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IBM PureSystems vs Vblock [EOL] comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM PureSystems
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Converged Infrastructure (9th), Converged Infrastructure for SAP HANA (1st)
Vblock [EOL]
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Featured Reviews

it_user6186 - PeerSpot reviewer
Independent Analyst and Advisory Consultant at Server StorageIO - www.storageio.com
PureSystems, something old, something new, something from big blue
PART I For a certain generation of IBM faithful or followers the recently announced PureFlex and PureApplication systems might give a sense of DejaVu perhaps even causing some to wonder if they just woke up from a long Rip Van Winkle type nap. Yet for another generation who may not yet be future…
TS
Chief Consultant and Architect at Tahir Professional Services
Centrally-managed and stable, but the initial setup could be made simpler and technical support can be improved
There is a different platform and there are different interfaces for different parts of the product. Although there are some centralized components, you still manage each component using its own set of tools. There is definitely room for improvement in this regard. I would like to have a catalogue like menu where you simply define your end computing needs and the rest would be taken care of internally. The initial setup could be unified to make it simpler.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The strengths of the system is how the Flex scales from a very powerful, next generation BladeCenter all the way up to an IaaS platform."
"Not having to worry about the firmware integrations with the software infrastructure components has been grand."
"Legacy built architecture disappeared with VCE converged infrastructure, as only one person with transversal knowledge can achieve the Logical Configuration Survey, resulting in a strong and powerful infrastructure with nearly no downtime, and this is well known by the VCE technical support."
"UCS Manager worked well for net/blade management and has allowed fairly easy use of dedicated bare-metal blades."
"Access to VMs is now faster due to the centralized management console."
"Capability for scale and growth within a single rack brings strong possibilities for capacity planning."
"UCS brings the entire datacenter system together, letting us offer non-disruptive, seamless upgrades and storage tiering for people with higher IO demands, and it gives us flexibility."
"​It has improved system performance, batch times for off-hours processing, and reliability with production applications.​"
"It's an integrated box Mac solution, so it's a plug and play, the deployment and build is pre-made and ready to deploy, and it makes it easy to apply."
 

Cons

"The FSM does not quite deliver in the areas it plays too. A fairly sluggish interface that is more complex and less streamlined than it perhaps could be, holds it back and deployment of certain functionality from the switches requires more user intervention than feels necessary."
"The implementation and support could be better."
"Troublesome relationships with VCE at the beginning of our use came undone quickly after we went live."
"VCE tools, like Vision or AMP were not stand alone, and depended too much on other management consoles."
"OEM services requires too much planning and low availability of certified engineers."
"I would like to see them improve their switching infrastructure and rely on Cisco configurations. They are a bit more complex and technical, but result in a slightly reduced cost in terms of switching on the network side of it."
"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."
"The VCE Vision product definitely needs some improvement as it is not as easy to use as other commercial off the shelf software."
"Tighter alignment could simplify and speed up the configuration and delivery process.​"
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"I think the pricing is on the higher end of the spectrum. There could be some adjustments that could be made there. Regarding licensing, watch compatibility with external products that you run on Vblock. It has got to be properly architected, otherwise, you will run into licensing issues."
"The paid support for Vblock is expensive."
"Strive for a consolidated ELA."
"I would not say the pricing is not good value. It is still on the expensive side, near the top-end of cost compared to what's available now. Also, the licensing has to be improved. There has to be a clear definition of the licensing from the initial set-up so the customer knows what they are paying for, without being hit later on with extra licensing. The licensing definitions should be clearer and, perhaps, have one set of licenses rather than multiple licenses."
"Vblock appears from the first while to be very expensive. There are more items you cannot see in the BOQ: customer service, support, delivery short time, and highly experienced VCE engineers."
"It is not cheap."
"Vblock is priced at a premium because people don't want the headache of managing and deploying different products."
"Related to tech support: I believe it is too expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Performing Arts
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Marketing Services Firm
11%
Outsourcing Company
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise16
 

Also Known As

PureSystems
VCE Vblock
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ABT Online, Ascent Solutions Inc., Desert Research Institute (DRI), Reflexis, Esri, Avcilar Municipality, ValeCard, Computer Gross Italia S.p.A., DynaFront, Silvermoon Business Systems, Diasoft, BPTP, Temenos, Innovation Group, OneTree Solutions
Xerox, ACS, and Columbia Sportswear.
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900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.