Dell VxBlock System Reviews

Customers use the Dell VxBlock System for new applications or solutions. For example, I'm working on a new mixing solution for a whole country in Africa. When we talk about it, there are many locations, and we're looking for efficiency, utilization, and solutions that can expand the application database we're deploying. It's used a lot for server consolidation and to consolidate environments into new ones for easy management. It's also used in health environments where they need to create infrastructure for products or solutions they want to launch to the market quickly.

The most valuable features for clients' operations include management of the virtualized environment, node management, configuration deployment, and system management with artificial intelligence. Hyperconverged solutions help organizations achieve multiple frames, mainly in management. Instead of having three, four, or five people managing different servers, you can now concentrate on one or two people to do all those things, maybe for machine learning, while having one person manage the infrastructure.

The integrated components improve IT efficiency by allowing us to spin up an environment quickly for any solution or department without going through rigorous stress. We can do this within one or two digits of time. It also allows full utilization of resources. For example, if a department needs a certain amount of processing power, memory, and disk space, we can provision exactly what they require. When they need more, we can easily increase or decrease resources. This efficiency in provisioning reduces time to value - what might take eight months to achieve can be done in a day or two in this environment.

Integration is very seamless if you know what you're doing. We always do our due diligence before deployment, using Dell applications to size the environment properly. I haven't encountered any difficulties integrating, even with storage systems for large organizations.

I've worked with Dell and had the privilege of working with many OEMs. I started my career as a system engineer, working with HPE as a partner, and then moved to other OEMs like IBM and Lenovo. Currently, I work with a small team.

I don't believe any solution is bad. It's just that you might not have identified what the solution is addressing. It's about choosing the right solution for your needs. In terms of hardware or infrastructure, it's an Intel platform. What differentiates everyone is the additional value they can provide. Dell has many values that meet customer needs.

I look at the customer's objectives and requirements as an IT professional to find the best solution. I haven't seen any drawbacks regarding the infrastructure deliverables or the value built into the tool. However, Dell as an organization could improve its channel management. For example, we've been trying to resolve an issue with our portal for two weeks.

I'd like to see more simplification regarding integration, deployment, and connectivity for future releases. In deployment, I'd like to see simplification in creating VNets and positioning VMware across nodes. I want a template that simplifies the creation of VNets and VMware positioning. I'd push for more simplification and an intuitive graphical GUI that simplifies things with just a click.

I've dealt with Dell VxBlock System and similar solutions for the past seven to eight years, with about 17 years in my career. I've progressed from a support engineer to a system engineer, then to presales. I've worked across these solutions, providing them to end customers. I've also worked with OEMs and returned to partner and integrate Dell environments. I've managed Dell Infrastructure and worked with DXV and hyper-converged solutions. Many organizations today look for the benefits of these systems. Right now, I'm building a product on the VXRail System.

For stability, I'd also rate it eight out of ten. Hyperconverged solutions today are much more stable because they're driven by software. You get productiveness from the software if everything is done properly.

I'll rate Dell VxBlock's scalability eight out of ten points because it can scale up, down, and out. The remaining two points are for future development and additions.

Specifically for the tool's system support, I'd also give it seven out of ten. This is because sometimes you need somebody to log in to the VMware side of things.

Neutral

When comparing the Dell VxBlock System to other hyper-converged systems like Commvault or NetApp, I'll mention that if I need to scale on the storage side alone, I can do so without having to scale the processing power. This is one of the things that former NetApp brings to the market that differentiates them. I'm also NetApp certified. They no longer play much in that capacity on hyper-converged infrastructure.

I believe Dell owns VMware, so they should integrate it. They have these two products, and while they want them to stand on their own in parallel, they could encapsulate them more. I've seen some documentation about what they're dealing with, but I haven't taken the time to read it deeply. They should do more to let VMware build that application into more, to add more value.

So, when considering VMware as an expanded build solution, you'll consider gaining more value with Dell hardware. It's like trying to make it more proprietary. They should do more in the area of being able to scale individually. Dell should be able to scale processing power without having to scale storage much if I need to scale processing.

If I needed more storage, we should be able to scale the storage system without having to scale the processing power, buy extra storage, and make the connections using the three-tier approach. We should just use software to manage them. A proper hyper-converged system should let me scale these two aspects without returning to a combined infrastructure.

Deployment is also straightforward. If you can read and watch videos, deployment is easy.  For deployment and maintenance, we typically use two engineers - one senior engineer and one junior engineer. The junior engineer learns from the senior engineer during staging, racking, power management, cable management, connections, and integration. The number of engineers can vary depending on the volume or size of the project.

