Dell PowerScale Reviews

One of our use cases for Dell PowerScale is to have a storage system for us. We are basically using it for hosting our NAS and as shared storage. We also have a couple of servers for our AI factory, which is still in POC with the NVIDIA GPU. Compute is our primary focus at the moment.

We are not using Dell PowerScale for data management at the moment; perhaps in the future, we might use it as a warehouse or for some other use, but currently it is just a NAS that we are using to store our databases locally, and those databases are not that operation-intensive.

Dell PowerScale does play a role in our organization's AI initiatives. It is still in POC, but it does contribute to our efforts.

We chose Dell PowerScale because we already had Dell management, so we know the hardware is solid and it comes with NVMe SSDs. The IOPS is there, and we were looking for use cases to build our own in-house generative AI. The contenders were either using Cisco UCSX or going with Dell PowerScale. Since our whole environment was already Dell PowerScale, we went with Dell. Additionally, there is also integration with OEM, which makes our lives much easier and we can have a single point of focus.

The integration of Dell PowerScale with our existing IT infrastructure is pretty efficient for operational efficiency. We have been using it for a little while now, and what we have seen is that the NAS performance is quite good, and the ones we are using for data integration and AI factory are working very well as well. OEM integration is there, which makes our lives much easier.

The previous versions do not support features like object storage; S3 and better cloud connectivity are things I would like to see. A policy-based management system would also be much better.

I have been working with Dell PowerScale for more than two years now.

Till now we have not seen any issues with the overall operational efficiency and ease of use of Dell PowerScale. We are running somewhere around 500 TBs on each server, and we have not faced any issues with IOPS or network connectivity.

In terms of performance and reliability, we have not had much experience with complex data sets; we are still using it for basic NAS purposes. Whatever we have done so far, we have not seen any issues. We have not had any hardware failure yet, so we do not know what kind of redundancy or failures to expect in the future. At the moment, it is quite stable, as are the other servers from Dell.

Dell PowerScale seems scalable as it uses OneFS. While I am not entirely sure what kind of enterprise data protection and compatibility it will have in the future, it seems scalable for us at the moment.

Regarding the technical support and customer service teams, from what we have seen, Dell tech support is quite good and on point; we do not have any complaints. On a scale of one to ten, I would rate Dell tech support as a nine or ten; the support is there for us anytime we need it.

For our AI practices, we did not use a different product prior to adopting Dell; it is a really new initiative for our team and our product. We were using PowerEdge and also using EMC, though.

The initial setup process of Dell PowerScale is quite straightforward; everyone has worked on Dell before. The UI was familiar even though a couple of changes were made, but it was not that difficult for us.

We did the deployment in-house.

We have not had trouble managing aspects like AI-driven data insights and automation with Dell PowerScale; since it supports RDMA and RoCE version two, that is one of the great things we have. Additionally, NVIDIA GPUs are integrated with that, and I would have to go more in-depth since we are using a couple of custom software solutions, and that can be a violation for me.

I do not know what the purchase price was as I am not included in the budgeting discussions. From what I know about the physical racking, stacking, and everything, it seems to be quite efficient at the moment. However, we acquired it a couple of years ago, and we just recently started, so I am not sure what the current price point is in the global market.

The contenders were either using Cisco UCSX or going with Dell PowerScale. Since our whole environment was already Dell PowerScale, we went with Dell.

We work with Dell EMC and then we have Dell PowerEdge. We do work with Dell PowerScale.

We have not had cloud-based operations; however, we have done it with Dell PowerEdge. From my experience with Dell, it works fine. We are using a couple of servers with an open-source OS for our edge routers, and it just works fine. We are terminating a lot of cloud infrastructure on those, and it is able to handle traffic quite well; the only issue I might have seen is sometimes the IOPS drops, but that is again a firmware issue we had. Other than that, we have not seen any specific issues related to the cloud.

One of the reasons we chose Dell PowerScale was its capacity; if I remember correctly, the row capacity for it is somewhere around one petabyte. That was one of our key points. It also stores NVMe, has in-transit and at-rest encryption, and can be clustered up to a couple of hundred devices. We currently have a few devices coupled up, not in physically clustered, but virtually clustered, and we are not having any issues. The physical efficiency is also there, so all of that you are basically getting in one rack unit, which is not a huge physical footprint for us.

