframe system to Isilon. The NFS is being provisioned from Isilon and hosts millions of files. It is our primary storage solution. 

Isilon is flexible in supporting various data workloads while keeping them protected. Dell continues to release updates and patches which enhance the use of this solution. This includes offering ransomware protection.

We are working with Dell to implement a cyber security solution, which is called the air gap solution. We also have Dell Data Domain systems. We back up the data from Isilon or any other system into Dell Data Domain. From Dell Data Domain, we offload to the air gap and secure the data into the air gap or Isilon. 

The system is robust. It has had a big impact on the efficiency of our organization. It serves as storage for our core application, which is a revenue-generating application. It plays a key role in our business. 

Isilon has the ability to scale file data, although we have not explored this within our business yet.

The offloading of data from Isilon to ECS object storage has been cost-effective.

Isilon has limitations on the number of files that can be generated.

I have been using this solution for seven years. 

This is a stable solution. 

This is a scalable solution. 

The customer service for this solution is really good. We have a dedicated support account manager and system engineer from Dell who assists us when we need it. 

Positive

We do have another solution that we leverage for our NFS protocols. The other system is a little bit more efficient or robust. We also have protocols that we leverage on the other system. They are really good compared to Isilon.

The general cost for a system like this is expensive. The total cost depends on your use case. You need to pay for every additional feature that you use. 

I'm impressed by the way the system provides scalability. From an administration standpoint, it's really simple to use. The GUI and interface is easy to manage. 

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten. 

We are using Dell EMC PowerScale as a central storage for our virtual HPC infrastructure based on VMware.

We have several silos today, as our HPC infrastructure is typically divided between bare-metal and virtual configurations. The storage that we use on various infrastructures is different, as we are typically using a storage style that is different from any production facility. Until now the request from our internal users was to keep the data separated in different storage silos, and converging in central storage facility while on the virtual HPC is the new request. Therefore, we are experimenting how it works.

We have five nodes of F200s. 

This is the best platform that we could have for storage utilization. It is affordable and scalable. At the end of the day, it's something that we find very easy to use. Our administrators and people are very happy with the platform.

Now, our storage I/O performance is three times what we had before, even if we had not optimized the networking that is hosting the infrastructure. For this reason, our internal users are very happy.

We know how to deal with the OneFS system very well. 

It is easy to use and scale. It is probably the easiest, most scalable storage that we have ever used with our infrastructure. It improves the performance of our infrastructure. We have some other types of storage, but they are not as simple to use like PowerScale.

The ease of use and installation have cut the time of putting a new storage solution into production. This has been very useful for us.

Some improvements to the NFS support would be of interest to us. I think that will be available next year.

We have been using it for less than a year. We just bought the platform in May, then we did a couple of months of testing. Now, it is in production. We bought the solution as soon as it was announced, but you have to take into account the time of the delivery and testing. With the pandemic, everything is unfortunately slower.

The stability of PowerScale is incredible. It's not so different from Isilon. PowerScale is a sort of Isilon on steroids. It has the same scalability and reliability of the Isilon platform, but now you have a lot of performance, so it is a sort of super Isilon from a customer usage point of view.

In the year that we have had it in production, the solution has demonstrated stability and performance. It is something that we rely on for our simulation infrastructure.

There is a team of three who maintain all the infrastructure for PoweScale. It is easy to manage as soon as you have it setup.

It scales seamlessly. We started three nodes, then we added two and there were no problems. The impressive part: Now creating or expanding a PowerScale cluster is almost immediate. In the past, you needed more time. 

As of today, we have around 15 research groups doing work on the platform, but we have only started the production phase after weeks of testing.

The technical support is perfect. We are more than satisfied. They are responsive with good turnaround times.

We have several Dell EMC solutions. We are familiar with their support and are more than happy with it.