Operational efficiency reduces administrative overhead and enables teams to focus on strategic initiatives. It leads to cost savings by reducing manual intervention and optimizing resource utilization across the infrastructure.

Scalability helps mitigate resource utilization issues, reduce capital expenditures, and minimize feedback. It adapts quickly and dynamically to the environment, so you don't need to go out again for every new solution requirement.

For enhanced performance, I've seen optimization in data processing for real-time analytics. You can pool resources together and analyze your environment quickly, getting reports to help organizations improve decision-making. It reduces time for insight and decision-making due to improved performance.

Cost efficiency is a key benefit of hyper-converged infrastructure. It reduces the total cost of ownership by limiting the need for separate hardware components. You must not buy storage, compute nodes, and software separately. It also reduces deployment costs, as you don't need different partners for storage, servers, and network devices. All costs are consolidated into a single point, reducing deployment costs and helping you break even within a minimum time.

Overall, I'd rate the Dell VxBlock System as eight out of ten. It's very good for any environment, either enterprise or mid-range. The remaining two points are for them to improve more.

Our virtualized environment runs on Dell VxBlock System, and we use it to provision all other applications on the fly quickly when needed.

We have more than 5000 people who use this solution either directly or indirectly.

In comparison to traditional file load systems, Dell VxBlock System can be deployed quickly and results in monthly cost savings.

The configuration of management is much easier because we don't have to put in files. Ease of administration and resilience of the system are also valuable features.

Once in a while when nodes fail, Dell VxBlock System will automatically pass those workloads to the surviving nodes without even the administrator knowing it.

There are components of VxBlock that are not managed or supported by Dell because some of the components are from Cisco. Thus, when there are problems with compute nodes, though Dell was managing the interaction, we had to rely on Cisco to solve the issue. When Cisco was not responding as quickly as Dell would for their components, it made it difficult for us because we needed to have the failed nodes back up and running. As such, the disparate ownership of components in the equipment is an issue.

I've been using Dell VxBlock System for over six years.

Technical support is top notch, and incident resolution is quick.

Compared to other solutions, Dell VxBlock System is more expensive.

With respect to performance, support, and visibility for administration to know exactly what is happening, it's a fine solution. However, we are being forced to buy new equipment because Dell has said that they will not support the equipment we purchased only a year ago. Therefore, if you are considering Dell VxBlock System, you would need to make sure that you are clear on when the end of life will be for your equipment or when you may be forced to buy a new one because of the lack of support from Dell. The technology timeline is not very clear.

In terms of the performance, resiliency, and the stability of the system alone, I would rate Dell VxBlock System at nine out of ten, but overall, I would rate it at eight out of ten because of the issues with disparate ownership of components and the unclear technology timelines.

We use VxBlock mainly for the OLTP workload, so all online transaction processing and most of the daily transactional application servers system. So VxBlock can take care of all our call databases each year and covers most of the customers we have using that system. We also went ahead and connected the other systems like HPU on Twitch.

So we work with clients who have different environments. For example, IBM is running Oracle, and we have customers using that setup in the banking sector. And when they implemented VxBlock, they doubled the speed of their operations. A process that used to take eight hours now only requires four hours, so they're getting a return in terms of performance. Then there is the issue of business continuity. The tools embedded in VxBlock are much more racked and easier to manage than most of the other tools on the market.

Since VxBlock is built and configured at the factory, the core back-end is very racked. It's at least 99 percent problem-free because it's factory-built. So from an informational point of view, everyone trusts that VxBlock has been tested well at the factory and has been configured to their requirements. So the rest of the add-on connections are in the core, providing a good foundation in the backend for it to run on. It's very well designed.

I want to get more information from the vendors. The hardware lifecycle is not documented very well. For example, now you can buy a piece of equipment, but you don't know if the hardware will still be in production next month or next year. Most customers expect to run this hardware and still be supported for the next five years or so. I think the projections about the lifetime of the hardware and the systems need to be better documented.

I've been working with VxBlock for maybe eight years now.

VxBlock is very stable.

VxBlock is highly scalable. We have many clients using it, and most of them are government agencies at the ministerial level, and they have thousands of users. For example, one customer has around 3,000 users. Another has 7,000 users now, and they're in the process of scaling up. So by next year, it'll be approximately 10,000 users. And that's just the primary users who are getting services directly. There are many more indirectly using VxBlock.

Support is straightforward because they have one single support entity. Different vendors supply the internal components, but the support is from one source. So that makes things simple.

