Dell PowerEdge R-Series Reviews

We are currently using Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers to run about ten virtual machines. Within these virtual machines, we have our ERP systems, remote access systems, and more. It is primarily used as a Hyper-V server for virtualization purposes.

The performance and scalability are the most valuable features of Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers. The servers perform excellently, and they are adaptable to the evolving needs of high-performance workloads. They provide the reliability needed to manage the consumption of RAM efficiently without needing to expand the rack.

I do not have anything specific in mind for improvements. The support provided is very good when we need it, and the identification of the server is excellent. Overall, there are no areas of significant improvement that I can suggest.

We have had experience with Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers for about two years.

The servers are reliable. We do not experience significant downtime, and they continue running effectively.

Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers are highly scalable. We were able to resolve performance issues by managing RAM consumption without needing to physically expand the rack.

Customer service provides very good support, with an SLA of about one business day to respond to our tickets.

Neutral

We have always used Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers. We had evaluated Lenovo solutions previously but chose to stick with Dell because of its reliability and support.

The initial setup is easy with the support of iDRAC services.

Our implementation team typically includes a system administrator or a support engineer.

The pricing can vary. Some customers find it cheaper due to contractual agreements, while others find it expensive, especially when scaling up. In Brazil, the parts for servers are particularly expensive.

Before choosing Dell, we evaluated Lenovo solutions. However, we preferred Dell due to its superior reliability and support.

I would recommend Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers for their reliability and support. Overall, I rate the Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers ten out of ten. They are excellent.

On-premises

We started full-scale deployment in 2013 exclusively with Dell PowerEdge. We have the fourth generation of servers. We went from 720, 730, 740, and now 760. I have all the models.

We use PowerEdge to connect directly to electronics and readout systems so it is all deployed on-prem, on a private network with no connection to the outside.

I work in a research environment. We use these 400 huge clusters to connect to the electronics of readout detectors to read the data out of the homemade front-end electronics and then assemble the data files to be analyzed. It's moving data between electronics and the IT world of storage grid analysis, etcetera. I'm the service manager only for the readout part and that is already enough of a job.

Our servers are on the private network completely disconnected from the outside world. It's less of an issue than it would be for a front-end server to the Wild West. The whole firmware handling what Dell is doing through OAK Management Enterprise or other tools from the iDRAC is also important so that we get signed from the packages we can trust that were tested and don't render our server into a brick. When I get a maintenance window, it's once every four, or five months for four hours. I don't have time to do something, figure out if it doesn't work, and undo it. It has to work with the first job. Resilience in total globally is also important. I can install firmware and updates and have trust that it will work.

Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers are good for power consumption compared to other brands. When we buy our Servers, we always take platinum, it's the best quality power supply. Maybe the others consume more power but I can certainly compare them to other platforms or vendors, and they are absolutely on the low side. Now with the 16th generation that came out, there's another huge step in the positive direction compared to the previous generations. In general, every time there's a new generation, I see that we get the same computing power for less electrical power. It moves in a good direction. We cut our energy consumption by half. This has saved us costs because we are running 300 days a year 24/7 on a full load. Thanks to PowerEdge we can lower our energy consumption lower than the competitors.

In our case, we figured out how much computing power we needed and bought more from the start. However, I'm spending my days buying memory and plugging additional memory. The change increases network bandwidth by changing onboarding functions. The memory capacity you can plug in is absolutely impressive for the bigger form factor. We can go through terabytes of memory without a problem. This is something impressive for me as we can open the chassis, and see how it's engineered inside so that we can easily access all the components, and change components without hours and hours of dismantling it. It is a bottom-up engineered product.

PowerEdge Rack Servers' impact on our sustainability goals is important but hidden. Based in Switzerland, we have to abide by the Swiss sustainability laws, which now forbid heat waste. If we build a data center now, we have to recuperate the heating and do something with it. We're no longer allowed to blow out the energy. 

