Dell PowerEdge R-Series Reviews

All of our server infrastructure is PowerEdge, and it's all HCI PowerEdge.

By having Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers, we wanted density. We wanted to have a small power and cooling footprint. That's why we have PowerEdge and VxRail.

The most valuable feature is OpenManage. We get a lot out of OpenManage because we have a sprawling infrastructure with around 100 data centers, and managing all of those separately is challenging. The automation built into OpenManage for firmware upgrades and life cycle management really helps us out.

I recommend not locking the GPU behind a different license for iDRAC. We've talked to the product team, and it hasn't changed yet. I don't understand why they do that because you can't get very many metrics out of iDRAC Enterprise, as you have to go to the Data Center for a GPU, which seems pointless.

I wouldn't change anything else since I haven't had any other headaches with the platform. I find the pricing and licensing on par with the market.

I have been using Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers at my current company for six years, and beyond that, probably 20.

The stability and reliability are extremely high. We rarely have failures even in places that aren't necessarily maintained. It's a workhorse.

Scalability is a big factor for us, along with time to deployment and ROI, which are all pretty significant.

We have 26,000 people in our organization, with about 400 people per venue.

I work with customer service and tech support all the time. My impressions from working with them on the PowerEdge side are very high. We've had some challenges around VxRail after the Broadcom stuff, but I have nothing bad to say about PowerEdge. 

I would rate their support an eight overall because it's still kind of a challenge for us. We're not tech direct currently, so it's challenging to call in and deal with the script response of 'have you tried turning it off and on again?' rather than getting escalated quickly. Better escalation would be nice, and quicker escalation would be appreciated.

Deploying the product is super easy. It's going to get easier, but for us, it's simply dropping it in a rack, powering it, networking it, and everything gets provisioned for what we need pretty quickly.

We have seen ROI. While I can't share metrics at scale, we have replaced a couple of venues with Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers and replaced our VxRail. We project to save somewhere in the neighborhood of 13 million over the next three years when we get the rest of them done.

It's pretty much on par.

We evaluated Lenovo and Supermicro. Lenovo didn't have their eggs in the basket for any way to manage at scale, and Supermicro is kind of the same, plus there's just a big relationship with Dell that we can't ignore.

In terms of AI initiatives, a lot of our potential use cases revolve around players, as we're trying to figure out how we can leverage AI to better their experience, such as checking into the bay and giving them advice as they're going through their bay journey. Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers can help with that because it is the platform our whole business runs on - it's the foundation. 

I would rate Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers a nine out of ten, as I never give a ten.

My main use case for Dell PowerEdge R-Series is for private cloud infrastructure. A specific example of how I use Dell PowerEdge R-Series in my environment is for private cloud provisioning for 5G. Dell PowerEdge R-Series is deployed in my organization as a private cloud solution. I use Ericsson's own private cloud provider to run Dell PowerEdge R-Series. We have not applied AI workloads on Dell PowerEdge R-Series.

The best features offered by Dell PowerEdge R-Series are its response speed. I would like to go into more detail about Dell PowerEdge R-Series, including the distribution of the NUMA architecture, the ability to handle SR-IOV, and the iDRAC graphical interface.

Dell PowerEdge R-Series has positively impacted my organization in that the servers are very reliable in terms of their response and provisioning in the data centers. In terms of reliability, I have noticed a benefit in the day-to-day operation of my data center, especially in the response of provisioning, making it easier to carry out the server features or configuration.

Dell PowerEdge R-Series could improve by addressing the issue of temperatures and problems with RAM memory, as those are generally where we have had issues. The modules, specifically the DIMMs, tend to fail often regarding the necessary improvements with Dell PowerEdge R-Series.

I have been using Dell PowerEdge R-Series for an average of four years.

I consider Dell PowerEdge R-Series to be a stable solution.

I would rate the scalability of Dell PowerEdge R-Series as quite easy, since it is easy to configure.

I would describe Dell PowerEdge R-Series's customer support as quite good, especially in the United States where the wait time for part replacement has been quite fast.

Before Dell PowerEdge R-Series, we used an in-house Ericsson solution, a server designed by Ericsson.

