Dell PowerScale Reviews

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 overall rating for this review is nine out of ten.

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.

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) provides high throughput and low latency whenever required, making it ideal for file-based data sites in research and data analytics. It offers cybersecurity and enterprise file services, including ransomware protection, and supports multi-protocol access. High-frequency trading applications benefit from the low latency storage that Dell PowerScale (Isilon) provides.

Artificial intelligence and machine learning workloads are well-suited for Dell PowerScale (Isilon), particularly GPU-intensive workloads where it accelerates model training and prevents GPU idling. The AI Data Lake provides a unified repository for data across edge and core with non-disruptive upgrades. Dell PowerScale (Isilon) cybersecurity suites protect AI workflows from data poisoning and model inversion attacks.

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is a scale-out NAS system that works effectively for small environments. I utilize All-Flash, hybrid, or archive nodes on Dell PowerScale (Isilon) and can scale to petabytes in a single namespace. The architecture allows me to easily add nodes to increase capacity and performance, with the ability to add up to 252 nodes per cluster. Each cluster is made up of three to four nodes.

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) operates on the OneFS operating system, which allows me to manage the entire cluster with a single Unisphere interface. I appreciate this because the entire cluster is managed by a single unified file system. I can use NVMe drives for high-speed data access, and the solution is cost-effective while maintaining high speed. It handles unstructured data effectively as a scale-out NAS system.

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) includes data protection and security features such as ransomware protection and data protection at the storage layer. I can also use cloud flexibility with Dell PowerScale (Isilon), which is available both on-premise and in public clouds such as AWS, Google Cloud, or Azure for a consistent environment.

The major advantages include data protection, ransomware protection, and cloud capabilities. The primary advantage is the ability to use the entire cluster in one unified file system, which is a feature I have not observed in other products. From a performance perspective, the solution is very good. I use a performance matrix, and with NVMe drives providing high-speed network access and high-speed data delivery, performance-wise Dell PowerScale (Isilon) performs well.

From the disadvantages perspective, if I need to replace a drive, I must shut down that node. Each node consists of four to five drives, which means four drives will not work during this process. This is a concept I do not prefer.

I have been using Dell PowerScale (Isilon) since 2019.

Not every product is completely stable. I would rate the stability of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) at approximately 90 to 95 percent stable.

I have not used it directly, but I have learned about NetApp, which is similar to Dell PowerScale (Isilon). However, I do not have extensive hands-on experience with NetApp.

The setup for Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is straightforward and easy.

I have saved a considerable amount of money, approximately 25 percent.

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is cost-effective.

My review rating for Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is 9 out of 10.

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.

My main use cases for Dell PowerScale are HPC loads, as we do brain research, and the throughput is our main requirement for it.

The features of Dell PowerScale that I appreciate the most are the deduplication and the storage tiering.

Dell PowerScale aligns with my organization's strategy goals for improving our operations through throughput and speed. When we initiate an HPC load, sometimes that can take three to six months, and moving that to a lower tier system means we will be there for years.

Improving Dell PowerScale is difficult because we really do not have issues with it. It simply operates reliably without problems.

I have been using Dell PowerScale for three years, but we purchased our first one in 2021 or 2022.

Prior to adopting Dell PowerScale, I used Ceph that was set up really poorly, and a disk going down would result in a week of downtime.

Dell PowerScale performs exceptionally with growing needs in my organization. The Dell team simply takes care of everything.

I evaluate customer support and customer service for Dell PowerScale as incredible, and I am probably spoiled because I have a really good team. Even if something is not necessarily in their responsibilities, they will take care of it most of the time.

On a scale of one to ten, I would rate the customer service as nine because there is always a hiccup, and I do not think it is fair to give anyone a perfect score. I believe it is fair to leave room for improvement.

Prior to adopting Dell PowerScale, I used Ceph that was set up really poorly, and a disk going down would result in a week of downtime.

Dell handles all setup, so I do not have to deal with any of it.

I have absolutely seen ROI with Dell PowerScale. Going back to that example of a six-month job taking three years, the savings in staffing time and production are substantial.

My experience with pricing, setup costs, and licensing for Dell PowerScale is that pricing is very competitive. We are actually about to move to the APEX Flex option. Dell handles all setup, so I do not have to deal with any of it.