I am an administrator on a star team managing everything; we are the ones responsible for it. From physical management to software management, the underlying OS management, everything falls on us.

One of the performance metrics we use to measure success with Dell PowerScale is IOPS. Network connectivity is again important, and we also measure on our observability platform what kind of power consumption it is doing, what the expected power consumption is, and how well it is communicating with our other virtual clusters. These are the basic benchmarks at the moment, but I think that will change in the near future.

From a security point of view, we are using hardware security at the moment; we have TPM and Intel Secure Boot enabled, and our NVMe drives are encrypted. That is all we are doing for security at the moment.

We have not used Dell PowerScale much yet, so I cannot give feedback until we push it to the edge and see what goes haywire. The OS seems quite stable, and the integration goes quite well; we are not using it for intensive workloads at the moment, so it is hard for me to say what results it will bear under pressure.

I would recommend Dell PowerScale. However, it depends on what every customer is looking for and what kind of usage they have from use case to use case. If it is similar to ours, then that is the recommendation.

I have been working in my current field for almost seven and a half years now. Overall, I would rate Dell PowerScale as a 7.5 or 8 on a scale of one to ten.

My main use case for Dell PowerScale is for S3 or NAS. Dell PowerScale plays a role in my organization's AI initiatives as it supports AI-driven data insights, automation, and advanced workloads.

The best features Dell PowerScale offers include online expansion. Dell PowerScale has positively impacted my organization through patching and upgrades, as there is no downtime; you can perform these tasks online without application interruption.

I have noticed specific improvements from using Dell PowerScale's online upgrade feature, as it has significantly reduced the time required for our BAU activity, especially for upgrades and expansions. There is no downtime, and it is easy to plan the activity by scheduling.

I would describe the overall operational efficiency and ease of use of Dell PowerScale as having a very user-friendly interface.

Dell PowerScale can improve in speed and IO throughput. Additionally, it could benefit from more integration options and additional automation activities.

I would add that some competitors in the market have more integrations such as virus scanning, Active Directory, or other LDAP services; these types of integrations are needed.

Regarding Dell PowerScale's AI capabilities, I believe its governance and security are more important for financial or government sectors, so governance and security will require additional upgrades and hardening.

I have been using Dell PowerScale for approximately two years.

Dell PowerScale is very stable in my experience.

Dell PowerScale's scalability is what we appreciate, as the expansion capability is very useful and scalable. There is no need to purchase the entire product; we can simply add nodes incrementally.

The customer support for Dell PowerScale is very satisfactory.

We used Hitachi before and shifted from Hitachi NAS to Dell PowerScale because of its scalability, which was the main consideration.

We did not evaluate other options before choosing Dell PowerScale.

My company is an end user, and we do not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

I have seen a return on investment with Dell PowerScale, as it has definitely saved many of our resources. After deploying our skills in production, there have been no incidents; it has proven to be very stable and secure.

My advice to others considering Dell PowerScale is that it is stable and has fewer issues while being highly scalable.

Regarding Dell PowerScale's AI capabilities, I believe its accuracy and reliability of output are very good.

I use the benchmark of IO, bandwidth, and transfer speed most of the time to measure success with Dell PowerScale.

For operational efficiency, the integration of Dell PowerScale with my existing IT infrastructure is very friendly for Dell products, but we have some third-party solutions such as BMC or virus scanning that still have some gaps requiring improvement.

I would describe Dell PowerScale's reliability and availability for my organization's data operations as very good because Dell PowerScale can support individual node failures or have redundancy with no application interruption or path failure.

My experience with Dell PowerScale's data protection and security features is limited; however, from what I know, it is a very powerful feature.

Emerging challenges I foresee in managing enterprise data include AI licensing, log analysis, data collection, troubleshooting, and AIOps solutions.

I would rate this review an eight out of ten.

Dell PowerScale serves as our primary storage for our PACS imaging, storing all of the radiology images across our entire business. Because of this critical function, it is extremely important that it remains up and running at all times.

The features of Dell PowerScale that I appreciate most include the ease of redundancy over networks, as we have one cluster in one location and another cluster in a disparate location. If one fails over, it is fairly easy to fail over to the secondary cluster.

Dell PowerScale aligns with our organization's strategic goals of improving operational efficiency because it has always been targeted at unstructured data, which we use for our PACS imaging. It has always been well-aligned for what we needed, and we have been using it for quite some time, finding it very effective for our imaging.

Dell PowerScale aligns with our organization's goals of supporting digital transformation initiatives, as we started with PowerScale nodes that only had spinning drives and have since moved to SSDs. Those SSDs have been faster, which improved our performance with our PACS systems.

Dell PowerScale is a very solid product right now, and I do not see any immediate improvements that it needs, but possibly some UI tweaking here and there and unification of settings would be beneficial. However, it still performs very well. I think it does need some easier user-facing management.

An example of something that is problematic at the moment or that I would want to see improved is that there needs to be further delineation between access zones and settings. Things are not always clear as to what I am managing or what section of Dell PowerScale that I am actually managing. Additionally, the networking portion can be a little confusing in terms of access zones and what features I am actually editing or modifying. On top of that, the isi commands can get confusing at times; some only work on individual nodes while some are cluster-wide. There needs to be a little more clarification and more end-user ease of doing certain configuration tasks.

I assess the stability and reliability of Dell PowerScale as top-notch, as the only issues we have ever had are just failed drives, which is to be expected. We receive new drives proactively, and they are sent to us and are very easy to replace. Drive failure has been less prominent now that everything is solid-state, and it really is very reliable. We have never had a node motherboard fail or anything bigger than a drive, so it has all been very smooth.

Dell PowerScale scales with the growing needs of our organization very simply, as all you do is attach nodes to your network, usually your top-of-rack switch, and you join it from the command line. It is a very simple process with only a few steps, and after that, I can get granular in my configuration for the nodes I have deployed. Initially deploying is very simple. Dell support is always there if I have questions after deployment.

I evaluate the customer service and technical support for Dell PowerScale as very good, since it was actually the first enterprise application support that I have dealt with, and I have never had any problems. They have always gotten back to me within a couple of hours usually, and if there are higher priority cases, we have gone to our account supervisors, and they have been great. The general support is excellent; I never really had any problems with it. We use them for upgrades and general support, and both have been great. I would rate Dell PowerScale customer support a nine on a scale of one to ten, with one being worst and ten being best, as I have never had that many problems with support.

Prior to adopting Dell PowerScale, we were using another solution to address similar needs, but I am not sure what the solution was. What we were using previously was slower. I think we have been using Dell PowerScale for approximately twenty years now, when it was previously Isilon. When we did adopt Isilon/PowerScale, we saw a major improvement.

Regarding how easy or difficult it is to deploy Dell PowerScale and how long it takes to deploy, I am Isilon certified, which was previously PowerScale certified. I have done several virtual deployments and also physical, real deployments within our organization, and it is very easy to do. There are a couple of join commands that you do once the nodes are networked up, and it literally just adds the nodes to your cluster. There is no hassle; you configure them a little bit afterwards, but really, it just pushes those new nodes right into your cluster. The process is very simple.

I have seen return on investment with Dell PowerScale, as any amount of time that can be saved for our radiologists is ROI for us. The fact that Dell PowerScale is fast enough to support their needs means that we do not hear complaints, and second of all, images get read faster and patients get better quality of care.

My experience with the pricing, setup cost, and licensing is minimal. I have set up a few nodes in my time, but it has always been very easy. I do not have the actual pricing or anything, as I have not deployed nodes and been involved in the pricing structure.

Dell PowerScale does not play a role in our organization's AI initiatives right now.

My advice to organizations considering Dell PowerScale is that if you are an organization that uses unstructured data, it is a beautiful way to go. Definitely consider it as one of your top choices. I would rate this review a nine on a scale of one to ten.

Our primary use cases include virtualization storage and external storage via NFS.

I find that the features of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) are not extensive. Our customer chooses Dell PowerScale (Isilon) because of the pricing issue, not the functionality. They discovered that the reseller in Taiwan has a per gigabyte price that is more expensive than Dell PowerScale (Isilon). The maintenance is good, but the subscription fee is higher than other storage solutions.