I am the engineer who implements and configures the equipment for Dell PowerEdge R-Series within my organization.

I am not in charge of costs, so I have not noticed that using Dell PowerEdge R-Series has helped reduce the total cost of ownership in my organization. I observe time savings with Dell PowerEdge R-Series, as they are easier to configure compared to other servers.

I do not know about pricing, implementation costs, and licensing for Dell PowerEdge R-Series, as another department handles it.

I did not evaluate other options in the market before choosing Dell PowerEdge R-Series, as that is handled by project management, which sets the costs and analyzes the servers.

I give Dell PowerEdge R-Series a rating of nine out of ten. I rate Dell PowerEdge R-Series a nine and not a ten because of its easy configuration, but I do not rate it a ten because of the temperature and RAM issues. I do not have an answer regarding the energy consumption of the new PowerEdge servers, as I am not in that area to evaluate consumption. I do not have an answer on flexibility either, as I have not noticed whether Dell PowerEdge R-Series has contributed flexibility to my company's operations or processes. I do not have the data on energy efficiency or energy consumption at the data center level, so I do not consider Dell PowerEdge R-Series to have had any impact on my organization's sustainability goals. My advice to others who are considering implementing Dell PowerEdge R-Series is to keep in mind that they will probably have to replace RAM during the server's lifetime.

Dell PowerEdge R-Series is primarily used for storage in my organization, mostly for web application data and databases.

Dell PowerEdge R-Series has positively impacted my organization by helping us solve the business cases for our business requirements. It has addressed our complex business requirements that arose because applications were distributed amongst different data centers.

This solution has helped us centralize and manage everything properly and effectively.

The best features that Dell PowerEdge R-Series offers are that it provides a very stable environment and requires a much smaller number of people to support it.

Dell PowerEdge R-Series meets all our requirements, so I don't have a wish list for improvement. I chose a rating of nine instead of ten because there is always room for improvements in technology.

I have been using Dell PowerEdge R-Series for three years.

Dell PowerEdge R-Series is stable in my experience.

Dell PowerEdge R-Series meets our growth requirements in terms of scalability.

The customer support for Dell PowerEdge R-Series is excellent, and we have no problems with it. On a scale of one to ten, I would rate the customer support a ten.

Positive

We did not use any other solution before Dell PowerEdge R-Series.

Dell PowerEdge R-Series has definitely simplified the deployment process and has been a great implementation, making a noticeable impact on my business operations.

I oversee the deployment of Dell PowerEdge R-Series and also design the monitoring solutions for Dell products.

We have not calculated a return on investment for this solution.

The experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Dell PowerEdge R-Series was very positive and great, and it worked out very well.

We did not evaluate any other option before choosing Dell PowerEdge R-Series.

Dell PowerEdge R-Series does not play a role in my organization's AI initiatives. We don't have any specific metrics to measure success with Dell PowerEdge R-Series. I am using standard R-Series rack servers.

I would highly recommend Dell PowerEdge R-Series as it is a basic but an excellent solution for anyone looking into this product. I provided this review a rating of nine out of ten.

Our specific use case for Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers involves it being the production and DR equipment we utilize for all of our company's VMs.

The most valuable feature of Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers is its reliability. Once we transitioned to an all-flash storage solution within the servers and the hyper-converged setup, we haven't had a disk failure in six years. Being able to not worry about hardware on a day-to-day basis is a really big thing for me. By using this reliable system, the combination of the servers and the hyper-converged setup saves us a ton of time on the management side. I remember managing a separate SAN for storage that involved creating LUNs and provisioning virtual disks for VMs. Now, it's just all combined, and we don't have to worry about it in our day-to-day.

There have been no complaints among my team regarding Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers. The accessibility when opening up the chassis could be improved, but since we haven't had to do that since installation, it's not a big deal for us. Overall, I'm pretty happy with the way they run as is.

I've been using Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers at this company for years, and personally, overall, it's been twenty plus years through previous jobs.

It hasn't failed us at all, which is a testament to Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers.