As I mentioned, VxBlock is part of a more extensive system, and it is one of the fastest solutions. However, we still deploy some of their competitors depending on the customer requirements. Some other solutions are designed to work specifically for Oracle databases, whereas VxBlock is heterogeneous. It can take any workload. 

The initial setup is done at the factory. It comes pre-built, and onsite integration is plug-and-play. Irrespective of the hardware environment, it takes no more than two days per site. It takes about one or two people to deploy VxBlock. Since we are integrators, we do most of the pre-planning for the implementation. This entails making sure the environment is ready to receive and start using the equipment. So we ensure everything meets the criteria and is prepared for deployment. We spend more time on planning than implementation. If you take the time to develop a perfect plan, your deployment will be smooth.

The cost of the license varies based on the kind of software and the components you are using. It's a subscription mainly for the software that runs on the VxBlock hardware. If the software says that the subscription has expired, then you have to renew it. So basically, if the customer is running Oracle, they have to renew Oracle, but they have to renew VMware subscription licenses if they're running VMware. So the cost is dependent on that. We have customers running VMware, Microsoft, etc. So it varies from customer to customer.

I rate VxBlock nine out of 10. If you're thinking about implementing VxBlock, you need to have the right team. You need someone who understands the differences in hardware rather than someone who specializes in a particular product. So you should have a person on your team with a comprehensive understanding of the hardware. Also, some countries might be out of the service area for most vendors. In that case, you should have a contingency plan if you need a hardware replacement. It can take a long time to deliver your parts if the vendor has no presence in that region.

I work at a university and this solution is a series of database servers that we build and maintain for the university's reporting needs. I'm a data warehouse manager and we are customers of Dell. 

There are several valuable features in this product. It offers flexibility, security and speed. 

The solution lacks some flexibility with third-party applications.

I've been using this solution for 18 years. 

The solution is relatively stable. 

The solution is scalable, we have around 10 people dealing with the system, four of whom are admins. 

We've only had to raise a couple of cases with technical support and the response time was adequate.

I rate the solution seven out of 10. 

We are using this solution for VMware virtualization. We are customers of Dell and I'm a senior system and storage administrator.

A valuable feature for me is the virtual machines for the infrastructure.

I'd like to see hardware improvement and the ability to support different kinds of mixed applications - a mixed workload support. The technical support could also be improved. 

I've been using this solution for a year. 

The stability is good. We haven't had any problems and we're happy with the product. 

This solution is mainly in the IT environment and is scalable. We have somewhere between 400-500 users in the organization. 

We previously used the HP system. We weren't using hyper-converged in HP, we moved onto that when we started with Dell. 

The initial setup was straightforward and deployment took us about a month. We used a system integrator for implementation. We have five people in the system team managing the solution. 

There is an HCI license on top of the VMware license. There are no costs on top of that. 

The rating for this Dell product is better than for other HCI products available on the market. We've compared it with HP SimpliVity, and Nutanix and we found the Dell rating highest.

I would rate this solution a seven out of 10. 

I am currently using it for the converse infrastructure. Before the VxBlock from Dell, everything was integrated into the system.

Everything is delivered to me in a single box, which simplifies management. It is not complex to handle with the available management tools. The system combines Cisco UCS, and I can manage everything with ease. 

Additionally, I am using Cisco solutions, and my technical team possesses the expertise to utilize them effectively, even though they are based in Russia.

There is a need for single console management. Everything should be accessible through a single console to ensure ease of management. 

So far, there are no issues since the storage and other systems are integrated with the latest technology.

I have been working with it for more than 15 years.

I can expand it using the latest technology, ensuring everything is manageable from a single console. The management and integration are not complex, and expansion is quite easy compared to VxBlock.

The customer service is excellent.

Neutral

The setup depends on the number of units and specific requirements, usually taking one or two days at most.

The ROI is really good. Overall, it is very positive.

The cost is not overly expensive but not cheap either. Considering the features and everything, it is very good. Price-wise, it is reasonable but not the least expensive option.

I am not using alternative solutions because there are many available in the market. The VxLP is now more prevalent in Dell portfolio, which has changed with new products.

The overall product rating is seven out of ten.

We use the solution to manage our network and virtualization environment.

With a converged infrastructure, it's easy to troubleshoot from network to server issues from a single point of reference.

The ease of management is another valuable feature.

The solution could use a clearer description of working methods to tell people more about its use cases.

I have been working with VxBlock for about three years.

The solution is stable.

The solution is scalable, but it is not too easy since it has to do with OEM management by increasing storage.

