Dell XC Appliance Reviews

Dell offers several benefits with its appliances. Primarily, I can combine them horizontally and vertically, reaching up to sixty-four nodes. 

Additionally, Dell employs its own artificial intelligence tools, which are unique in the market. They collaborate with VMware, vSphere, and vSAN, and their internal software, iDRAC, integrates seamlessly with VMware. 

From a single screen, I can view VM details, performance, and hardware issues, such as power supply or fan malfunctions, along with RAM module problems. Dell has also integrated CloudIQ software, which is connected to VMware. CloudIQ proactively identifies configuration errors. 

If a snapshot backup isn't performing as expected, CloudIQ will highlight and guide me on the error. The benefits of Dell Appliance include horizontal and vertical combinations, up to sixty-four nodes, and unique AI tools. Dell collaborates with VMware, vSphere, and vSAN, and its iDRAC software integrates with VMware. 

I can view VM details, performance, and hardware issues on the same screen. CloudIQ identifies configuration errors and provides guidance.

Dell's appliances provide several key benefits. I can combine them both horizontally and vertically, supporting configurations up to 64 nodes. 

Their proprietary artificial intelligence tools are uncommon in the industry, and they collaborate effectively with VMware, vSphere, and vSAN. 

Their internal software, iDRAC, smoothly integrates with VMware, allowing me to monitor VM details, performance, and hardware issues from one screen. 

Additionally, CloudIQ software proactively addresses configuration errors. Its high-performance computing integration with multiple software platforms is already implemented on VXL. 

Furthermore, Dell has ground appliances supporting high-performance computing.

The main issue with the DirectVXL appliance is that it only supports a single orchestrator or hypervisor. If multi-hypervisor support is required and VMware does not provide it, then Dell's appliance won't support it. 

I find it overly reliant on VMware. In cases of company mergers involving different platforms, software that can handle a multi-hypervisor environment would facilitate quicker integration.

I have been working almost ten years with the solutions.

I would rate it eight or nine out of ten. It is an extremely stable solution.

As mentioned earlier, the solution can scale up to 64 nodes. The last version allowed scaling both vertically and horizontally, which is substantial for any environment.

I would rate it eight or nine out of ten. Their support is very good. I can send an email to Dell, and within a minute, their engineer will get online and connect with the network. 

Additionally, CloudIQ proactively reports system issues to customers.

Positive

For any appliance, the challenge is that I must read and understand the complete workflow. It is not a simple 'next, next, next' process. 

However, once I am trained, I follow OEM-advised workflows to reap the benefits. Although it may initially be difficult, learning and applying best practices result in significant benefits.

I have used HPE SimpliVity, and the last time I worked with it was for approximately three years, two to three years ago. In Pakistan, HP is not very strong, however, Dell is very good. Cisco also has a strong presence, while Huawei and HCC are present but haven't captured the market with their appliances.

It's an extremely stable solution, and I highly recommend it. Its price is very competitive compared to Cisco and HPEOS. 

I would rate the overall solution nine out of ten.

We are a solution provider and that is one of the products that we implement for our clients.

Our clients use this for VDI, virtual desktop infrastructure.

The vSAN is quite good because if one of the clients goes down then you have a high availability replacement.

The appliance is easy to configure and the deployment is quite easy, as well.

I would like to see interoperability available because we are not able to deploy any other hypervisors on these servers. We only support VMware. So, when the customer is looking for a multi-hypervisor platform, it is limited.

In the next release, I would like to see support for Docker and containers. That would be better because right now, we can only deploy things on it. But, if HCI appliances support native containerization then that would be great.

I have been working with the Dell XC Appliance for more than a year.

This solution is very stable. We have not received any complaints or issues from the customer side.

This solution is scalable and it is normally used for big enterprise. I think that you can scale it to 93 nodes.

An example of a larger deployment that we have done is 10 HCI servers. Our biggest customer we have is 1,500 users.

We are regularly in touch with Dell EMC technical support. We are satisfied because local support is quite good. We have had opportunities for mutual collaboration between Dell EMC support and ourselves.

I have experience with several other similar solutions and the main difference is scalability. When you are talking about Dell combined with VMware, it speaks for itself.