For a company of our size, Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers have supported growth and operational success because they are scalable. We have fluctuations in how many VMs we're running, requiring us to scale up some years and not as much in others. When we needed to scale up in the past, we've been able to add RAM to the chassis to accommodate our needs without issues, and the flexibility for upgrades is nice.

Besides reliability, the other benefit of using Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers is the good customer service we receive when we need something done, which is mostly for planned upgrades. Reflecting on it, the last stack we're about to decommission has been a solid piece of equipment. We've never had to call and say, "This is messed up," or, "There's an issue with this." It has always been scheduled maintenance, which says a lot for a production environment, as we haven't had to call in a trouble ticket for the actual hardware during its entire run. The level of support from Dell has been good; we buy ProSupport Plus for every piece of equipment we have, and Dell provides excellent service through ProSupport Plus to meet our needs.

I didn't consider any other solutions because I've always had a good experience with Dell in my previous companies. When I came to this company, my task was to replace the existing servers with new equipment, which made it pretty much default to go with Dell. I considered a change from HP to Dell because I was familiar with Dell and I appreciated how their servers ran in previous data centers. I thought, if it isn't broken, don't fix it, so I continued using equipment that I liked and was familiar with.

My experience with pricing, setup costs, and licensing for Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers has been fair, and I have no complaints; it's pretty standard lifecycle stuff.

My deployment experience of Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers has always been good. Whether we do it ourselves or have a managed service come in, deployment is always quick and straightforward with no issues.

The ROI of using Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers is more on the administration side. It's hard for me to quantify because after we bought it and started using it, it has just been great. There's not a lot of time spent on the day-to-day care and feeding of the appliance, so it has become an afterthought to say, "Oh, you need to check the hardware," which isn't even part of our daily checks since we just trust it to work. By not having to worry about it, I would estimate we save two to four hours a week, depending on what's happening, such as if we need to spin up a new server, which would contribute to more time if done the old way.

Currently, Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers don't play a role in our company's AI initiatives since they were purchased before AI became significant, but our next iteration of servers will probably have either software or hardware ready for AI. Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers do have features that cater to organizations similar to mine, especially the managed services that come with it, which helps since we are limited in resources in-house. It has been helpful to lean on Dell for some managed services when we need outside help. Regarding the hardware equipment itself, it remains a solid piece of equipment that I can rely on. In terms of performance metrics or benchmarks to measure success with Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers, in the IT world, they often say, "No news is good news." When we upgraded from old HP ProLiant servers to Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers, a crucial year-end process that used to take two weeks now runs on the PowerEdge stack in just two days, representing a significant performance improvement. On a scale of 1-10, I rate Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers a 10.

We normally do rack for Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers, and we started buying the VX rails, which is based on the same platform too. 

Most of the time, we're doing this for more compute with Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers. We have a standard workload and usually run mostly bare metal on most of our platform, except when we do the VX rail, which then we use the ESXi VMware for that one. It is all Linux based. 

The nice benefit with the Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers was that we moved from an Intel platform, started buying more 7525s, more of the AMD-based processors because we can get higher four counts, more dense memory, so that's been our transition.

The most valuable feature of Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers is that it's very common. 

We've seen a lot of reliability with Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers. I just turned off a server that's been on for 11 years. That was a 410 that ran forever. From our point of view, they get good value in what they bought, and it continues to run, so we continue to buy them. It's a very stable, reliable product. The biggest benefit compared to HP is the iDRAC feature. HP has an iLO, but we've had more issues with that and its configuration than we have with the iDRAC and its configuration of the Dell server itself.

We've been impacted by data center issues with Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers, however, typically not from the server side. We have only lost maybe two power supplies out of about 80 servers. They just run forever.

The easiest thing to improve the Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers is to have a better road map for us. The challenges we have, because of the two-socket processor, are that there's a refresh cycle about every three years to move to the next product line. 

For us, this gets difficult based on how we do our procurement cycles, as sometimes it's a little too short. We'd prefer to have similar equipment, yet sometimes we end up having multi-generations of Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers only due to the fact that we buy in year one and a half to two during the production cycle, and it just gets more complicated for us.

We've been using Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers since approximately 2000. I've used many different versions going back to 1750s, R900s. We have been using this platform for at least almost 20 years.