The maintenance is very good, and the deployment is straightforward as well. Pure Storage is still our first choice if we want a very fast deployment or engagement.

In our customer's company that is a campus, around 5,000 people use Dell PowerScale (Isilon). Among corporate enterprise customers, they do not use larger options like the big FlashArray; they are only using smaller solutions like FlashStack, which may accommodate around 100 to 200 employees in each enterprise customer.

I think Dell PowerScale (Isilon) could improve some functions such as Apache S3 or containerized storage support, as these aspects are not well-developed. Their support system is weak; many issues require us to conduct our own research and apply solutions to the equipment, so using Dell PowerScale (Isilon) demands more maintenance effort from us.

Not much noticeable improvement or impact from Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is observed in our customer's business operations. We still discuss with our customer that Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is not the best or most suitable choice. Our customer is always focused on three things: they want to minimize maintenance effort, they question pricing if functionality is not different, and they consider our professional services. Dell PowerScale (Isilon) requires us to spend more man-hours on maintenance compared to Pure Storage.

In terms of what Dell PowerScale (Isilon) could learn from Pure, I would say they lack certain features such as upscaling; they do not have an Evergreen program as Pure has, and their support system is weak. Firmware or software updates become effortless with Pure, but with Dell PowerScale (Isilon), we must evaluate or conduct trial runs to ensure that these operations will not harm our customer's system; their software is not adequate.

Currently, the AI capabilities of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) pertain more to lake services. However, our customer does not have this big data storage; their dataset is average, around 100 gigabits or 100 gigabytes. With 100 gigabytes, the performance will be comparable between Dell PowerScale (Isilon) and Pure, especially within FlashArray, as the dataset is not enough to push the machine's limits.

We always use random write and read metrics with 4K files, and possibly also 1K files. This is a script we have coded via some cloud solutions. Currently, our customer does not face throughput issues because the network infrastructure does not keep pace; the bottleneck is consistently the latency of the switch.

Beyond containerized storage support and software updating, I have had very bad experiences with Dell PowerScale (Isilon) because they present more issues than other storage options, even when compared with NetApp. They lack sufficient support, and their software is not user-friendly. If I were to suggest any improvements, it would be to enhance their software. I would rate this review overall as a seven out of ten.

Dell PowerScale is suitable for NAS, CCTV, and unstructured data, primarily as a scale-out NAS system designed to manage petabytes of data in a single namespace.
In handling enterprise data, data is crucial, akin to the new oil. Unstructured data is continuously generated, requiring a suitable platform for management that offers scalability, data protection, privacy, and multi-tenancy. Dell PowerScale provides these features, enabling enterprise customers to use a unified platform for collecting data from various sources. This platform can serve as a home directory, support CCTV, and accommodate different use cases like Hadoop object-based storage, all managed through one dashboard, cluster, and with a unified management perspective.

The main advantages of Dell PowerScale are its scalability and ease of scaling, as it can handle petabytes of data in a single namespace, and its simplicity to manage. Unlike other products, which may require multiple file servers, Dell PowerScale allows petabytes of data in a single namespace, managed by just one person. This is particularly beneficial for large-scale data, such as airport CCTV recordings, which can reach many petabytes.
Performance is another key feature, with various tiers based on data requirements, including NVMe, flash nodes, hybrid, and nodes for deep archive. Dell PowerScale also offers strong data protection, allowing for the loss of at least one drive or node without disrupting operations.
Operational efficiency and ease of use with Dell PowerScale are notable, as managing the entire cluster is straightforward compared to other NAS infrastructures. The single namespace simplifies user experience.
Dell PowerScale supports multiple protocols, enabling it to function as a data lake. It can host various data types on the same platform, with data accessible via CIFS, NFS, or S3. It supports CIFS, NFS, SMB, S3 for object-based data, Hadoop, HDFS, parallel file systems, and ITBR superpod for Nvidia GPUs, which are part of AI storage.
Dell PowerScale integrates with AIOps for analytics, supporting AI workloads by connecting directly to GPUs for high performance.

