Vblock [EOL] Reviews

The primary use case is for virtualized Linux databases and an application server using Oracle 11g/12c. The primary reason for Vblock is for the performance and deduplication that we are getting across our production, test, dev, and training environments.

It has improved system performance, batch times for off-hours processing, and reliability with production applications.

The XtremIO All-Flash array delivers performance, reliability, and deduplication.

• The patching process
• Timeliness of updates/releases
• Compatibility with current ESX versions

I would have given it a higher rating except for how the patching and updates are applied.

Consolidation of physical and virtual server pockets in the data center across different OEMs.

• Access to VMs is now faster due to the centralized management console.
• Navigation is easy and self-explanatory.

• The high redundancy of components has minimized frequent service degradation/failure.

Management solution ViZ: UCS.

• User interface
• More customer/client involvement in back-end management.

Private cloud hosting of ERP solutions for remote US customers. Install two with replication for cross-site DR.

Troublesome relationships with VCE at the beginning of our use came undone quickly after we went live, making installs/adds/changes less than cohesive. 

UCS Manager worked well for net/blade management and has allowed fairly easy use of dedicated bare-metal blades. VNX Unified performed as expected.

VCE tools, like Vision or AMP were not stand alone, and depended too much on other management consoles. RCM upgrades were not scripted, and you needed to roll on your own. We were led to believe this would be otherwise.

Systems run solidly, although we never really took advantage of VCE tools, like Vision or AMP very much. RCM upgrades are painful.

Enterprise private cloud for federal government in a high availability service with primary and secondary datacenters.

I collaborated in a Vblock growth sizing and analysis. The scalability of the solution is interesting.

Capability for scale and growth within a single rack brings strong possibilities for capacity planning.

OEM services requires too much planning and low availability of certified engineers.

Related to tech support: I believe it is too expensive.

VMware NSX: Provides the ability for our organisation to deliver true DR.

Provides DR capability which we have never had before.

The implementation and support could be better.

We have been using this for two years.

There were stability issues, such as various bugs. It was most noticeable with VMware NSX.

There were no scalability issues.

I would give technical support a rating of 3/10.

We were looking to move to a strategic and consolidated tech stack and support model, which could support our ambitions of a private cloud.

The initial setup was complex. The LCS was a nightmare. Project Management (logistics, support) were extremely poor.

Strive for a consolidated ELA.

We evaluated NetApp, FlexPod, and IBM Pure Storage

• The support model is not what it is sold to be
• Avamary/datadomain is NOT part of the RCM (despite it being sold to our organisation as being so) or supported well within the VCE model.
• The RCM testing process is flawed. The VMware NSX versions are released before the tests have evolved to complement the new release version. This has led to bugs and non-compatibility falling through the cracks of the process.

Its EMC storage arrays and the combined technology with Cisco in it.

An example would be one that I've seen where we were having to increase the capacity of its storage array size. We thought that there had to be downtime scheduled, but we found out that you can increase the storage capacity without having to disrupt, shut down, or schedule down time of the Vblock. It was rather seamless to perform.

The only thing I would like to see is that although they strongly advocate that you cannot change any of its parts, and that would undermine its performance, but a little allowance should be allowed for disassembly within certain areas, which would be nice.

I've used it for about two years.

In terms of deployment, I want to highlight that if it's being flown in from another country, please pay very close and strict attention to details such as to allowing it to thaw, or adjust to the temperature of the environment that it is going to be deployed to before powering it up. I've heard cases where it didn't work because certain controls that were overlooked.

We've had no issues with stability.

We've had no issues with scalability.

7.5/10

We were using Aberdeen NAS and combining that with Cisco switches and VMware. We switched as Aberdeen was an expensive way to go, and choosing Vblock was done at a more regional level so it gave us the chance to compare it to the rest, and it's good.

It was done by a different team, but I watched them do it and it seemed straightforward.

My advice is rather simple and not very technical. Many times I personally felt that while this is a good product to implement in any environment, the one key factor is knowing the environment that this is going to go, know the purpose it is going to serve, and plan ahead a minimum of two years ahead what you might see are areas that might need extra upgrading. Try to tie that in with your current plan and budget, and know what power supplies it needs to draw. Speak to your technical managers and also to your IT technologist or whoever is going to be involved in the configuration part of it. Make sure you plan all the way through and always have a backup plan, and have redundancies in place. We are talking about a Vblock redundancy in place. You can have two or three Vblock devices in one place and you realized you are all juiced up. When the equipment arrives have a keen eye for detail, making sure you run your checks as well. Physical checks are also important. When powering up the equipment, follow the guide on which to power first and don't power up as you see fit. On the day of powering up always have the VCE product vendors present to ensure fairness or that you are not accused of tampering.

Once the equipment is handed over, have your engineers run their own tests to ensure everything is running accordingly. Ensure that two people are always present when VCE engineers are going to do the stress and product tests - it never hurts to have a second pair of eyes watching.

I feel this is a tie between two features. VCE’s secret sauce is their release compatibility matrix which allows us to deploy updates without the need for significant testing. The second is the Cisco UCS platform which allows a simple and easy way to manage all of our compute.

In the past the server team would spend weeks downloading and testing interoperability with different versions of firmware on the servers, switches, fabric, and storage to get the most up to date and bug free operations. Now VCE gives us basically a menu of firmware versions and we can upgrade to the latest version and interoperability is guaranteed.

The VCE Vision product definitely needs some improvement as it is not as easy to use as other commercial off the shelf software. There is a lot of configuration that needs to be done from the Linux command line. Hopefully in the future all configuration can be done from an HTML5 webpage. Also, each Vblock needs its own Vision appliance which gets cumbersome when you own many Vblocks. The ability to use a pair of HA vision servers to manage multiple Vblocks would be helpful

The first Vblock 720 was installed in 2014. Currently we have two Vblock 720 models, each with two XtremIO bricks. They are connected with a vplex metro cluster. We also own multiple Vblock 100s for remote office computing.

We have expanded the capacity of our existing systems numerous times without issue.

Extremely good. We usually receive on shore support when we have issues, which is always a plus as there is no “lost in translation” issues that can occur with some offshore support models.

It was very straightforward, we filled out a spreadsheet called a logical configuration survey which contains all of our integration information and the Vblock arrived configured and ready to be plugged in.

We used VCE professional services for all of our installations. The team is very easy to work with and extremely reliable.

The cost of the system really comes down to the discount you are receiving from VMware, Cisco, and EMC. If you deal with these vendors on a regular basis you will better understand the cost of a complete solution.

I'm not so excited with Vblock solution. The only good point is that the customer does not need install anything because VCE delivers the product ready to be used.

It gives us the flexibility to grow the environment when necessary.

Use host profile as this feature is available on the product acquired, including on the ESXi install on the blades, instead of create all server manually.

7 months.

So far so good.

No.

No.

The D&I team was very good.

Did not use yet.

No.

No.

The solution was implemented by VCE team. They did a great job.

I don't have this information.

Just be careful to buy enough licenses to grow your environment when necessary.

No.