Customer support has come through for all the technical issues we have faced.

The maintenance of the solution is not difficult, and a separate team handled the setup.

Staff members deployed the solution with input from a third party.

One should compare solutions vis-a-vis the price and the efficiency, as what Dell might offer at their price might be offered either at a better price or at a lower efficiency, but that depends on one's use case and how comfortable they are with the other solution.

I think Dell has a complete solution that provides both computers and storage.

I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

Its performance is very good.

It is a good product, but for us, it is like a black box. We are not really sure about its internal components, and how to do the terminal upgrade, and how to make sure about the security of the device. We understand how it works, but in order to do the upgrades, we have to get help from the company. We cannot do it ourselves. In another model that we had, the internal team could do the upgrade but not in this one. There is no clear process for a new upgrade or update. They should provide a software intelligence tool that has a dashboard where you can see the current firmware, the latest firmware, and the documentation and the process for the upgrade. 

For VxBlock, we have different management consoles. There is no single management console that you can use to manage all components inside VxBlock. Their scale up and scale out process is also not clear. Their support is also a little bit slow in responding to the cases.

We have been using this solution for six to eight months.

It is very stable.

It is easy to scale, but we didn't try scaling it.

I don't have much experience with them, but they are a little bit slow in responding to the cases. In Saudi Arabia, the support for Dell EMC is not that good. Their support should be faster.

We have tried hyper-converged infrastructure from Nutanix. I prefer Nutanix because you can scale it very easily. The upgrades and updates are very simple. Their support is also great. We have very good experience with their support.

It is a little bit complex because we are using Epic EMR in our main core application.

I would rate Dell EMC VxBlock System a seven out of ten. It is a good product, but their support is not that good. Support is one of the main factors based on which we evaluate a product.

The monitoring and management parts are the most valuable. Monitoring is specifically valuable because you have one console to monitor everything. This console is called Vision.

We are finding it a bit challenging in terms of the management of a specific VxBlock component. Currently, we have different units as a part of the block storage. We have one for Cisco equipment and one for Dell. When we have an issue in the infrastructure, Dell EMC VxBlock System should automatically detect it and send a notification to VC support, but, unfortunately, it is doing that only for one unit. It is not working for Cisco components. We have informed them about this area of improvement, and they are working on this.

The way different parts are integrated should be improved. We should have one console to log in to see all the infrastructure in terms of each machine and hardware.

I have been using this solution for three years now.

The system is quite stable. We have not faced any major issues. The issues that we faced were just minor and manageable.

In terms of scalability, it is good. The beauty is that we can scale whatever we want. We can add more compute nodes, storage nodes, or memory. We have a variety of users from different groups.

Their technical support can be improved because, sometimes, when you report an issue, it takes a while for them to respond.

It is complicated with the latest technology because you have to connect with the switches, servers, storage, and everything. All the components have to be connected so that the system can work properly. It might take three to five days, which is a lot of time.

We used an integrator.

Its price is high. That's why people are now moving to hyper-converge.

I would advise to stop using the normal spinning disk and going for an all-flash disk on the storage because of the performance issues.

I would rate Dell EMC VxBlock System a six out of ten.

VxBlock is our data center. We run all of our applications, central applications, and systems, off the VxBlock. It's in our production data center.

The solution simplified our operations, and made us more efficient. We consolidated from 17 cabinets with IT equipment in the data center. We were able to consolidate down to six cabinets and made a smaller infrastructure footprint, which obviously saves costs and makes the operations more simple and optimized. We also had a non-virtualized environment. What we did is we converted all of our applications to run onto virtualized infrastructure. It's basically helped us in that journey to become more agile.

The most valuable aspect of the solution is the integrated architecture, which is on a highly available, highly redundant infrastructure. It is purposefully built on a highly redundant architecture. 

It's a highly optimized piece of equipment that doesn't give us any problems.

The fact that you've got one single point of contact for your support is very appealing.

The only thing that I can say is when you procure the VxBlock, obviously you have to complete detailed questionnaires about your architecture including the configuration, et cetera. If you make a mistake on the implementation, then you need to rebuild the entire VxBlock. That is just a point of consideration rather than a flaw. You need to be absolutely sure and validate the upfront configuration information that you provide due to the fact that your VxBlock comes delivered and built according to that exact information.

We originally installed the solution in 2016. It's been about four years or so.

The solution is extremely stable. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's excellent.

The solution scales very well. Obviously, you need to size it with your growth predictions in mind, however, so far, we've been able to comfortably scale to meet our rising demands.