We've seen excellent reliability with Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers. I recently turned off a server that had been running for 11 years. We run the platform, and that was a 410 that ran forever. From our point of view, they get good value in what they bought, and it continues to keep running. We have about 80 servers and have only lost maybe two power supplies. They just run forever. Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers definitely fit our needs. 

The only issue with the VX rail was the confusion about the strategy going forward, but that was more related to Broadcom confusing the customers. We run a hyper-converged platform inside our system stack. We weren't really sure what would be supported going forward, but now that we can continue to purchase the rails, they seem to fit our model going forward. It's an easy scalable solution. We can also buy Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers and deploy our own ESX and do whatever we want to do.

The customer service for Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers is great. I'd give them a ten out of ten on that.

Positive

Due to budget constraints in the last couple years when considering Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers, the customer we work with specifically brought us some HP equipment, so I ended up with some DL380s. Eventually, they will be replaced when we buy more Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers to get them out of our ecosystem.

We do work with other vendors too; however, predominantly, most of our equipment is Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers. We have Dell on-site support for whatever we need. We haven't had many failures with the platform. We are still running some R930s that are about 10 years old, and we've had zero problems with them. They're 13th generation, while they're currently at 18th generation.

Since we have such a history of deploying these, it's simple for us with intuitive setup. The iDRACs are very simple for us to get things up and running fast, and it fits into how we've built the architecture. The servers have been very standardized for so long. We have both single U and multi U servers based on what the requirement was or what the workload was.

We are not using Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers for AI initiatives at the moment. We initially looked at doing that, so we bought GPU-ready nodes and used them in a different way. We use those for inference for VDI, however, we've moved away from that based on the way we do compute, and AI doesn't play a factor in what we do. We do more computational-type things.

I'd give Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers a rating of ten out of ten. We haven't had any issues with it.

I like that the most about Dell PowerEdge R-Series is that it is simple to use. The virtual machine is especially valuable to me. If it is easy for me to connect to the VM, which is part of Dell PowerEdge R-Series, it is easy for me to work, so it makes everything smooth. Dell PowerEdge R-Series can save me approximately seven percent of my time. I think that Dell PowerEdge R-Series is more power saving because it is new compared to the other server we have, and it works more quietly than the other server. I believe it also benefits more for power saving.

I have been using Dell PowerEdge R-Series for two years.

Dell PowerEdge R-Series can be improved if they put more space for memories. With Dell PowerEdge R-Series, there is not a lot of room currently. I want more room for memory in Dell PowerEdge R-Series. I use a lot of memory as I am a heavy user.

I find Dell PowerEdge R-Series reliable and it did not have any issues at some point.

I would rate the customer service with Dell PowerEdge R-Series an eight if I had any technical issues. They were nice. They did not help me fix something when I needed it, but they tried to call us a lot and they asked if we wanted help. They made a good impression that they care.

I had another Dell PowerEdge R-Series but it was older. I wanted newer versions of Dell PowerEdge R-Series.

I do not know how Dell PowerEdge R-Series would help reduce the total cost of ownership. Before that, I do not know, we had to spend more money on using other servers that are rented, but now with Dell PowerEdge R-Series, we have one.

I am not the one that makes the transfer, but we have both discussed the prices and taken another offer for Dell PowerEdge R-Series. I find it good enough for my needs, and that is why I have it.

We have a lot of servers, so I try them all, and I like to try new things, so everything is fine.

I do not know exactly how much energy is consumed from Dell PowerEdge R-Series. I do not look at this parameter, but now that you mention it, it is important to me. I would rate Dell PowerEdge R-Series a seven because I do not touch it a lot, so I do not know exactly. It is more or less, so I take seven because it is above five. I rate Dell PowerEdge R-Series an overall seven out of ten.

I use Dell PowerEdge R-Series for different types of power servers. We have R&D platforms, production platforms, DC and DRs as well. Most of the applications we run are very performance-oriented because I work for a media company, where performance is the highest priority. Dell PowerEdge R-Series servers provide us with the performance we need and we can rely on those servers for delivery to our customers.

