VxRail Reviews

It is used for server virtualization. Most of my work is around server virtualization. There has been a lot of interest lately in virtual desktop interfaces but not much is happening there. Most of the customers come for server virtualization. They generally have three-tier architecture running VMware vSphere, and they are looking to upgrade their technology for different reasons, such as performance or hardware being the end of life. Our customers are mostly using the new versions of this solution.

There are so many features, but if I have to choose, I would go for scale-out upgrades and performance.

Scale-out upgrades are very valuable. Typically, when customers engage in virtualization, they're committing themselves to run many virtual machines on a fewer number of hosts. They'll have five or six hosts, and they will run all their virtualization on vSphere. They could be having anywhere from 50 to 100 or even more virtual machines. Once all these go into production, getting downtime or getting planned maintenance windows is extremely difficult. It is something that typically businesses will frown upon. With VxRail, you can just go ahead and add a node without disrupting the existing environment, which works very well. That's why scale-out upgrades are a key feature.

Its performance is also valuable. It delivers a very high number of IOPS for a hybrid configuration or an all-flash configuration. The processors that are available in the Xeon family are very powerful. They are multi-core with typically 2 gigahertz, 2.4 gigahertz, or higher frequency, so the performance is very much appreciated.

It would be nice if its installation can be simplified, but it is currently not too bad.

They can provide deduplication and compression in hybrid configurations. To the best of my knowledge, these features are not there, and it would be nice if these are added. Some of its competitors already have these features, so it will help VxRail to have a better feature set and compete more effectively.

I have been off and on working with VxRail for more than three years.

It is fairly stable. There are no showstoppers as such.

It is easy to scale, but typically, it involves adding more nodes. So, there is an investment from the customer side. They have to have the budget for it, and then scalability is not an issue.

We are focused on all segments. Some of our customers start off with something as small as a three-node cluster, and we also have large enterprise customers who start off with 10 or 12 nodes.

I don't interact with their technical support.

Its installation can be a little complex, but it is not bad. If you plan it well and stay in touch with the customer about requirements, it is not difficult. For an implementation project, it is a standard practice for us to work very closely with the customer. It is definitely not as complicated as deploying a three-tier architecture with SAN storage, SAN switches, and those kinds of things.

In terms of maintenance, it usually requires version upgrades. When a VxRail cluster is already in production and in use, these things are discussed very deeply with the customer, and whether to go for an upgrade or skip it is decided based on the consultation with the customer. It depends on a whole lot of things, and the customer is the key in deciding such things. You have to consider the following:

• What is the business cycle at that point in time?
• What is the workload on the virtual machine?
• Is this the right time to carry out the upgrade?
• Is the upgrade really necessary?
• Is the upgrade going to impact any of their applications?

I would definitely recommend VxRail. If you have a heavy investment in VMware software infrastructure, it is definitely useful.

I would rate VxRail an eight out of ten.

We have four nodes. We're using it for our VMware infrastructure.

The updating of the features was one aspect of the solution that made us decide to use it. I have yet to actually do an update, however.

All updates are supposed to be done through VxRail, however, the vCenter actually showed that there was an update it needed. I've just started using the product. I didn't know what I was doing. I actually updated my vCenter and that actually threw the VxRail system offline. We had to spend some time trying to get that working again. If possible, they should make the process a bit more clear so we don't make mistakes like this in the future. There should maybe be some sort of pop-up that can direct you.

I haven't used the solution for too long. So far, it's only been about two to two and a half months.

Aside from our mistake updating the vCenter, which threw things off, we haven't had any issues. There aren't bugs or glitches. It doesn't freeze. So far, it's been rather reliable.

As far as the documentation goes, it seems to be scalable. I haven't had to do any scaling, however, the documentation certainly makes it seem like it's just a matter of adding another node and everything will just work fine. 

So far, the technical support has been pretty good. We actually worked with a third-party who worked with Dell on the vCenter problem we had. So far, they seem knowledgable and responsive. We're satisfied with the level of service our organization receives.

We did not previously use a hyper-converged solution. We had a Cisco UCS and we needed to update it. We looked at HyperFlex and at VxRail. We're actually a big Cisco and a big Dell shop, however, on the server-side, we're more of a Dell shop and I liked the step updating. That's pretty much why we went with that.