For example, we are building new data centers now that are collecting it, and there's a residential area around it, and we heat the houses through hot water heating. We are legally obliged to do that. The times when we put a chiller outside and blow energy out are gone. That's the core context. If, when we started with the PowerEdge already at the time, we were 100 kilowatts for one room, we moved the junk out and put the first PowerEdge Servers in, and the power consumption went down to 80. So we recovered 20 percent for more computing. That was already more than ten years ago. by now, we have gone down to less than 50 with the latest generation of PowerEdge. So we are going down in power consumption while at the same time providing more computing power to the users. This is very important because the infrastructure to recuperate the heat costs money as well. The less I consume, the less I have to pay to recuperate it afterward.

There are two valuable features for me. Number one, we are always at the edge of technology, Dell is a great partner, so going to Austin to the HBC Lab, so we can test machines and platforms before they go commercial so we can adapt our developments because we plug homemade cards into the Servers. We have to make sure they're compatible. That's the development side. 

On the operations side, the value of service is always underestimated in terms of debugging, availability of spare parts, and the fact that they don't explode weekly. The quality of the products, the monitoring, the managed enterprise, pro support, TechDirect, self-dispatch of spare parts, etcetera, all of this allows us to run in the order of 500 servers if you take other clusters together. It is a tenth of a human host of a full-time equivalent. This means that if you would scale up linearly, one person could take care of 3000 Servers. That's quite impactful. Google published three people for 1000. We are doing one person for 3000. That allows us to free human resources for other tasks. The last time somebody had to go to the data center for support was five months ago. We could do many functions remotely, so there was no hardware fault. We could do daily maintenance remotely through iDRAC. Its remote management capabilities are one in a lifetime. I don't know any other platforms that offer the same level of manageability.

The world market for CPUs is excited. We have new ideas popping up left and right like new accelerator cards because there are GPUs. Dell is already working with Kalray, for example, that builds accelerator cards. There are new FPGA cards available on the market that are not in the portfolio. The last time I looked was when buying the new 760 Servers because it changes every couple of months, and not all Intel CPUs were certified. The adoption speed of new CPU and GPU technologies has room for improvement. 

However, I know coming from the technical side this is a lot of work, and it's difficult. I know they are working on it and it's not something you do in five minutes. We have to stay fair. It would be nice but I know that now Intel and AMD come up with new CPUs twice a year. In the past, there was a new CPU generation every two years and now it's every six months. So the developers of servers and all the devices and programs are running to keep up with the speed itself.

I have been using Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers for 11 years.

Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers are stable.

Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers are scalable.

The support is efficient. We have access to the spare parts catalog, We can diagnose a file and send it to them, and within two hours we have somebody on the phone. They are reactive and the problems were solved in the first attempt. This allows us to pay a little bit more for the initial investment but over the lifetime of the equipment, we have zero manpower costs to keep them running. The total cost over the lifetime of the equipment, we are largely positive compared to other brands where we have to pay a team of ten people to manage the equipment.

During the deployment, the amount of rails turned out to be a disaster. We asked for two fewer rails and I had the whole team come over and install the rails for PowerEdge. I had a colleague, who did the Rack all by himself, he was so fascinated with it. From the mechanical aspect, it's extremely easy and solid. 

There is also the engineering of the chassis down to the rail and how to put it in was well thought out. It was not some rails that were purchased out of a catalog from Taiwan. 

I use OAK Management Enterprise to control the whole cluster. Once we plug in the cable, the service tag is realized, and the server is deployed by itself. From plugging in a new machine to installation ready if there are not too many firmware updates, it's ten minutes. It's easy, requires little manpower, and is fast. 

When we had to install five hundred servers in the rack, there was a discussion about whether we should call on the professional deployment services from Dell to do that, and then we decided not to. Because we are two people, we could install 25 servers in two hours. It was done in two weeks.

We do the implementation in-house.

We have the equipment itself, but Dell also provides the full software framework infrastructure around it. That is crucial in monitoring in terms of what's going on and also that one allows for example one person to have a view over thousands of machines. I have CloudIQ on my phone so I can see what my servers are doing. I can predict its failure so we can react before something explodes. We can react before things fail. That, of course, reduces downtime, and increases happiness, on the customer side. 

As scientists, we want as much data as possible. In the experiment equipment running, there are no official numbers, but we are in millions per hour. Therefore, half an hour of downtime is costly. Not everything will be down, but if the data is unusable because there's one piece missing, it's as if everything will be lost.