I cannot answer what other solutions I considered before Dell PowerScale because I was not involved in that decision. I adopted it when I took on my current role.

The emerging challenge I foresee in managing enterprise data is data growth, as it is our biggest challenge. I have people come to me and say they have a 500 terabyte data set that they need to download, and we have to discuss the implications. I would rate my overall experience with Dell PowerScale as a ten.

In my role as an IT administrator, I use Dell PowerScale to manage our storage needs. My main use cases for Dell PowerScale are data storage and high availability.

I appreciate the high-availability data storage feature of Dell PowerScale the most. The features of Dell PowerScale have benefited my organization by improving storage and collapsing technologies, making it easier for the users. Dell PowerScale aligns with my organization's goals of supporting digital transformation initiatives by collapsing a large environment to a small footprint. Dell PowerScale scales well with the growing needs of my organization; it will continue to grow since we produce content every year, so our data needs grow every year.

I foresee the biggest challenge in managing enterprise data being file size, but I believe improvements would be the compression that Dell offers on data storage. Dell PowerScale does not play any role in my organization's AI initiatives. I cannot think of any additional features that should be included to improve Dell PowerScale.

I have been using Dell PowerScale for approximately 12 months.

In the 12 months since using Dell PowerScale, I have not experienced any issues, which reflects its stability and reliability.

Dell PowerScale scales well with the growing needs of my organization; it will continue to grow since we produce content every year, so our data needs grow every year.

I evaluate customer service and technical support on the Dell side as straightforward; it has been easy to deal with. I would rate customer service a 10.

Prior to adopting Dell PowerScale, I was using a home-baked storage solution.

I have seen ROI with Dell PowerScale. The biggest example I can provide for ROI is the reduced footprint; I believe that is the most significant one.

My experience with pricing, setup, cost, or licensing has been straightforward; through our partner, it is easy.

I considered other solutions but ultimately chose to stick with Dell.

The biggest example I can provide for ROI is the reduced footprint; I believe that is the most significant one. For performance metrics or benchmarks, it would have to be the data metrics within the platform itself. I would rate Dell PowerScale a 10 overall. I rate this product at a 10 out of 10.

My main use case for Dell PowerScale is for storage and compute. Dell PowerScale is not used for one particular data workload; it is used for multiple data workloads across the enterprise, serving as a shared data storage mechanism.

The best features Dell PowerScale offers are the soft elements, such as supportability, resilience, after-sales services, the brand, and its reliability. Reliability stands out the most for me, simply because you want to trust the technology that you have bought; it is one less thing to worry about, so if you have that trust in the technology, then you are not so worried about the consequences of it failing.

Dell PowerScale has positively impacted my organization on the same theme whereby it is one less thing to worry about; you have done your research into what your requirements are, and you do your research into what the vendors in that space are, and it is not so much a fire and forget, but you actually allow it to just go off and do its thing. The impact is more of an overall operating perception rather than a specific measurable element.

I cannot think of anything right now regarding needed improvements. Regarding Dell PowerScale's AI capabilities, governance and security are probably the one area that needs overall improvement; I do not think it comes down to Dell PowerScale being the problem, it becomes about the maturity of governance in the AI space and the fear around what AI is and how that is evolving. What is really important there is how Dell stays transparent and keeps the customer informed.

In my current company, I have been using Dell PowerScale for about eight years.

Dell PowerScale is stable.

Dell PowerScale's scalability is very good; it is fine and it scales as you need.

The customer support for Dell PowerScale is excellent. I would rate the customer support on a scale of one to ten as an eight.

I cannot recall if I previously used a different solution. I cannot recall if we switched from Contracall to Dell PowerScale; it might have been before my time.

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that we used our account manager, so it was seamless and transparent; prices are rising, so that is a challenge and we need to work within the budgets and show value across the board.

Before choosing Dell PowerScale, we would have evaluated other options, but I was not part of that process.

Dell PowerScale allows you to get on with your other operational tasks in order to run the business, and that is what it does; it does not need to be anything else. The biggest challenge with data in general is what it contains and the mastering of that data; it is the differentiation between operational and analytical data loads. My advice for others looking into using Dell PowerScale is that it is not cheap, so make sure that your use case matches the need for that type of technology; do your research. I would rate this review a ten.