The initial setup was not complex. It was pretty straightforward for us.

We had a technician from Dell actually do the initial setup. It helped make the entire process very seamless.

We don't have to pay for anything after the initial purchase. There aren't ongoing licensing costs. I don't know the exact price of the solution.

We're just customers. We don't have a professional relationship with the company.

If an organization is considering implementing the solution, I would advise they get some help doing so, unless they have the correct staff in house that can handle it, or they are very concerned about getting outside help for some reason. The technician that helped us got right through it. I would have been hard-pressed to get the implementation done on my own.

Overall, I would rate the solution eight out of ten. Aside from the one issue we had at the beginning with the update confusion, it's been very good.

I use VxRail in my DR site, so it houses my virtual infrastructure. I also use it for storage.

One way VxRail has improved my organization is in the way that I am now able to replicate the virtual because I'm using vSAN. I use the code point for VMware. I'm able to replicate my Unity appliance in my production environment to the vSAN which I wasn't able to do when I was using the older solution. I can replicate my production servers into the vSAN which is in the VxRail using the recover points of a VM. That's a great improvement. 

The most valuable feature is the fact that the storage is integrated with the VxRail so I don't have to go in between systems when I have to monitor my storage.

The second valuable feature would be the space. Because they're all combined I save a lot of space when it comes to the rack. I was able to consolidate two racks into one and the one is only used in about half a rack. The storage and the VMware servers are all in the same infrastructure.

If they can improve the HTML client that would be great because the HTML client is a lot more responsive. It's a lot smoother than the flash that it comes with and flash updates every minute and every time flash updates I can't open my web client. You should update and make sure the HTML client works. If it does then you have a product that gives you an excellent 9.5/10 from most vendors with no problem.

Everybody complains that for 6.5 and 6.7 there's no desktop client for V7. Everyone misses the desktop client. I don't like the web client. If they can bring back the desktop client for the next release of the VxRail that would be great.

The solution itself is pretty stable. We've been using it for about two and a half years and I don't think it has ever gone down.

The only issue which is every now and again is that when you log in it will tell you that there's an issue with VxRail when there actually isn't. All that's required is a refresh or reload. The solution itself works but you may get some bad reports every now and again. Probably once every couple of months; there is no effect to the solution's capabilities. 

The scalability is pretty good. Currently, we are looking at expanding. We're down to 50 terabytes and we plan on bringing on a lot more storage. We're speaking to Dell EMC. We need to buy another add-on and we can expand, it won't take on a lot more space. With a few more drives it will be huge. It's pretty scalable; it's going to grow with no problem.

I have used technical support several times. I have two tickets open right now. They are usually pretty responsive. They know how to grasp and gather information. They do a lot of back and forth emailing. Sometimes I have to request a Webex so I can see what's happening. They tend to go back and forth for days.

Before VxRail we used the VNX system, which is old technology with a lot more discs. We were looking to consolidate space. We're off-site, so we have a couple of racks and we were running out of space. We needed something that would compact everything, so we started looking around. We looked at XtremIO. Then we looked into using VMware, and they have this solution that integrates with the storage, VxRail, which is VMware and vSAN. We decided to try it out. We took a look and figured we already use the product, we already have a million things with Dell EMC so we thought it would be easier just to keep going with Dell EMC. The integration purchase went smoothly. We negotiated a reasonable price, and then after that, we set it up and its been going for the last two and a half years without any issues.

The initial setup was pretty straightforward. Once the storage was up, EMC did the actual deployment, configuring, and setting up the initial part of it and then the reseller took over and did the more advanced configuration. 

Deployment took a week to get everything set up with EMC, deployed, powered on and configured. Then the reseller took over and did all the migration and more complex tasks.

We used a reseller for the initial deployment. The deployment was good. It took around a month to get everything up and running. Then we had to copy the data from the old storage to the new one. That didn't take too long.

We have seen a return on our investment. We see it mainly in the fact that we are saving money in space and storage. We can use two and a half racks for something else, and we haven't had to replace discs which cost money. We also cut down on power consumption because now we have an empty rack that isn't powered on. Before we had VNX in two of them and you have to plug those into a power source. Power in those data centers isn't cheap and the fact that VxRail is dual power, it takes up probably a quarter of the energy than we were using before. That's a saving every month. We haven't had to replace it. We haven't had to fix it. We haven't had to do anything that has cost us any money.