I would rate Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers ten out of ten. We never have problems and if there is an issue we get help, and the issue is resolved quickly. I never found myself sitting around, not knowing what to do or not getting help. With other full-brand vendors, I couldn't get a support person to look at an issue. These vendors always underestimated support and the follow-up with the customer afterward. In my experience, Dell is the best.

I also spend a lot of time on the advisory board for the Dell HPC Community. I spent time with the developers in most of the service. Ten years ago, the Servers had two power supplies and they were both on the same side. Now on the new ones, one of the power supplies has moved to the other side. That was something we injected seven years ago into the development process because it makes installations in the Rack much more efficient.

On-premises

We do media transcoding. We mainly use servers with quite a lot of CPUs to be able to do transcoding. We need servers that provide us with a lot of power.

By implementing Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers, we wanted to transcode media in a fairly quick way. We can have media for only about a quarter of an hour. From the moment the media gets to us to the moment it is gone, we only have about a quarter of an hour, so we need a lot of power to be able to achieve something in a minimum amount of time.

Overall, we are very happy with the fact that we managed to get servers with last-generation CPUs. Besides that, like everyone else, we are trying a bit to reduce our energy bills. There is a big effort to be made on that front.

In terms of resiliency, our servers tend to be fairly far in our infrastructure. We have a couple of layers of firewall upfront. We also have proxy and reverse proxy, so the range of attack is fairly weak, and behind that, we have Linux. We shield with firewalls and other safety measures.

Overall, we are quite happy with it in terms of energy consumption. We have a fairly low consumption.

We hardly upgrade our servers to handle the evolving needs of high-performance workloads. As a matter of fact, when we build a platform, it is for a very specific need, and it is made to last three to five years. After that, the platform disappears, and the servers also leave with that. We buy new servers according to the new platform. We have less upgrading on the servers because they are already adapted to our needs.

Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers have helped to reduce unplanned production downtime. The servers that we have rarely break down, so, overall, we can change quite a lot of components on the run. We can manage to have a production that is running almost 99.99% of the time.

The OpenManage console has affected our IT staff’s productivity quite a bit. When new equipment arrives, we only have to put it in racks at the data center and all of the installation and management is done remotely, so we no longer need to spend a certain amount of time in the data center.

Using PowerEdge Rack Servers has affected the overall flexibility of our operations or business. We do have the ability to intervene on them, which is important. It is obviously easier than having a server where when we have a problem, we must go to the data center, or we must call someone to come and help. We might even have to stop the server, and that is quite annoying.

The calculation potential with modern CPUs is valuable. We have the capacity to increase the number of CPUs per machine, and there are also energy savings.

We have not had or come across any major problems. With regards to prices and support, they have always been very responsive, but we know that when we need more storage, we can easily find something much cheaper elsewhere. The equipment is very good, but the price is a bit too high. In addition, their support for parts can be better.

In our organization, it must have been a good 20 years. They have been using Dell pretty much from the start of the company. I have been with the company for six years, but we still unearth some old servers from time to time.

They are stable.

We don't scale a lot, we buy as and when needed.

Their support is very good. I would rate them an eight out of ten. They can be more reactive when sending parts. The support service is very reactive when answering us, but they need a bit of time to send us the parts. We tend to only ask for the parts. We replace them ourselves. We do not request a technician as well. We have also had a case where a part arrived at the wrong address.

Positive

Like many people, we do not only use Dell products. We also use a bit of HPE. I have a preference for Dell, but we still have some old servers from other manufacturers lying around. We have some old equipment, but everything that is recent is either Dell or HPE. We changed the old servers simply because they were at the end of their life.

I am involved in the implementation of these servers. The implementation is simple.

We know that we need half a day in the data center to do everything regarding the racks. Once that is done, we can also split the tasks because, although the servers are in the same bay, we do not want to be on top of each other when working. So, we can work in parallel during the installation of a certain number of servers without any difficulty. If you do not have a console, it is quite limiting because, with a screen at the back of a server, you are limited to working on only one server at a time.

We generally do everything related to PowerEdge ourselves.

Overall, we have seen an ROI. The ROI is in terms of productivity at the infrastructure service level. We do not have to regularly change parts, and by being able to do all of the administration remotely, we gain quite a substantial amount of time.