One of the areas for improvement could be a more proper direct integration with Dell PowerProtect Data Manager and PowerProtect Data Domain. This would enhance cyber resiliency features such as anomaly detection. Having a backup solution similar to what is available with PowerStore and Data Domain for enterprise customers would be beneficial.

The existing integration is there, but the only negative point I see about Dell PowerScale is mainly the pricing perspective because it is not intended for SMBs, but for enterprise customers. Dell PowerScale cannot be compared with Synology solutions. It is an enterprise solution, which means its pricing and features are geared towards enterprise usage. A starter kit for small and medium businesses would be good.

I have been working with Dell PowerScale, formerly known as Isilon, for eight years.

Dell PowerScale is very stable and scalable because it has a very nice data protection strategy, and it can scale petabytes on a single namespace.

The technical support from Dell is good regarding Dell PowerScale, although I believe it could sometimes be better. I would rate the support at nine out of ten.

In terms of price, it is quite pricey, but regarding return on investment, customers can observe ROI with Dell PowerScale because it can be used for multiple use cases. If customers have this platform in their data center, they will find that a lot of data can be consolidated under a single platform, making it better than having different devices for backups or small NAS solutions.

I am working with Dell PowerScale today, which is also called Isilon.

Dell PowerScale is much more advanced compared to competitors, offering more flexibility with different types of drives and nodes, and in terms of simplicity in management.

The deployment procedure for Dell PowerScale is quite straightforward. If you are certified for deployment, you can manage it easily.

I do not have performance metrics or benchmarks to measure success with Dell PowerScale.

My review rating for Dell PowerScale is nine out of ten.

Dell PowerScale is my responsibility for handling the general information we have.

The biggest advantage of Dell PowerScale is stability. It is easy to manage because Dell and HP are famous products worldwide and here in Egypt.

Regarding operational efficiency, Dell PowerScale is good and easy to use. When you have good support, you have a good experience, and it is easy to work with. You receive good support from the supplier or the company.

Sometimes my team needs to restart the machine or restart VMware, which takes a long time. Not every time can we do this.

I mentioned before that the stability is good from Dell and HP.

We have been using Dell PowerScale for one year and a half.

Dell PowerScale is very stable and scalable. When you are working at one hundred percent capacity without issues, I trust the product, the software, and the infrastructure here.

Regarding technical support from Dell, it is very good. If I were to rate support on a scale from zero to ten points, where ten is the maximum, I would give it ninety to ninety-five percent.

The installation of Dell PowerScale is very easy.

Dell PowerScale saves us some time and money. We chose Dell for this because we have been using Dell for about twenty-five to thirty years.

I am currently using HCI products, specifically Nutanix and VMware. We use subscription-based HCI products and hardware solutions. We use hardware such as Dell machines, FortiGate firewall, and Juniper switches. Our servers are mostly Dell machines. We also use Kaspersky antivirus software and several other solutions. The router is from Egypt Telecom. We work with Dell PowerScale. I am not certain if our savings are ten percent, twenty percent, or more.

Data management strategy is crucial, particularly regarding how multi-protocol support impacts our data management approach. We are partners with Amazon and AWS. We use Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Azure. We have already established some success measures with Dell PowerScale, but I cannot provide the detailed results.

Dell manages adaptation to new challenges very well, and we do not have any problems with support from Dell. Everything is very stable and functioning properly. The network team and I have met, and everything is working fine. I am not missing anything currently, and everything supported by Dell is good and easy to work with.

We work in the healthcare sector, and AI is not something we can trust one hundred percent for patients, making it very difficult to use in the healthcare section at this time. The most beneficial security features include Forti and Kaspersky, and we previously used Sophos firewall and antivirus. Dell PowerScale is very stable and easy to use. Sometimes we have to restart the machine, but it is not heavy work, and it is easy to do when needed.

My use cases for Dell PowerScale (Isilon) include CCTV, video management, video server, and archival storage.

What I like about Dell PowerScale (Isilon) are its best features, as it supports file and object storage, and it is very easy to manage.

The main benefit that Dell PowerScale (Isilon) brings to the table is that it gives the organization good file management.

I think Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is very good right now. Perhaps improvements could be made on the CPU level with a better CPU. I haven't used the NVIDIA yet, but a better Intel CPU would be beneficial.