We pay yearly for support. The cost was justified by now because it stays up and I don't have to constantly open tickets. I probably rebooted the system once or twice. We haven't replaced any discs in the storage, we haven't had to do any disc replacements, so it just runs. You pay a little more but you cut down on the maintenance. 

We evaluated XtremIO which is also a Dell EMC product. We chose this because of the integration with VxRail. It integrates the vSAN and VMware and that was the big selling point, the fact that we could run our own vCenter right off of the storage. We know the support and we know what they are going to give us.

I evaluated for a storage increase and it's an add-on whereas with VxRail it is built in and I'm not adding on anything. It's built for both V7 and the vSAN; it works well doing both things. 

On a scale from one to ten, with one being the worst and ten being the best I would give VxRail a solid nine. It's not something that has disappointed. Every time they have a release it's a new version and there are more features added. 

To make it a perfect ten they should improve the HTML client. There's an HTML client that works well in the web client since you don't have the desktop client. It works better than flash, and if they improve that, they might get a 10. Other than that, the product hardware is pretty good. 

I would tell someone considering this solution that it is a product to look over. You can test other solutions like Pure Storage and XtremIO. The fact that VxRail integrates with VMware gives it an edge. 

In my other office, I run VMware by itself and I use Unity which is another Dell product. We are thinking about turning our Unity and VMware into a VxRail, combining and saving space and storage. It's not the cheapest solution but sometimes cheaper is not always better. It's a solution that if you pay for it, you don't have to look at it again. I can't tell you the last time I got an alert.

We are using VxRail for our internal applications and databases.

I have been using VxRail for approximately three years.

I have found VxRail software can scale very well.

We have approximately 100 users using this solution. We are planning to increase our usage.

The implementation was quick, we used a checklist and it took approximately one hour.

We used an integrator team for the implementation of the solution. The one person who takes care of the maintenance of VxRail, such as upgrading the software. The upgrading takes too long. We have many nodes which takes a long time, they need to improve the speed of the upgrades

We pay for annual support from VxRail.

I would recommend this solution to others.

I rate VxRail a seven out of ten.

For small companies that want to have several nodes and a lot of computing with a small amount of storage for databases and SQLs, this solution works well. They can use it to replicate the data. 

The solution's most valuable aspect is a combination of a few things. It's fairly scalable, for example. It has a lot of performance-inspired management tools. They are very important to us to be able to manage and monitor the entire solution. VxRail has given us a lot of tools in a one-stop-shop environment.

The solution has been very stable so far.

The initial setup is very easy.

Technical support is great.

In the next release, maybe they could add in integration with the hyper-cloud so it will be easier to do the movement up and back to the cloud in order to scale in and scale out. 

If I could have some kind of a container-based solution, I'd be happier. That way I would be able to run my containers, my Kubernetes, in that environment.

I've been using the solution for about two years at this point. 

The solution is very stable and the performance is good. There are no bugs or glitches. It's reliable. It doesn't crash or freeze. 

The product can scale very well. It's a notable aspect of the solution itself. If the company needs to expand, it can do so.

More than 200 customers are running on that solution.

I've dealt with technical support. I'd give them a ten out of ten.

I also have experience with Nutanix. I know all of these kinds of hyper-converged systems.

The initial setup was not overly complex. It was very easy. I used a certified partner to do the installation. 

It took less than a week and the system was up and running.

How much of a technical team is needed for deployment depends on the customer. That said if the team is about seven people they can run everything including security and the regulation and whatever we need to run the solution. In our case, there were seven engineers. One of them is the manager, and they all handled everything including networking, the system, and the protection.

We ended up using a certified partner that helped us with the installation. While we used an integrator the first time, we can do it by ourselves now. 

We need to buy our license to renew it after a five-year period. The license is for five years.

We did a POC with Nutanix and with SimpliVity. We wanted to see how well they would suit our organizational requirements and only did small tests.

We're customers and end-users. 

I'd rate the solution at an eight out of ten. We've been happy with its capabilities.

I would recommend the solution to other users and organizations. 

We mainly use the solution for our data center equipment. 

As with SimpliVity, the solution concerns itself with storage, networking and virtualization resources.

