What is our primary use case?
I use it to solve a problem for a customer when he has a big VMware ESX environment with virtualization. You can solve a big problem with money or a lot of hardware since you can take the virtualization from PowerStore. Inside PowerStore, on the operating system level, you can use virtualization with VMware ESX or something like it. So, you don't need any hardware.
My company does backups and security. We use a lot of OEMs. We use Dell because they have the strongest product, especially in Israel.
Hybrid environments are very important for our disaster recovery issues. By default, we have 50% to the public cloud, with either Azure or AWS, and 50% on-prem. If it is on-prem, then it is a PowerStore. In Israel, 90% is deployed on-premises.
PowerStore is used in Israeli universities since they have big environments with a lot of vendors. They take all the versions from the 500 to the 3000. It is also used in IT companies with 1,000 or 2,000 employees that have a lot of traffic with heavy loads. There are a lot of people in Israel who love to work with Dell.
How has it helped my organization?
It provides a big benefit when upgrading a new VMware environment. For example, in a big environment with 10 to 30 ESXs, you can take everything and put that into PowerStore. So, it is cost-effective, which is very important and has been massive for us. You reduce almost 80% from the hardware and work directly from PowerStore. Building hardware, especially in a big VMware environment, is a big issue for my organization.
It brings us a lot of security, creating security between the containers. Then, we can separate an environment for security. You have IDS, IPS, the firewall, etc., but if you take the environment that you built on the containers then it creates a different security.
I use the security between the rack server and PowerStore. Or, we use a connection with the fiber channel. It also separates the network from the SAN storage. This is the most important security when you are connecting storage to PowerStore for any environment.
What is most valuable?
- The level of virtualization is a big feature. This is the most important thing in PowerStore.
- PowerStore has a very good replication tool.
- It has a good NAS environment. It has a very strong NAS that can support a lot of big, heavy environments.
- The container and its ability to connect directly to the cloud. We can use a lot of workloads and get all the workloads that we need. For example, we can get VMware directly from PowerStore and move it to the Cloud or any other containers. This is an added value of PowerStore. If you want to solve a workload problem, this is the best way.
Once you build an environment based on a container, it is a big benefit because you can take the workloads from the cloud directly to on-premises and vice versa. It is a big benefit, especially in an environment based on VMware, a virtualization environment, and heavy storage.
OpenManage Console is the best tool that Dell has. It is a great thing. We use it to configure the networking. It helps you realize what you need to discover. It is a little bit heavy. However, after that, it is a very user-friendly tool. It can connect to any vendor, switch, storage, etc. I would rate OpenManage Console as nine out of 10.
What needs improvement?
On downtime, it is okay. I would rate it as seven or eight out of 10. There are a few things that Dell has to change, fix, or upgrade.
The storage could be improved. I would like a feature for how to best secure an appliance and the storage since we are connecting the container to the public cloud. I would like them to develop another level of security, making it more secure than from what they have now.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using it for a year to a year and a half.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I would rate stability as 10 out of 10.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is very scalable.
When you are trying to scale in or out with a system, you can see the return on investment.
How are customer service and support?
In general, Dell technical support is very professional. They have a good SLA. We have had a few cases that I personally use them to support, and they are great, especially the on-call. They are very professional and have very fast reactions. I would rate them as eight or nine out of 10.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We previously used Unity and VNX, and Unity especially belongs in the past.
How was the initial setup?
The initial deployment was very straightforward.
If you need to install the system and upgrade the existing environment, that can take around half a day. If you don't need to install it, then it can take around an hour or two.
Be very professional when designing the system and ensure your environment fits with the PowerStore.
What about the implementation team?
Two people can do the entire deployment project in Israel. You take the storage, place it on the rack, and start to install it to make the volumes, view, and networking. In the most bigger, complicated cases, it takes around two or three people.
What was our ROI?
If you use PowerStore as a virtualization environment and don't buy a rack server, then the solution is very cheap since you no longer need to buy the hardware or server for the ESX.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The big pricing issue is with capacity:
- If we use the 500 or 1000, the licensing and pricing are reasonable. PowerStore can compete with any vendor and the price isn't that expensive.
- It is very expensive though when you get to this point of using the 3000 with a client. They will start to think about using another vendor. There are a lot of solutions similar to PowerStore in regards to networking capacity and their prices are very cheap compared to PowerStore.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Dell has very good rack servers that are all on PowerStore, e.g., R640 and R740. These are the best servers that we have with our virtualization environment. This is the best hardware that you can use today. When it comes to servers and storage, there are a lot of vendors. NetApp is also a very good vendor in the world of storage, but there are some added values with PowerStore that I can't see on other vendors, such as the virtualization where you can take all your ESXs and put them inside PowerStore. I don't see this with other vendors.
What other advice do I have?
It is a very good tool for networking, storage, and working with the rack server. I would recommend this solution to other people. They should just take it.
I would rate it as an eight out of 10.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Hybrid Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner