VxRail Reviews

We use the solution as a VDI for the desktop environment. 

One of VxRail's most valuable features is its small footprint in the data center. Additionally, the solution's simplicity is a significant advantage. You don’t have to configure or learn about storage software and administer many things separately. You can do all the administration jobs in one pane, bringing agility and simplicity.

There is an area for improvement with VxRail, specifically the upgrade process. Upgrading the is quite complex and almost exclusively requires Dell support. You can't do it alone, so you need to have support contracts running, which could be streamlined to improve the solution.

I have been working with the product for four years. 

We haven't had any issues. The solution always runs well, even during some hardware failures.

The solution is very scalable overall. However, the time to deploy isn't very quick, so if you need a large expansion, you must plan and project it with some time in advance. My company has 2000 users. 

Dell support is quick and assertive in addressing our needs. The Dell EMC team, particularly those supporting storage and standard systems, is very professional and productive. We have some assets with Dell ProSupport Plus, and they proactively help us predict failures, apply updates, and provide excellent support overall.

The solution's deployment is very easy. The major cause of delayed deployments usually comes from our internal processes rather than from Dell's side. Dell is always ready to deploy the equipment promptly.

On a scale from one to ten, I'd rate it a six in terms of ease of maintenance. It's not very simple to maintain because of the many integrated components, which add some complexity. However, overall, it is manageable and affordable.

VxRail has brought value to our environment. It has been running for about four years and performed very well. All of our users need to connect to the infrastructure to do their jobs, and throughout the product's lifecycle, we haven't experienced any problems. The solution has always operated well. 

VxRail does raise the price, but overall, it's well-priced. It's not more expensive than other similar solutions. If you were to create an in-house, tailor-made solution, you could potentially do it at a lower cost. However, I think a fully integrated solution like VxRail should be priced appropriately.

We plan to change our line of business infrastructure, which is currently based on traditional servers and central storage. However, we are also considering other options in the market.

I rate the overall product an eight out of ten. 

We use the solution to host virtual machines or servers. We host Red Hat Enterprise Linux and other application servers.

We have automated the build of the VMs. We have automated the complete process. If users need a VM, they go to a portal and fill out a form. The automation takes the details and builds a VM for them. Keeping it virtualized on VxRail makes the VM adaptive to scaling. When we have a resource contention, we can easily increase the capacity. It is a valuable aspect for us.

We don't want some of our applications on the public cloud. We want to keep them on-premise in our environment for various security and compliance reasons. VxRail gives us the flexibility that we usually get on the cloud. We can scale as per the demand with a quick turnaround. Once we get familiar with the tool, it is pretty easy to manage and build. The tool is easy to manage and easy to maintain. It provides amazing support and a good return on investment.

The product comes with a certain number of nodes. It is an underlying cluster. If I run a 4-node VxRail cluster, I need to add at least two more nodes to extend the cluster. If I want a certain amount of clusters and add only one node, I do not have the flexibility to do it. The product must provide more flexibility in adding nodes. The UI could be a little more informative.

I have been reselling the solution to my clients for almost three to four years. I am working with the latest version.

The stability is amazing.

The scalability of the product is the biggest selling point. We have 15,000 users in our organization. They use the applications that are running in the VxRail environment. We have many more customers using the tool. We have plans to increase the number of users. The scalability is a bit rigid, though.

The support is amazing if we get premium Dell support. The support is very good, especially in the South Central regions of the USA. We got Dell to come on-site to rack and stack our VxRail. The initial configuration and the management of the support have been excellent.

Positive

The setup is pretty straightforward. It is not complicated. There are specifications of what is required. We have to be ready with our architecture and how we want to design our cluster after the hardware setup. Once the architecture is ready, it is pretty straightforward to implement it in a VxRail environment. The maintenance is not complex. Virtual networking needs a bit of skill to manage. If we have the right resources, it is easily manageable and maintainable.

Dell professionals did the deployment and setup.

VxRail is the best solution in the industry if we want to host things internally in our environment and for applications that are not ready to go to the cloud yet.

We get special pricing since we are partners.

We are partners and resellers. Organizations that want to invest in the solution must investigate which applications are needed and which are not. If we don't make that decision correctly with the required data points, we will go into the cloud and get stuck with a lack of security. Once the user does the research properly, the best option for keeping their things on-premise with a decent cost and return on investment is VxRail. Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

When it comes to our infrastructure, VxRail has been performing well for the last three years. I also worked with a client who uses the solution in their setup.