My role in using and managing Dell PowerEdge R-Series servers is working as a System Administrator and Media Architect. I manage those servers in terms of managing the data center and performance checking of those servers. When any application requires additional resources or utilization, we enhance those resources on the current Dell PowerEdge R-Series servers. We also consult with our partners to enhance those resources or upgrade those servers as needed. I have consulted with the application and development team, and based on their requirements, we have enhanced the resources of those servers and managed them accordingly.

We are using rack servers for our operations.

We have tower servers which we use for R&D purposes, since not all servers are allowed to be mounted on the production racks. We host these different tower servers in a separate environment that is not racked.

The benefit of Dell PowerEdge R-Series servers to my company overall is substantial from a costing perspective. When I consider other partners' servers, I would need three or four servers to deliver the required outcome for videos or audio files. However, with Dell PowerEdge R-Series servers, I require only two servers to deliver the same performance compared to other partners. This demonstrates that Dell PowerEdge gives us more reliability for running those applications.

It has helped reduce our total cost of ownership significantly.

When we create a budget or focus on budgeting matters, we see an increase in our customer base every year, which creates a yearly requirement for additional servers. Nowadays, tech refreshes are occurring everywhere, and when we plan for these refreshes, we need a reliable partner who can provide value servers. For example, I have four or five servers that need to be refreshed. Dell PowerEdge offers us the ability to have new platforms while returning those old platforms to them so that we can balance our costs. This cost-balancing approach is how they are helping us.

We are not using lifecycle extension with Dell PowerEdge R-Series. Instead, they are taking the old servers and providing us with new platforms so that we can balance the cost. When I purchase a new server, it could cost a million dollars or thousands of dollars. However, if I exchange those servers with the old platform, it could result in approximately an 80% cost reduction for those servers. This is how they are helping us manage our expenses.

The most valuable feature about Dell PowerEdge R-Series servers for me is the performance. The CPU utilization is excellent. In a media environment, we primarily run videos, which are performance-hungry and rely on the GPU of those servers. I can definitely rely on Dell PowerEdge R-Series servers based on the GPU as well as the CPU performance.

If I could improve Dell PowerEdge R-Series in any way, I would suggest that they consider adding more redundant power supply options. We currently have the 470 model with two power supplies, but in an enterprise environment, we should have more power redundancy systems.

I have used the customer support directly for Dell PowerEdge R-Series. We have a partnership and an agreement with our local partners.

My experience with Dell PowerEdge R-Series customer support is very good. Since hardware can experience issues at any time, and we frequently enhance our resources on those servers, we often have requirements for additional memory and storage expansion. We receive instant support from our partners for these needs, which is a positive aspect of their service.

I have seen ROI with Dell PowerEdge R-Series. I have a very old platform running on Power servers, but due to the performance capabilities, I do not need to change them frequently. This is how Dell PowerEdge R-Series is helping us avoid declaring the EOL of those servers.

We have considered different types of solutions besides Dell. As an enterprise environment, we cannot rely on only one partner, so we have different partners. However, most of the time we rely on Dell PowerEdge R-Series servers.

We are using something else alongside Dell PowerEdge R-Series, but I cannot mention those names in this review.

Overall, this product should receive a rating of nine out of ten. My advice to anybody else evaluating Dell PowerEdge R-Series is that they must explore Dell PowerEdge R-Series, as it comes highly recommended for enterprise environments.

My main use case for Dell PowerEdge R-Series is to host our internal systems, which normally includes customized software or some cost products. A specific example of one of those internal systems I host on Dell PowerEdge R-Series is our bank-related system, which cannot go on cloud and has to be on-premise. This system is called the ECM system. This system is one of the cost products that we purchase from overseas in Europe, and it has been running within our company for more than twenty years.

The best features Dell PowerEdge R-Series offers are basically the ease of use and stability. I am more focused on the performance reliability besides that. I am quite satisfied with Dell PowerEdge product.

When I mention ease of use and reliability, when the hardware is plugged into the rack, we just install VMware or Microsoft Hyper-V. We can basically run the system on our own without any interference from Dell support. The reliability part is that it seldom has any issues. Even though sometimes there is a hardware failure, we are able to notice it immediately and call for support to do the maintenance immediately.