The price of the solution is rather on the high side, not generally speaking but only as concerns VxRail. Dell Strava has exactly the same kind of price when it comes to HPE. VxRail starts at a higher price, so we tend to use SimpliVitity solutions concerning small companies. 

The full solution is not completely included as a bundle, such as we see with SimpliVity.  VxRail lacks a backup solution.

I have been using VxRail for around five years. 

VxRail's technical support is very good.

As with SimpliVity, the initial setup took two days. 

The price is rather on the high side. 

There is no licensing fee. One can buy HPE, all fully included, with either a three or five year license covering full support. 

The solution is deployed mostly on-cloud, although some of the bigger environments prefer do so on-premises. 

I would recommend this solution to others. 

I do not know the exact number of customers who are using the solution. I believe this number to be 15 or 20 in France, although there are more who use the SimpliVity solutions because of the lower price. 

I rate VxRail as an eight or nine out of ten. 

The finger click upgrade is the solution's most valuable aspect.

The single point of contact for support is excellent.

Management and monitoring tools are great. The solution has a very nice user interface and an easy to navigate dashboard. Everything that a company needs can be found on VxRail. 

The downside of the solution is this: if one drive load is down, it will take some time to sequence the data. There is a need to improve on this a little bit. This inclusion of data just takes too much time. It should be improved. It should not take so much time in the case of a hard drive failure.

It should not be deployed on one hypervisor. There should be multiple hypervisors supported like Hyper-V or KVM. 

I've been dealing with the solution for the last two years.

The stability is very good. We haven't had any issues at all. There aren't bugs or glitches. There aren't system crashes or anything of that nature.

The scalability of the solution is great. If an organization needs to expand out the service they can do so quite easily.

We're quite satisfied with the level of technical support provided. They're great. They're knowledgeable and responsive. There's absolutely no issue. It's a single point of contact for support for any issue whether it is VMware or any kind of hardware issue.

I have worked a lot on VxRail. I have also worked on Nutanix, however, not as much as I've worked on VxRail.

Nutanix performance is pretty good and they have something called a CVM, or controller VM. VxRail, however, is based on hardware connections. That's the major difference between the two. That is why the high ops of VxRail is better as compared to Nutanix. Nutanix is simply a different point of VL. 

The solution's implementation is very straightforward. It will take, at a maximum, one hour to deploy all the nodes. It's not complex at all. It's easy.

The pricing is pretty typical. There is no difference in competitors for the most part. I cannot say VxRail is cheaper than Nutanix. There really is no significant difference to discuss.

We are a gold platinum partner for Dell EMC.

I'd rate the solution ten out of ten.

I'd recommend the solution, however, it really depends on the company's requirements. If someone mentions having already used VxRail and not wanting to go with another hypervisor, the best recommendation from my side is to still go with VxRail. With VxRail, they have ample VMware so there's no issue with an upgrade or anything of that nature.

However, on the other hand, if you're going with something like and Acropolis hypervisor, which is both free and a Nutanix solution, and if you are a new organization that doesn't want to invest much, then I would suggest going with something like Nutanix instead. This is due to the fact that the Acropolis hypervisor has all kinds of features. It's very important for any smaller firm if they don't want to invest too much on the hardware, to go with Nutanix as it could be more affordable as a free solution.

We're integrators, and we have clients in various industries, including banking and energy. In general, VxRail is used to virtualize our customers' platforms. For example, some use it for Active Directory or their email solution for Microsoft Exchange. In addition to VxRail, we work with a storage array solution from Dell EMC with other servers. We use IBM Power System for our backup solution. 

For me, VxRail's most valuable feature is its life-cycle management.

I would like to see VxRail add duplication features to its hybrid solution. 

VxRail is highly stable.

VxRail is scalable. If you want to add more computer storage, you only need to add a remote.

Dell EMC support is very responsive and helpful.

It's quick and easy to initialize the cluster in VxRail. You can have your cluster up and ready in a few minutes. To deploy and maintain VxRail, we need one person for the solution and another for networking. 

Return on Investment is something you can see on the customer side, but this is a new solution that we deployed this year, so we would need to wait three years to calculate the return.

I rate VxRail nine out of 10. It's a good solution that's easy to manage. It's simple to upgrade and patch, so you don't have to check every component to see if it's compatible.