As far as licenses are concerned, we have very few servers. We no longer need the licenses. It depends directly on the manufacturers or the people who develop the software. Instead of taking them with the servers, because we are not always sure of the specific use for a specific server, we get the licenses afterward.

With regards to the rates, there are times when Dell is not able to match the prices of other manufacturers who offer us something cheaper. For storage, it can vary, and the cost can be twice as much.

We mainly work with Dell and HPE. To evaluate the options, we take into account how easy it is to operate the server. In my opinion, Dell is unrivaled on that front. We are not a very big company, so we are very careful with the costs of our servers.

I would rate Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers a nine out of ten.

Foreign Language:(French)

Offre vitesse, économies d'énergie et 99.9% de durée de fonctionnement

Depuis combien de temps utilisez-vous les serveurs Dell PowerEdge Rack?

Dans notre société, cela doit faire plus de 20 ans. Ils utilisent du Dell depuis quasiment la création de la société. Je suis dans la société depuis six ans mais on déterre des vieux serveurs de temps en temps.

Quel est votre principal cas d’utilisation de cette solution? (Décrivez votre environnement).

Nous faisons du transcodage de média. On utilise principalement des serveurs avec beaucoup de CPUs pour pouvoir faire le transcodage. On a besoin de serveurs qui nous apportent beaucoup de puissance.

Décrivez comment les serveurs Dell PowerEdge Rack ont amélioré votre organisation. Si ce ne fut pas le cas, veuillez expliquer pourquoi.

En implémentant les serveurs Dell PowerEdge Rack, on voulait pouvoir transcoder de façon assez rapide. On peut avoir des médias pendant seulement un quart d’heure. Entre le moment où le média rentre chez nous et le moment où il doit sortir de chez nous, nous avons seulement un quart d’heure et donc, on a besoin de grosse puissance pour pouvoir le sortir en un temps minimum.

Globalement, nous sommes très contents du fait que nous arrivions à avoir des serveurs avec des CPUs de dernière génération. En plus, on essaye, comme tout le monde, de réduire notre facture énergétique. Il y a un gros effort de fait là-dessus.

En termes de résilience, nos serveurs ont plutôt tendance à être relativement loin dans notre infrastructure. On a deux couches de firewall devant. On a aussi du proxy et du reverse proxy donc, la couverture d’attaque est relativement faible et derrière, on va être sur du Linux. On blinde au maximum avec des firewalls et d’autres mesures de sécurité.

Globalement, on est plutôt contents en ce qui concerne la consommation d'énergie. On a une consommation qui est relativement faible.

Pour gérer les besoins évolutifs des charges de travail à haute performance, on ne fait quasiment pas évoluer nos serveurs. En fait, quand on monte une plateforme, c’est pour un besoin spécifique et c’est fait pour durer de 3 à 5 ans. Après ce temps-là, la plateforme disparaît et les serveurs partent avec. On achète de nouveaux serveurs en fonction des nouvelles plateformes. On n’a plus d'évolutivité sur les serveurs parce qu’ils sont déjà adaptés à notre besoin.

L’utilisation des serveurs Dell PowerEdge Rack nous a aidés à réduire les temps d'arrêt de production imprévus. Les serveurs sont très rarement en panne donc, globalement, on peut changer pas mal de composants à chaud. On arrive à maintenir une production qui est en fonctionnement à 99.99% du temps ou presque.

La console OpenManage a pas mal affecté la productivité de notre personnel informatique. Quand on a du matériel qui arrive, on se contente de le mettre en racks dans le centre de données et derrière, toute l’installation et tout le management se fait à distance et donc, on n’a plus besoin de passer un certain nombre d’heures dans le centre de données.

L’utilisation des serveurs PowerEdge Rack a affecté la flexibilité globale de nos opérations ou de notre entreprise. Nous avons la capacité de pouvoir intervenir dessus, ce qui est important. C’est forcément plus facile que d’avoir un serveur sur lequel, dès qu’on a un problème, on doit se rendre au centre de données ou on doit appeler quelqu’un pour venir nous aider. Il nous arrive même de devoir arrêter un serveur et ça, c’est assez ennuyeux.

Quelles fonctionnalités avez-vous trouvé les plus utiles et pourquoi?