The functionality that I would like to see enhanced in the future for Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is SmartPool for lifecycle management of data. I need more features, particularly for data migration and the ability to segregate data from old to new systems for lifecycle management.

I have been working with Dell PowerScale (Isilon) for about 13 years.

I assess the stability and reliability of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) as having no crashes, but there have been performance issues. After someone performed a performance analysis and migration, I resolved the issues with SmartConnect, and the SmartConnect feature is effective as it resolves our performance issues.

I have escalated questions to the technical support and customer service team of Dell. The support center is very poor from Dell. Compared to when it was EMC before, Dell support is getting worse nowadays, with less support.

The response time is concerning. Even if you buy ProSupport Plus, they state within two hours, but after two hours, nobody contacts you. The response time shows there is no sense of urgency. Compared to EMC, the support in our region is not as good as it was before.

Neutral

Before adopting Dell PowerScale (Isilon), the company was using NetApp.

I decided to switch from NetApp to Dell PowerScale (Isilon) because of feature advantages like file system and data protection. It is easy to manage compared to NetApp, and I think the features are better than NetApp from a feature perspective.

I have knowledge about the deployment process of Dell PowerScale (Isilon).

My experience with deploying Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is that the challenges are more related to working with the network team on their side. The OneFS itself is very straightforward and easy.

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) serves as a storage node and compute node in this case.

Cost saving is one benefit. The organization finds it easy to manage resources, and it is easy to get to market. We can analyze the data, which makes it much easier to go to market.

I would advise other organizations considering Dell PowerScale (Isilon) that it is easy to manage, and it consolidates all traditional NAS instead of separating file systems and protection levels. NAS is easy, especially the OneFS operating system.

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) may play major roles for small and medium-sized organizations.

My organization falls under small and medium-sized organizations in terms of size and revenue.

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) has features that specifically cater to the needs of small and medium organizations, as you can start with three nodes and then increase to 252 nodes, allowing you to start small and grow along the way.

I rate Dell PowerScale (Isilon) as a product and solution a nine out of ten.

Our use case with Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is that we do large data storage for that platform. That's probably the best way to explain what it does. For us, it's a big silo, so we can store a ton of data, and then basically retrieve it for our analytic platforms.

The benefit of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) for our organization is the scalability. We started out with a pretty small system of a 32-node cluster, and then we built it out to 88 nodes. For us, that allowed us to go from being multi-petabyte to 10 petabytes plus petabytes on that one cluster.

We use Dell PowerScale (Isilon) for large-scale data. We deal with large data files, and our solution receives data that can be multi-terabytes in size. The flexibility of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) has been good for us. Single files are limited to four terabytes in our configuration, however, the system can support up to 16 terabytes, so we can scale based on that too. 

I cannot think of anything to improve about Dell PowerScale (Isilon). The hardest challenge we have is due to how we've bought things over time. The way that we moved to the PowerEdge platform for the newer systems creates a scale problem as I still buy the older style systems, which are more dense storage. They're different chassis, so the problem we run into in the data center is the depth of the actual equipment. The newer equipment, if we buy an FX910 or a 900, it's a lot shorter in scale than if I buy an 83,000, which is much bigger. This makes it more complicated for deployment.

We've been using Dell PowerScale (Isilon) for about 11 years. It was called Isilon before it became PowerScale.

The overall stability and reliability of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) has been great. We haven't had any issues with it at all.

We have multiple Dell PowerScale (Isilon) solutions in our environment with multiple clusters. We use the SyncIQ function between the clusters. That way, if we have to move data off, we can allow it to share between the different clusters. We also run different versions of Dell PowerScale (Isilon). We don't always run the same OneFS on all our systems.

I rate Dell customer service a ten out of ten.

I have limited experience with customer service or tech support based on our environment. When we have warranties on our equipment, I reach out and file anything that needs to be done. In our facility, we have Dell onsite people. Dell comes into our facility with sales representatives and engineering staff who participate with us. We do engage deep support. Typically we don't have to most often. If I need a new hard drive, we file the claim through the Dell portal. The portal is really complicated to figure out features and functions, and it could be easier to navigate.