The initial setup is quite simple. When we compare it to normal hardware servers, I'd say it is quite easy to configure and deploy.

The pricing for Dell EMC solutions is quite expensive and not really made for small or medium-sized businesses.

My advice for people who are selling this product is to first make sure that you educate the customers. The customer doesn't often know much about HCI and what the need to be using it for. If they speak with the Dell EMC pre-sales team or technical team, then they will have a good understanding of it.

Overall, the Dell XC Appliance is a very good product.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

Overall, the solution is great.

The product's interface is very user-friendly. 

Dealing with the solution is simple. The hardware is easy to install and implement. 

The technical support is very good.

The solution's hardware is great.

The inside of the servers could be improved by increasing the available specs.

The solution's storage size could be improved.

I've used the solution for five to six years.

The solution is stable. There aren't any bugs, glitches or crashes.

The solution is absolutely scalable. If a company needs to expand, they can do so.

Technical support is excellent. I'd rate it nine out of ten. We've been very satisfied with the level of service we've been given.

The solution was easy to install. It took about 10 days to 2 weeks to deploy everything. The entire process was outstanding.

In 2015 we used the latest version, which had blade servers and storage via Dell EMC. Last year, in November, we installed a new solution. It had a Dell Hyper-converged Infrastructure. It is the latest technology.

This solution is good for medium to enterprise-level organizations.

I would recommend the solution. I'd rate it nine out of ten.

The most valuable feature is that you can assign a volume to an off-shore workload on the fly.

It is built on top of VMware vSAN and it is kernel-shared with vSphere. If you are familiar with vSphere then it will be very easy to manage.

With Dell, the most valuable features are the SSH VPN.

You don't have to have separate storage for two different protocols.

The management tool is a good tool that is built on vSan. It integrates well with the vCenter.

When I work with VxRail or vSan and I have a cluster, and if I wanted to allocate some of the volumes to workloads that are not in that cluster, whether it's a physical or virtual workload that is not in that cluster, it is not possible.

Looking at the competitors, such as Nutanix, they can carve out volumes from Nutanix clusters and allocate them the virtual workloads.

Currently, there is no support for the servers that are not in the cluster. If this were improved then it would be of great value.

I have been selling Dell for three years. 

Dell Technical support is of value. I have worked with them for almost three years and I know why Dell Technical support is one of the best.

The initial setup is simplified. I wouldn't say that it is complex. It's very good and simple to deploy.

The pricing is good.

I work for integrators, and my role is solution consulting. I secure customers and recommend technology solutions that are available in the market.

To other customers who are looking to implement Dell XC, it's a very good hyper-converged solution. Dell EMC is built on the VMware vSan platform. 

It's a good package from Dell with robust public servers that are incorporated into the solution along with VxRail manager, which makes your life easier.

From a management perspective, it supports almost all of the workloads that you have. It's object storage so that it can serve both, all the protocols. 

This product is good.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

The primary use case of this solution is for the virtualization of the infrastructure of the company, and data storage.

What I like the most is that it is easy to implement, easy deployment and that it's easy to manage.

It's a feature-rich solution with an interface that is in permanent reconstruction and optimization, which is very good.

We are not always advised of new features or updates, so we must research to stay up to date. There are regular changes with technologies, new components, and new features. We have to communicate with vendors to remain current.

I have been familiar with the Dell XC Appliance for approximately 12 years.

This solution is stable and we have not had any issues. I am pleased with the stability.

It's a scalable solution.

We have approximately 5,000 users from various financial institutions, utility companies, and SMB customers in many different departments and positions.

The business model of the company is to use indirect methods for technical support.

We are satisfied with the support.

Previously, we did not use a different solution.

The initial setup was easy. It's easy to implement this solution and to deploy it.

We implemented and installed this solution by ourselves, using our internal resources.

The pricing is dependent on the technology and is in direct relation to the manufacturer and the components.

I highly recommend this product and the technologies of the company.

After the acquisition of EMC, they can provide a complete portfolio with a wide range to meet with the needs of our customers.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

The primary use case is to run all of our production workloads, which are file servers, databases, web servers, and front ends. It's running everything.