Based on our requirements in the VxRail environment, we can increase or decrease the resources as needed, without needing to reconfigure every server at a specific time. This solution ensures uptime, providing 100% availability so servers can operate without downtime.

The solution works with VMware on the software side. It's an integrated EMS product with hardware provided as a bundle by Broadcom. Unlike Nutanix, which focuses solely on HCI, VxRail includes VMware software, offering a complete solution without the need to choose operating systems like Windows or Linux separately. The solution also has AI capabilities.

It has a good interface. However, during upgrades, some aspects get broken, requiring us to follow up with the VMware team to fix them. It's not a major issue though.

I have been using the solution for more than four years. Currently, I’m using version 7.0.

The solution is stable; its performance depends on the load you put on the cluster. It should work perfectly if you allocate resources—such as memory and storage.

The solution is scalable.

It is more than satisfactory, it is really good because they always respond to emails and issues immediately. They don't take their own sweet time, especially during critical times.

It is easy to deploy. It can be done within a couple of hours. However, the deployment time depends on the number of nodes. In a low-node-count scenario, we can deploy it in three to four hours. One person is sufficient for deployment. There are two aspects to deployment: hardware and software. Stacking alone takes time as it involves installing equipment in the rack, which takes a couple of hours to complete properly. After stacking, another couple of hours are needed to configure all nodes into a cluster.

We have a single deployment package we can upload and proceed with. It automatically applies the package to each node by putting them in maintenance mode, which makes it very easy. I have not faced any issues with this process, including with my clients.

The solution is on the higher end of the price range compared to Cisco and Nutanix.

Based on my direct usage of the solution, I find Dell more mature in product maturity than Nutanix and Cisco. However, I rate Nutanix as a close second, considering Cisco's relatively late entry into the visualization market. I must mention that I cannot accurately rate these products since I have not used them. This assessment is based on my research and understanding; my opinion might change if I gain direct experience with the products.

Overall, I rate the product a nine out of ten.

At our company, we work as consultants and offer the VxRail environment to our customers. Sometimes, we work on small remote sites where we propose and escalate a few hosts, like two or three-node blasters. Otherwise, our company uses the solution for handling native HCI capability without VCF. 

One of the solution's most valuable features is its zero-day deployment. The deployment is extremely fast, which our company's customers find very interesting. The lifecycle management feature makes the VxRail environment function quicker than other traditional, discreet environments.

For daily operations, VxRail has a great direct monitoring feature. The solution also offers seamless support to track issues through ESRS premises. 

At our company, when we manage the lifecycle for upgrading from one version to another, sometimes the upgrade gets stuck or the solution doesn't support online upgrades and compatibility.  

The solution's lifecycle management (LCM) should be enhanced. Multiple issues arise when dealing with the LCM feature on hand. The VMware feature can be included in the solution's software layer. Like Nutanix, VxRail should bring some competitive features like inbuilt DR capabilities and cloud hosting. 

VxRail provides an easy-to-scale environment. However, there are some limitations when the product is considered from the VMware perspective. The feature of HCI mesh functioning with Dell EMC VxRail further helps manage the compute-only nodes when needed. At our company, we never faced any challenges while scaling the VxRail environment. 

At our company, whenever we face a challenge or issue with VxRail, we easily resolve it by contacting customer support. Immediate support is available from Dell for any hardware issues. But in some instances, for virtualization issues, there is some dependency on VMware, which leads to a delay in support. 

At our company, we believe VxRail support is proactive and their response metrics are smoother than Nutanix's. I would rate VxRail's customer support an eight out of ten. 

Positive

The product offers easy and fast deployment. 

The hardware cost associated with the tool usage is a bit high. But when a user has been using VxRail for three to five years, the overall hardware cost reduces due to a reduction in orchestration cost. When we compare the CapEx and OpEx costs of VxRail together, they are always lower than those of another type of rack server adoption. 

At our company, we also work with Nutanix. Some of our customers prefer to adopt Nutanix for a few special use cases. Nutanix's performance and underlying operations are sometimes better than VxRail's. But personally, as a tech architect, I would say VxRail is better than Nutanix in terms of daily operations. 

For some technical issues, reaching out to Nutanix support is difficult, whereas similar issues can be easily resolved by reaching out to VxRail support. Troubleshooting articles are not easily available with Nutanix. From the disaster recovery perspective, when a user adopts the Dell EMC VxRail, some dependency on third-party tools like SRM and Hyper-V is required. For Nutanix, a user does not need to bear the cost of external tools as Nutanix holds internal DR capabilities.