Le potentiel de calcul avec des CPUs modernes est très utile. Nous avons la capacité d’augmenter le nombre de CPUs par machine et de faire des économies d'énergie.

Dans quels domaines les serveurs Dell PowerEdge Rack pourraient-ils être améliorés?

On n’a pas eu ni vraiment rencontré de gros problèmes. Au niveau des prix et du support, ils ont toujours été très réactifs mais on sait que lorsqu’on a besoin de plus de stockage, on a tendance à trouver beaucoup moins cher ailleurs. Le matériel est très bien mais le prix est un peu trop élevé et en plus, le support pour les pièces pourrait être meilleur.

Avez-vous utilisé une solution différente auparavant et le cas échéant, pourquoi avoir changé?

Comme beaucoup de monde, on n’utilise pas que des produits Dell. On utilise un peu de HPE. J’ai une préférence pour Dell mais on a encore quelques vieux serveurs encore d’autres constructeurs qui trainent. On a du vieux matériel mais tout ce qui est récent est soit du Dell, soit du HPE. On a changé les vieux serveurs tout simplement parce qu’ils étaient en fin de vie.

Avant de faire votre choix, avez-vous évalué d’autres options? Le cas échéant, lesquelles?

On travaille principalement avec Dell et HPE. Pour évaluer les options, on prend en compte la facilité d'exploitation du serveur. Pour moi, Dell est imbattable là-dessus. On n’est pas une très grosse entreprise et donc, on fait très attention au coût de nos serveurs.

Que conseillez-vous aux autres en ce qui concerne les coûts d’installation, les tarifs et/ou les licences?

En ce qui concerne les licences, on a peu de serveurs. On n’a plus besoin des licences. On les prend directement chez les constructeurs ou les personnes qui conçoivent les logiciels plutôt que de les prendre avec les serveurs parce qu'on n'est pas forcément sûr de l’usage spécifique de chaque serveur. On prend donc les licences après.

Au niveau tarifaire, il y a des moments ou Dell ne sait pas forcément s’aligner avec d’autres constructeurs qui nous proposent quelque chose de moins cher. Sur du stockage, ça varie mais le prix peut aller du simple au double.

Quelles sont vos impressions sur la scalabilité de cette solution?

Nous faisons peu de scalabilité car nous achetons selon nos besoins.

Quelles sont vos impressions sur la stabilité de cette solution?

Ils sont stables.

Avez-vous constaté un RSI (Retour Sur Investissement)? Si oui, de quelle manière (p. ex. mesures/points de données)?

Globalement, on a constaté un RSI. Le RSI est en termes de productivité au niveau du service infrastructure. On n’a pas besoin de changer régulièrement les pièces et on peut faire toute la partie administrative à distance, c’est un gain de temps qui est assez important.

La configuration initiale était-elle simple ou complexe et de quelle manière?

Je suis impliqué dans l'implémentation de ces serveurs. L'implémentation est simple.

On sait qu’on va avoir une demi-journée dans le centre de données pour faire tout ce qui est partie rackage. Une fois cela fait, on peut se répartir les tâches parce que bien que les serveurs soient dans la même baie, on ne se marche pas tous sur les pieds pendant la tâche. On peut travailler en parallèle pendant l’installation d’un certain nombre de serveurs sans difficulté. Dès qu’on n’a pas de console et avec un écran à l'arrière du serveur, on est bien limité sur le nombre de serveurs sur lesquels on peut agir à la fois.

Avez-vous utilisé un revendeur ou une de vos équipes pour ce déploiement? Si à travers un revendeur, comment évalueriez-vous leur niveau d’expertise?

Nous faisons généralement tout nous-mêmes, en ce qui concerne les PowerEdge.

Décrivez votre expérience avec le service client et le support de Dell.

Leur support est très bon. Je leur donne une note de huit sur dix. Ils pourraient être plus réactifs sur leur envoi de pièces. Le service support est très réactif pour nous répondre mais ils ont besoin d’un peu de temps pour nous envoyer la pièce. Nous, on a plutôt tendance à demander les pièces. C’est nous qui faisons les remplacements. On ne demande pas le technicien avec. Et il nous est arrivé que la pièce soit délivrée à la mauvaise adresse.

Comment évalueriez-vous cette solution sur une échelle de 1à10 pour le service et le support?