Dell PowerEdge R-Series has positively impacted my organization by helping us to streamline the hardware that we need to take care of because everything is such that Dell PowerEdge allowed the virtualization to be run on the servers, and it actually helped us to combine all the systems into less process and allowed us to do high availability setup within our premises.

I am not sure how Dell PowerEdge R-Series can be improved. Besides cost-wise, I would see Dell help us to streamline about the virtualization because previously, Dell did partner with VMware, but VMware eventually sold to Broadcom, and that makes our life a little bit difficult. Instead of just portraying as a hardware vendor, maybe they can portray as an overall solution to us when Dell is selling the new PowerEdge hardware to us. At least it helps us to weigh the differences on which one to adopt and to choose the solution for ourselves.

I have been working in my current field for more than twenty-five years. In this company, I have been using Dell PowerEdge R-Series for more than five years.

Dell PowerEdge R-Series is stable.

Dell PowerEdge R-Series' scalability is great.

The customer support for Dell PowerEdge R-Series is quite responsive.

I did not use a different solution before Dell PowerEdge R-Series.

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Dell PowerEdge R-Series is that it is quite straightforward and easy to maintain.

My advice to others who are considering using Dell PowerEdge R-Series is to go ahead. I rated this product a nine out of ten.

The use cases for implementing Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers are mainly in warehouses and manufacturing sites to ensure they can effectively utilize IoT devices. 

For instance, a customer has livestock that they brand with barcodes to maintain their health and monitor their consumption, and all these IoT devices are rolling throughout their facilities, gathering data in real-time for assessments. This technology at the edge is very helpful for them.

The features of Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers support AI initiatives by providing compute and storage at the edge, enabling the creation of a lot of real-time information and making that information available to AI capabilities, which helps drive outcomes more quickly. 

From a VAR perspective, the most valuable features of Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers are our ability to implement the infrastructure and make it readily available for our customers. 

Customers share with us their experiences, highlighting reliability, ease of use, maintenance, and lifecycle management. They frequently mention that this equipment doesn't break, stating it works and functions reliably.

The ways Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers could improve relate more to the educational aspects of how customers can continue to leverage technology, which presents challenges. I do not have a specific set of examples where I think Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers could be better or more efficient; it really comes down to ensuring the end customer has a better grasp of what the technology can do for them.

My company is a reseller, so we provide solutions for our customers.

When it comes to scalability with Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers, I find it interesting that, in manufacturing, scalability often doesn't apply much as these are typically small but numerous sites. Thus, scalability means ensuring the collective information derived from all these edge sites can funnel through their main data center rather than within individual sites.

We work with Dell support, and I have a highly competent, certified engineering team that works closely with them, making it a very mutually beneficial situation as we do a lot of hands-on work and code deliveries with our Dell partners. 

I would rate Dell support honestly as having improved; however, there's significant change within the Dell organization that we have felt, impacting the relationships we've built to escalate and address problem scenarios. 

If I rated the support two years ago, it would have been a high eight or maybe a nine; in the last six months, it has likely dropped to a six or seven out of ten due to a lot of churn in Dell, particularly with their sales force and engineering teams.

Neutral

I honestly do not prefer any other competitors of Dell. Having been a customer for 25 years before joining the vendor side, I have experience with HP and Supermicro yet did not prefer those products. My prior issues with Dell equipment were manageable because I knew I could rely on support. Whereas with HP, I did not have that confidence, and Supermicro may seem cheaper but has atrocious lifecycle management and upkeep, which I prefer to avoid.

They do have AI in these cases, and we are actually trying to interject ourselves more into those conversations. A lot of these manufacturers have a conservative mindset regarding technology, focusing on product, shipping, and logistics, which means IT sometimes becomes an afterthought. As a VAR, we try to influence them on leveraging their current data sets to ask how they can use their data to enable business outcomes, and this conversation is now progressing in their understanding of the power of that. AI plays a significant role in predictability concerning their stock, product sets, and inventory shortcomings, particularly in the manufacturing of livestock, regarding health and the ability to harvest that product.