Nutanix also offers its own public cloud, where the tool can be used with AWS or Azure to develop a hybrid cloud environment. But VxRail has only an on-prem offering that can be used for discrete HTC and VCF environment operations. 

Users are usually very comfortable executing the workload of data center operations on VxRail. But when a user has to manage heavy workloads for storage, such as HeavyDB and database servers, they prefer to use external storage facilities to gain the maximum benefits of the computed nodes. 

At our company, one of the customers is leveraging around 8,000 servers of VxRail, out of which 50% is native VxRail without VCF, and the rest of ESXi is utilized with VCF. The solution has also helped our company's customers grow their businesses. 

The monitoring tool of VxRail helps improve efficiency. The tool easily integrates with VMware, vSphere and other logging tools. VxRail also allows hardware monitoring and tools within the Dell EMC VxRail are presented as a plugin within the vCenter. Any monitoring executed for hardware failure environment can be easily managed through the operations tool. VxRail also effortlessly integrates with ITSM tools. 

Due to the automation features, cluster scalability, and number of operational days of the tool, VxRail is able to reduce 30-40% of our company's operational costs. Our company's customers' preferences vary depending on factors like quality, cost, and features, choosing VxRail or another competitive solution. Overall, I would rate VxRail an eight out of ten. 

VxRail is a suitable solution where more transactions are required and the TPMs exceed the standard requirements. For example, we have sold VxRail to a government weather company. This company runs extensive simulations to predict upcoming weather, analyzes images, and employs AI for analytics. These tasks demand significant computing power. Considering the budget, they need solutions that offer this level of performance. Typically, banking, education, and manufacturing customers opt for VxRail servers. 

VxRail integration with multiple products is among the best key points for selling to any end customer.

The main feature of VxRail is its integration. VxRail integrates with almost all major products. Another key feature is its monitoring capabilities. VxRail provides detailed monitoring from the application level, making it easy to troubleshoot issues. Additionally, their CloudIQ software suggests best practices automatically. For instance, if you are taking snapshot backups on VxRail, CloudIQ will inform you in advance if there are any issues. For example, if you planned to take ten snapshots in one day but only eight were successful due to a receiver issue, CloudIQ will help you identify the problem and suggest best practices to resolve it. It provides comprehensive data and information without consulting different websites or people.

The solution is expensive.

I have been using VxRail for ten years.

The stability is excellent.

I rate the solution’s stability a nine out of ten.

You can have over 64 nodes in one cluster. It's plug-and-play. You just need to add the load to the cluster.

It is suitable for telcos and enterprises. If you have a university with two hundred campuses, then it is not recommended for them.It is the best solution for one of the departments, such as the electronics or business departments, that are running simulations. 

I rate the solution’s scalability a ten out of ten.

Support is wonderful. You email them, and they come to Webex and take the session.

The price of VxRail is a bit higher. However, they focus on general specifications when selecting products in the environment sector.

When we compare VxRail with Cisco HyperFlex, Lenovo, Nutanix, and HP, we find it to be more cost-effective. Additionally, VxRail offers integrated backup and application support. In contrast, HP often lacks application support and relies on third-party solutions like Veeam or NetBackup. This can sometimes cause issues with smaller or in-house applications that may not be compatible with these backup solutions, leading to problems. On the other hand, if we decide to go with VxRail, they provide Avamar and NetWorker. Additionally, we can integrate it with a dedicated domain if we want to use separate storage.

When providing VxRail solutions to customers, they bring their own system engineers or system administrators with one or two years of experience in servers and VMware. We do not just hand over the hardware as a simple plug-and-play solution. Instead, we provide a comprehensive solution that requires some level of expertise. Ideally, the person should have two to three years of experience in VMware and server administration.

For instance, a six-node installation can be completed in two hours, given the proper preparation. The system doesn't work automatically for the engineer; they need to be proactive. It is crucial to prepare around four or five key points before deployment. This proactive preparation ensures a smoother installation and deployment process. This is one of the strong points of VxRail solutions.

VxRail competes with Cisco HyperFlex, HPE SimpliVity, and other major players in the HCI market. Locally, there is limited market penetration, which keeps them relatively safe. Apart from Dell EMC's VxRail, other significant providers include HPE with SimpliVity, Lenovo with Nutanix, and Cisco with HyperFlex.

We have repeatedly asked the R&D team about external storage and how we can improve it for CI. Previously, there was an issue with FCI traffic, which was not supported. However, it is now supported on FCI with external storage.

Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.