Before Dell PowerScale (Isilon), the company was using NetApp and other disparate systems. At some point, Dell came in, did a presentation, and once it started working, we replaced everything else.

In our environment, we are the showcase for Dell PowerScale (Isilon). When people are looking at Dell PowerScale (Isilon), the Dell vendors often point back to us and say, 'These guys have been running with this for 10 plus years.' We can talk about the scalability and everything, which helps with customer ease. In our environment, people are risk-averse, so it's complicated to get someone to change.

We've looked at VAST and Weka as solution spaces. We are also replacing our current NetApp with PowerStore. NetApp has become very difficult to deal with in our customer spaces. We recently had a drive failure, and when we went out to get a quote since it wasn't under service contract, they wanted $30,000 to replace a single hard drive. This helped our decision in moving to another product. Dell was well-positioned with the PowerStore for that replacement. It fits our ecosystem since having PowerStore, Dell PowerScale (Isilon), PowerFlex, and PowerVault all work together. We can attach the iDRACs back to the OB solution for a holistic view of the environment itself.

We continue to bring in more pieces. The success of Dell PowerScale (Isilon), PowerFlex, and all the other pieces helped us make a decision to move away from NetApp. NetApp was our original storage solution before we went to Dell PowerScale (Isilon).

I don't focus on return on investment. Peace of mind and customer satisfaction are our priorities. We've only had two failures over the past 10 years with the product. We run the system longer than most - on Dell PowerScale (Isilon), most of our nodes are up over six to 700 days before we power them down. We don't always fit the model of keeping up with patches, however, we don't have to in our disconnected environment.

We have to go through a certified reseller for Dell PowerScale (Isilon). From a value standpoint, it performs very well.

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) has been huge for the customer as they started out with a much smaller scale system. Based on the flexibility of the system itself, it was easy for us to manage the growth by buying individual nodes as needed. Once you have the base built, it's easy to scale. We went from about 3 petabytes starting out, and now we've grown to over 20 petabytes of storage on multiple arrays. As we're moving to the newer platform, it's even easier moving off the F800, 8200 platforms.

The iDRAC feature with PowerEdge is beneficial, and now that they have it in Dell PowerScale (Isilon), that's significant. PowerStore has it. It's based on the same platform.

I rate Dell PowerScale (Isilon) a ten out of ten, and we continue to keep buying it.

Dell PowerScale serves as both computational and storage infrastructure for our organization. We are currently interlinking it with many PowerEdge servers. Recently, we acquired some 100 gig switches, and we hope to interlink all of that together to make the infrastructure more scalable and improve performance. Our infrastructure-wise capabilities are still somewhat limited. In computer science, we pilot different solutions to make things more accessible and provide better performance for users.

The features of Dell PowerScale that I appreciate most are the expandability, which allows me to establish a foundational baseline and then add capacity as needed. This reduces complexity.

Dell PowerScale does support my organization in AI-driven data insights, but it largely depends on end-user usage. If users do not experience issues, then I have no issues. Those who have adopted it seem to be happy, which is positive. I do request feedback sometimes, and from one perspective, I need to improve the infrastructure for interconnecting. I have been adopting additional hardware to supplement that part.

Dell PowerScale grows with the scaling needs of my organization, primarily based on available funding. I need to justify how much we can utilize, so I attempt to obtain what we can and then make a use case explaining that we need additions, which allows for scalability.

Regarding the pricing, licensing, and overall cost of Dell PowerScale, there is significant resistance sometimes because stakeholders question our utilization levels and whether the spending is justified. Attempting to make a use case demonstrates benefit, but the real challenge is getting people to adopt it. From a subscription base perspective, it can be awkward sometimes, especially with limited funds, making it difficult to justify the expenditure.

Dell PowerScale affects my operational efficiency because adoption is not as high as I would expect. The efficiency does not trouble me at the moment. When more users adopt it, that becomes another consideration. I would not characterize it as fire-fighting, but what we have at the moment is quite sufficient. Until I sense a strain on it, I will not make another use case for additions. As of now, I do not need more capacity.

I have not used customer support for Dell PowerScale often, and in fact, I have not had any real need to.