The most valuable features are the low management overhead, and the lower skill set required to manage it.

All of the additional management tools plug into vCenter, which is our standard virtualization interface for VMware. It has the vRealize Operations Manager, which is the management and the monitoring suite that's available from VMware. This is all incorporated into the product. It's a turnkey solution.

The cost of using the public cloud deployment is astronomical.

I have been using this particular product for a couple of months.

We didn't need to contact technical support. We had Dell support on-site setting up and implementing the solution for us.

We did not have any problems with the initial setup because we hired Dell ProDeploy services to install this solution and get it running.

Deployment was approximately two months from start to finish, and that included the high-level design, racking and stacking, the testing, and the migration of workloads.

We used Dell ProDeploy services to deploy this solution for us.

We are getting time back to other things because we are not having to look after the infrastructure, as we have had to do in the past.

We received a good price from Dell. Pricing was pretty much the same apart from the pricing for the public cloud it was astronomical.

Other than licensing fees, we had to pay for our equipment. We calculated that our TCO  is going to be lower with this solution than it was with our traditional three-tier architecture.

We looked at Nutanix, NetApp, Public Cloud, and another product called Datrium.

We did a lot of research ahead of time with this solution to make sure that it was stable, scalable, had a good interface, was easy to use, and that it had good technical support.

I don't have enough time with the solution to know what areas need to be improved. When I have run into some difficulties, Dell has let me know that those have been addressed and instruct me or direct me to where I can find and enable certain functions.

These functions are there, but with my inexperience, I didn't know they were there.

I haven't found things that are missing yet.

It's a single driver update that reduces management costs.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

We primarily use the solution for the consolidation and visualization of terabytes. Occasionally different software is needed as well. 

The solution's best feature is its simplicity. It's so simple to deploy it. You've got the VMware, and it's own appliance. It is really helpful. The system is online within half a day and saves so much time. 

The storage of the solution and the differing product production could be improved.

There should be more provisioning capabilities within the solution.

I've been working with the solution for two to three years. We just use the solution minimally.

The solution supports 64 nodes on the hyper-converged. 

The technical support offered by the solution is excellent. We've been extremely satisfied with the level of service provided.

The initial setup was quick and easy. You can have it set up within half a day.

The pricing depends on the nature of the product. It may be a bit more expensive than other options.

We use the private cloud deployment model.

We're system integrators and a partner with Dell.

There's a lot of competitors that are good, such as Cisco and HP, but this particular solution is good because it's simple. If a user is looking for a simple solution, I'd advise that they look at Dell.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

I am a reseller. I sell Dell components and I sell Nutanics. So, I sell these solutions and I also have hands-on experience working with them.  

The main driver for clients who are using the XC Appliance is for reduced maintenance. Clients run workloads on the product and use it for storage. However, they do not want to have a traditional three-tier architecture. This product provides that solution.

The feature I think is most valuable are the deduplication and the compression features. Both of these features are very good and very valuable for users.  

To improve this product, I think there is a lot of work that is required by Dell to simplify the maintenance and life cycle upgrades. Besides the maintenance and the life cycle needing to be simplified, it is a very good product that what is is expected to do and serves our clients' needs.  

I have used it for three years.  

The stability of the product is pretty good. There have been no bugs, glitches or crashes that I'm aware of.  

It is easy to scale and expand the platform. Right now we have more than twenty users at several client locations using this solution. These users will be people like IT managers, IT administrators, and maybe other people from the IT departments. But the scaling itself is limited by the clients more than the product.  

Other people from my team interact with the technical support team at Dell. I have not heard anything negative so it must be OK.  

I am familiar with also with vSAN VMware. We did not switch from this product. We use it as an alternative solution.   

The initial setup was okay. The process itself is not that complex. The life-cycle part of the product is more of a problem. This can interfere with the implementation.  

The price point is very fair for a product in this category. Pricing will vary depending on the components selected within the family of products.  

I think the price point is a good in comparison to other similar products on the market.  

On a scale from one to ten where one is worst and ten is the best, I would rate this product as a six out of ten.