For NFS and CIFS services, we used Isilon and now PowerScale. We have lengthy Isilon experience in our data center. Today, we have still a Dell EMC Isilon H600 hybrid in production, but we decide to go to PowerScale to host our simulation facility. Typically, the workloads in which we are hosting on our virtual HPC environment come from engineering and chemical simulations as well as the latest AI and deep learning workloads.

We were beta testers from the first platform of Isilon before it was acquired by Dell EMC. Its scalability, ease of use, and performance were key. When PowerScale came out, we didn't try to buy another platform for this kind of work.

We have been very satisfied with our Isilon experience as a centralized system for HPC. PowerScale is much better than the Isilon that we had before.

The platform is really straightforward to install and use, so we are not losing too much time setting up the storage as is and have more time to deal with the data on it.

The initial deployment took one day to set up. You do have to do some preparation for the setup, especially on the networking side. However, on the infrastructure, the platform is easy and straightforward to set up. The preparation was to prepare the networking, where you will be connecting the machines, such as, the typical networking configuration and VLANS, then you are ready to go.

It is immediate to add a new node and put that inside your configured cluster, e.g., when we installed the new PowerScale, the installation of the operating system was very quick. It was really unbelievable. We came from the first generation of Isilon where the installation of the operating system was not so fast. The F200 skyrockets onto the OneFS. Though, if we could afforded the F600, then that would be also faster. However, what we can afford is the F200, and we are happy now with that.

We have seen an improvement of performance without losing too much time when setting up the new platform.

We did the implementation ourselves with the help of the Dell EMC support team, who set up the system. One person, myself, took a half a day to set up the infrastructure and another day to install it, then putting the platform in production.

Our infrastructure is directly managed by us.

We have improved the performance and reliability of our HPC storage. We are very happy with it. Our systems are typically used for research. The added value is in the performance. Typically, it's not a problem saving money. It is more a problem of how much research you are able to do, how many jobs you're able to afford, and so on. In this sense, PowerScale, in our infrastructure, is really a winning piece. Today, we have three times the performance on the I/O. The gain that we have with the I/O is significant.

Isilon was an incredible return on investment. I think PowerScale will be the same because it's giving us the performance that we were looking for at an affordable price. 

The platform is not cheap. However, on the software side, you can choose what you want license. So, you can start your licensing with the features that you need, then after buying the platform add some other features. 

We went for the traditional NFS and CIFS platform. We have also licensed the HDFS platform because we want to do something with the HDFS.

There are some new features, but we are not using all the features because you need licensing for all them. However, we are seeing that the platform is growing. At the end of the day, when we will need some more features, we will license some more of those features, knowing that they will have them.

The F600 machine of PowerScale is much better than what we have. It has MDM drives and 100 GB connection with the same software.

I know that you can license also some enterprise class features on the platform, but we are not using those features today.

I have a small team who analyzed the market, but it is difficult to find some competition for PowerScale with the same performance and price. Something that was important during our decision was you have to teach a technician the new platform, and maybe that takes time. In this case, the integration of the PowerScale was almost seamless for the infrastructure and internal technicians.

Apart from Isilon, we are using DDN. We also have some parallel side systems that we are using production with our HPC. However, PowerScale is really the easiest to use.

I would recommend going for this solution.

PowerScale is already at the edge of the technology. If you give a look at what you find on the market today from the technology point of view, PowerScale hardware and software are at the top.

80 percent of our operations are brands, especially for HPC, but our organization is moving to the cloud from some services.

We have discussed with Dell EMC their roadmap of the platform and are very interested in it. We hope we will be able to afford the new features that will come up, like the NVMe nodes.

We have some projects using the S3 protocol, but not on PowerScale. They are on the old Isilon for HDFS.

We use the CloudIQ feature to monitor performance and other data remotely. We have two platforms on the CloudIQ: PowerScale and PowerStore. We haven't use the platform yet so much that it has been useful. We have typically been users of InsightIQ software to monitor infrastructure. Now, we are using the CloudIQ, but do not much experience.

We are not thinking about using it as an enterprise platform. However, we do see increasing our usage over time.

I would rate this solution as a 10 out of 10.