Before Dell PowerScale, we were using something similar, but it was more scaled down. We aimed to source open-source technologies or solutions. For researchers and student learning, open-source allows different ways of thinking, which broadens their knowledge. We try various short-term solutions, but adoption may not be optimal as the solutions are often too vast, and if no one is using them, it leads to mismatches.

I have not seen a great return on investment from Dell PowerScale. It mainly relates to adoption, which is not very high. It would benefit significantly more if users adopted it, but unfortunately, I do not see that happening at the moment.

I have not evaluated any other solutions besides Dell PowerScale. The issue is not about other products but rather the lack of adoption. If there is no onboarding or interest in anything new, I do not see alternatives. It is all about interest, and at the moment, it is not very high. If users see the benefit, it would lead to comparisons and analysis of pros and cons, but I am not looking to onboard another solution right now.

The alternatives I have looked at are mostly open-source, primarily due to funding being one of the main constraints.

I would rate the adoptability of Dell PowerScale as moderate. It is not as high as I anticipated, mostly due to awareness. Many staff members and lecturers concentrate on their own fields and only do what they want, so my role is to encourage more engagement. Trying to get them on board with the idea that it will enable additional help or support can take a considerable amount of time.

To improve the adoptability of Dell PowerScale, I encourage those who are already on board to share their experiences, highlighting both the positive aspects and the shortcomings they found, as it may intrigue others. Having a technical background helps with this approach.

From a research point of view, Dell PowerScale does help align our digital transformation initiatives. It can aid in teaching as there is significant progression toward AI and language models. We are pushing more into HPC as well, and it does align with our goals, but the challenge is getting people on board with the concept. They recognize that it is beneficial, but they are not using it, which poses a significant challenge.

I would rate this review as seven out of ten.

I work on many projects in many companies in Egypt, such as EGBC and Cairo Airport, and many other companies. My job starts with building clusters and maintenance, which are tasks I know well.

In my use cases, I can build clusters A2000, model A2000, A3, A2000, A200, A3000, and A300, and configure the clusters and switches, racking and stacking as well as troubleshooting any issues that arise.

My role in using or managing Dell PowerScale (Isilon) includes administration, operation, and implementation. I handle implementation and configuration as well as operation with customers. My work focuses on configuration and implementation. Configuration starts with rack and stack and initial configuration, followed by SAN switch configuration implementation.

The best features of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) include UI enhancement and more flexibility in the licensing model. Dell PowerScale (Isilon) provides customers with large capacity and a simplified GUI.

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) helps improve the way the organization functions through massive scalability, high performance, a single file system, high availability and reliability, flexible protocols, support for NFS, SMB, HDFS, strong security, cloud integration, efficiency, data protection, snapshot, queue, and sync queue, optimized for unstructured data.

I would like to see Dell PowerScale (Isilon) improved by enhancing the user interface, OneFS, to make advanced conversation and troubleshooting more specific, upgrade and batch management, providing deeper built-in analytics for performance and capacity planning.

I would like to see additional integration with cloud service and optimization of license flexibility as specific features.

I have experience of approximately five years working with Dell PowerScale (Isilon).

Regarding scalability, it is easy to scale up by increasing power of a single system through adding more CPU, RAM, and disks. For example, upgrading one storage server from 64 gigabytes RAM to 256 gigabytes RAM is a good example of scaling up, which is sometimes called vertical scaling. Scaling out means increasing capacity and performance by adding more systems, nodes, and servers to the cluster, such as A2000 or A200, A3000, H500, nodes from series F. For example, adding three new nodes to a Dell PowerScale (Isilon) cluster is also easy. It allows for high availability, ensuring usually no downtime and no single point of failure.

I evaluate customer service and technical support based on three or four points. I find it balanced and professional with recommendations in the Dell steps. I download the procedures and study them thoroughly for troubleshooting. I survey customers about issues or their jobs. Technical support provides strong technical experts and effective troubleshooting, with reasonable response times. For complex issues, I escalate them to the Dell support team.

On a scale of one to ten, where ten is the best, I would rate Dell support an eight or nine.

Positive

If I ask for improvement, what could be improved regarding Dell PowerScale (Isilon)? My overall review rating for this product is ten.