8

Sur une échelle de 1 à 10 (1=le pire, 10=le meilleur), comment évalueriez-vous les serveurs Dell PowerEdge Rack? Veuillez expliquer pourquoi.

Je donnerais une note de neuf sur 10 aux serveurs Dell PowerEdge Rack.

The use cases are related to Medical Oncology, everything that has to do with radiotherapy.

By implementing Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers, I wanted a platform with good reliability, good work, and good service.

It gives us reliability for our applications. It offers us a secure and scalable infrastructure, which has become essential to virtualize our workloads.

The PowerEdge Cyber Resilient Architecture approach to security is very good. I see much more interest from Dell in providing security that reflects our requirements. Because of better monitoring capabilities, it eliminates dependence on third-party certification authorities.

In terms of energy consumption, I would rate it an eight out of ten. They continually add more and more features to improve power consumption. In all the years as a Dell PowerEdge user, I have seen an improvement in their power delivery and consumption.

The impact of Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers has been very high on our organization’s sustainability goals. In our company, we need a platform with high scalability and the capability to handle high workload. With the reliability of the platform, we feel free to be able to deal with other issues.

Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers have clearly reduced unplanned production downtime, but I cannot exactly say how much.

The OpenManage console has affected the level of productivity of the IT team. In terms of system repair, they receive fewer demands, which makes them meet more goals than before.

Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers have affected the overall flexibility of our operations or business. The better performance the servers have, the better the applications will work, which consequently leads to better performance for Dell as well as for the company that uses its services.

The reliability and the execution of the necessary assignments are valuable.

I would like them to be more flexible when implementing more capabilities.

I have been using Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers for 15 years.

The stability of Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers is very good.

The scalability of Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers is very good.

We used HP 15 years ago. We switched because of the decision at the company management level.

The implementation was very simple.

They are currently deployed on-premises, with the possibility of a private cloud. We use Microsoft Azure. They are implemented at several locations. In the Galicia community, we have an implementation of PowerEdge with VxRail as well.

We had project managers from our company and from Dell.

The biggest ROI is reliability. These servers never fail, and the performance of these servers is great. They are stable 99% of the time and do not show any signs of failure.

They are good and reflect the prices on the market. We always wish they were lower, but they are good.

At that time, we evaluated IBM and FUJITSU. In general, Rack Servers offer us much more reliability.

I would rate Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers an eight out of ten.

Foreign Language:(Spanish)

Servidores confiables para una infraestructura segura y escalable

¿Durante cuánto tiempo utiliza los servidores en rack Dell PowerEdge?

He estado usando servidores en rack Dell PowerEdge durante 15 años.

¿Cuál es su principal caso de uso de esta solución? (Incluya detalles sobre su entorno.

Los casos de uso están relacionados con Oncología Médica, todo lo que tiene que ver con radioterapia.

Al implementar los servidores en rack Dell PowerEdge, quería una plataforma con buena confiabilidad, buen trabajo y buen servicio.

Comparta cómo los servidores en rack Dell PowerEdge han mejorado su infraestructura de TI. Si no fue así, explique por qué.

Hay confiabilidad para nuestras aplicaciones. Nos ofrece una infraestructura segura y escalable, que se ha vuelto esencial para virtualizar nuestras cargas de trabajo.

El enfoque de seguridad de PowerEdge Cyber Resilient Architecture es muy bueno. Estoy viendo mucho más interés por parte de Dell en cuanto a la proporción de seguridad que refleja nuestros requisitos. Gracias a sus mejores capacidades de seguimiento, elimina la dependencia de autoridades de certificación de terceros.

En cuanto al consumo energético, le daría un ocho de diez. Continuamente añaden más y más funciones para mejorar el consumo de energía. En todos los años como usuario de Dell PowerEdge, he visto una mejora en su suministro y consumo de energía.

El impacto de los servidores en rack Dell PowerEdge ha sido muy alto en los objetivos de sostenibilidad de nuestra organización. En nuestra empresa, necesitamos una plataforma con alta escalabilidad y capacidad para manejar una gran carga de trabajo. Con la confiabilidad de la plataforma, nos sentimos libres de poder abordar otros problemas.

Los servidores en rack Dell PowerEdge han reducido claramente el tiempo de inactividad de producción no planificado, pero no sabría decir exactamente cuánto.