I would rate Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers overall about a nine out of ten as nothing is truly perfect, leaving opportunities for improvement. It's a great solution for my customers, and it's the one we continue to sell.

We are primarily using it for test development environments. We have VMs hosted on them, and we use them to run our internal applications, customer environments, dev setup, common projects, the development environment, and the UAT environment in the service.

Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers are pretty good at handling diverse applications. We get good performance from it. 

We have a lot of VMs on Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers. On a single server, we have probably hosted 14 or 15 VMs. Out of these, 8 to 10 are continuously running, and four of them are backup VMs, so it can handle a good workload.

For cybersecurity, it is only accessible on the intranet; it is not accessible through the web. We use it for local development purposes, and it is behind our firewall. Its security is strong. We handle a lot of test data for government and confidential customers. It is safe and strong locally. We have not experienced any security issues.

Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers have helped to reduce unplanned production downtime if we need to replace a hard disk, instead of completely shutting a server, there is a hot swap feature. It is quite good in that aspect. Usually, for any activity, there is a downtime of about 30 minutes. It has saved a lot of time.

We have tried AI workloads for a development environment for a government customer in Singapore. The servers are hosted in Singapore. It is an ML-based engine with AI. It is a government project where data is processed, and we run it on Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers. The benefit of running AI workloads on PowerEdge Servers is that it is easy to allocate memory. The application we are running is memory intensive. It is pretty easy to scale memory and storage.

We have been using these servers for eight years. We have experienced good performance with them. 

Dell PowerEdge's strength is that they have a lot of NIC cards, so we can set up web apps and everything else for development on a single server. We can easily replace hard disks which is quite good.

I have used these servers in a government project along with Nutanix, and there is a security restriction. I do not know if it is from Dell's side or Nutanix's side. From the host, you cannot read the external hard drive data inside a VM. They have a security restriction on it. I understand the security restriction, but there should be a policy where you can do it during the development stages and copy data. After it goes to production, the policy should be implemented, and the port should be closed.

I have been using Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers for seven to eight years.

I have not experienced any stability issues. The number of years we have been using these servers shows their reliability. 

For a government project, I went from five nodes to eight nodes, and it was pretty easy to scale up.

We did not directly go to Dell support because we were going through Nutanix. From what I have heard, I would rate Dell support an eight out of ten.

Positive

The setup is easy. Management-wise also, it is pretty easy. We normally remote in from our lab. It is convenient and easy.

We partnered with Nutanix for this government project. They set up the base hardware infrastructure configurations. We built our VM applications on top of that. We had a couple of challenges. Data migration was a big challenge because of the sensitivity of the data. I had to sit inside the data center for twelve hours continuously because we had to take a different approach to transferring data. We could not directly transfer that data from the physical port into a VM. They told us that it was a security restriction that could not be relaxed at all. There should be an option when you migrate large data sets.

I cannot put a number to ROI because it is more of a development environment set up for us, not a production environment. The production environment using Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers is managed by the government entity itself. We are an application service provider and system integrator. We integrate our custom-built applications or COTS applications into the government infrastructure. Cost-wise, for the physical hardware, we cannot give an estimate because the data we use for development is small in the test environment.

From the fulfillment aspect, the government has a big set of data centers. Most of them have Dell EMC servers. We use the similar, if not the same, hardware to do our development tasks.

We evaluated a Lenovo IBM server seven or eight years ago. We chose Dell PowerEdge because of the storage aspect. We got a better storage and RAM option here, so we moved to Dell.

In terms of our AI journey, we are an IT system integrator. We have built our own IoT platform. We have integrated AI into our IoT platform, and we also have partnered with another PC manufacturer for whom we have been testing hardware devices for the past 20 years or so. We have qualified their AI solutions on their devices.

Everything has a cost, but we have to see the benefits over a longer period of time and its effect on our operations and ultimately customer satisfaction. I do not look at the cost only from a financial perspective; I have to look at it from different angles. This helps ensure that it does not create problems for our customers and that the customer is satisfied. 

I would recommend focusing on performance and reliability rather than just cost.

I would rate Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers very high because we have been able to set up different environments in different VLANs and connect to all of them at the same time. Overall, I would rate Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers an eight out of ten.