Our entire company uses this solution. That's about 3000 users. Plus, we use it for all of the applications that we use in-company. That would include your Microsoft applications, databases, ERP systems, and financial systems. We run our entire company on this piece of infrastructure.

We don't reach out to EMC's technical support. We use a third-party.

We used the normal, non-integrated infrastructure, where you've got your server infrastructure, your network infrastructure, and your storage infrastructure, all from different providers. They were standalone systems. It wasn't provided by a single supplier, which obviously the VxBlock being an integrated architecture, is now. It's a one-stop-shop

We switched mainly due to the fact that the innovation helped us to make the adjustment from a standalone to a virtual platform. It was cheaper, cost-wise, to consolidate and run on this kit rather than support and run any standalone legacy infrastructure. We also switched in order to improve our service to the business.

Previously, we had a lot of outages due to the legacy equipment we were running on. The age of it and the poor design were weighing us down. You ran out of capacity, et cetera. The way that capacity was bolted on and the solution grew, was very poorly designed in the past. The business suffered a lot of outages as a result of it. Having switched to the VxBlock provided the business with almost no downtime. We run an extremely stable, efficient operation at this point in time.

It's complex in that you need to be exact in your configuration as it comes to you pre-configured to your specifications, and if there is a mistake, you need to start from scratch and get a new VxBlock. 

You almost need to build your entire design, your entire configuration, upfront. There's no room for, if you make a mistake, changes to it after the fact, due to the fact that it's a pre-built solution.

Deployment is very fast. It takes only about a week or so.

For us, we had a whole data center refresh project that we ran as part of the implementation of this product.

We use a third party for maintenance purposes. The thing with the solution is that the people that are allowed to work on it, whether it's for implementation or support services, need to go through an extensive training program and certification program with Dell EMC. They're highly skilled in the solution. That adds to the value of it. These professionals are so good. We've not experienced any outages on the system, either when we upgraded it or when we scaled. When a component fails, it's immediately replaced, and the professionals that work on it are very well-trained.

We used an integrator that assisted us with the initial setup. They were highly skilled and professional. It was a very good experience. It was a third-party EMC partner, not EMC themselves.

I can't really give a good indication of the ROI.

We were able to consolidate some of the support roles. For example, where you would have a virtualization engineer, a server engineer, a network engineer, and a storage engineer - four separate roles to normally support this environment. We consolidated that basically into one role. It is a managed service, but from a managed services perspective, they've got a single person looking after all of those components within the platform. So that obviously is a cost-saving.

There have definitely been cost efficiencies, however, I can't share exact numbers.

I don't know whether it's always feasible, however, my understanding is that what one needs to do is to select their product, go for what they deem to be the best, and then negotiate for the best price from there.

We evaluated hosted cloud options from several suppliers and also some other hyper-converged solutions. That said, we decided, from a cost perspective, it made more sense to run the VxBlock. It was more cost-effective than having a hosted cloud platform. It also provided us with more flexibility because some of our platforms were not suited to run on hosted cloud environments, where you don't have access to the virtualization layer and the virtualization software. When we ran our own private cloud on the VxBlock, we had the ability to interface directly into the virtualization platform, which was a requirement for some of our applications.

We didn't choose a hyper-converged platform at that point in time as the VxBlock provided a better performing platform. We could obtain high throughput, through the VxBlock, than what the hyper-converged solutions could give us at that stage.

We deemed Dell to be the leader in the market. They were the first to enter the market with a converged platform. And I think they'd more of a market presence at that point in time than anybody else.

We're using the VxBlock 350 deployment model.

The change in the operating model has been an eye-opener. A few years ago, it was difficult to imagine how a real virtual or cloud-like environment would run as we'd been so used to the standalone environments that we were operating. To see how that operating model really changes and the ease of use going to a virtualized or cloud-like platform has been great. It's one of the biggest takeaways I have.

When we changed infrastructures, we decided to build a complete environment. To start to build the IT infrastructure from scratch, completely new, was daunting. We refreshed absolutely everything. We even went as far as to build a new active directory environment. We basically built a completely new IT platform for our company. That was an extremely daunting task when we set out to do it. Within six months we were at a point where we cut over and we realized the goal that we set out to achieve. In the end, those daunting tasks are where one grows their own skillset. It's quite an achievement at the end to reach a goal that you almost thought was impossible at the outset of a project.

On a scale from one to ten, I'd rate the solution at a nine. Many people criticize the product due to the requirements needed to make the pre-configuration piece. However, as long as you don't make a mistake there, it works like a dream.