La consola OpenManage ha afectado el nivel de productividad del equipo de TI. En cuanto a la reparación del sistema, nuestro equipo recibe menos demandas, lo que les hace cumplir más objetivos que antes.

Los servidores en rack Dell PowerEdge han afectado la flexibilidad general de nuestras operaciones o negocios. Cuanto mejor rendimiento tengan los servidores, mejor funcionarán las aplicaciones, lo que en consecuencia redunda en un mejor rendimiento tanto para Dell como para la empresa que utiliza sus servicios.

¿Qué características le han parecido más valiosas y por qué?

La confiabilidad y la ejecución de las tareas necesarias son valiosas.

¿En qué áreas se podrían mejorar los servidores en rack Dell PowerEdge?

Me gustaría que fueran más flexibles a la hora de implementar más capacidades.

¿Utilizó anteriormente una solución diferente? De ser así, ¿por qué la cambió?

Usamos HP hace 15 años. Cambiamos por una decisión de la dirección de la empresa.

¿Antes de elegir, evaluaste otras opciones? ¿De ser asi, cuales?

En ese momento evaluamos a IBM y FUJITSU. En general los Servidores en Rack nos ofrecen mucha más confiabilidad.

¿Qué aconseja a otros sobre el costo de instalación, el precio y/o la licencia?

Son buenos y reflejan los precios del mercado. Siempre deseamos que fueran más bajos, pero son buenos.

¿Cuáles son sus impresiones sobre la escalabilidad de esta solución?

La escalabilidad de los servidores en rack Dell PowerEdge es muy buena.

¿Cuáles son sus impresiones sobre la estabilidad de esta solución?

La estabilidad de los servidores en rack Dell PowerEdge es muy buena.

¿Has visto el ROI (Retorno de la Inversión)? En caso afirmativo, ¿de qué manera (es decir, métricas/puntos de datos)?

El mayor retorno de la inversión es la confiabilidad. Estos servidores nunca fallan y el rendimiento de estos servidores es excelente. Son estables el 99% del tiempo y no muestran signos de fallo.

¿La configuración inicial fue sencilla o compleja y de qué manera?

La implementación fue muy sencilla.

Actualmente se encuentran desplegados on-premise, con posibilidad de nube privada. Usamos Microsoft Azure. Se implementan en varios lugares. En la comunidad de Galicia también contamos con una implementación de PowerEdge con VxRail.

¿Lo implementó a través de un equipo de proveedores o uno interno? Si se trata de un equipo de proveedores, ¿cómo calificaría su nivel de experiencia?

Tuvimos gerentes de proyecto de nuestra empresa y de Dell.

¿Cómo calificaría esta solución en una escala del 1 al 10 en cuanto a servicio y soporte?

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En una escala del 1 al 10 (1=peor, 10=mejor), ¿cómo calificaría los servidores en rack Dell PowerEdge? Por favor explique por qué.

Calificaría los servidores en rack Dell PowerEdge con un ocho de diez.

I am an IT infrastructure guy, and I use Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers for a variety of workloads, including data imported from machines, file shares, and many other applications.

Using Dell PowerEdge Servers has helped us reduce planned production downtime by approximately 15 percent. PowerEdge has improved the overall flexibility of our business operations. 

I'm still working on reducing power consumption. I'm working with one of Dell's partners to get some power consumption certificates. I need to submit some certificates of sustainability showing how we are working on that. I'm still working on it. That is something entirely new for me. I don't know how to drive that, but I'm getting help from the Dell coordinator on how to do that.

We have only begun our AI journey. We want to use AI to analyze our data, and we're also trying to coordinate. We don't have any AI workloads on our servers yet. We're only capturing data. Currently, our data is being washed, and our data scientists are enriching it to prepare it for the next level. After that, we'll bring AI in to build reports and things like that. It's a work in progress.

I find Dell PowerEdge Servers to handle diverse applications and evolving needs effectively, but we have to upgrade the hardware periodically. PowerEdge's cyber resilience architecture approach to security is good. I don't have any concerns on that part.

Dell has already started working with NPUs and AI, which is a good thing. Right now, data is everyone's primary concern. Every company wants to evaluate data to advance technology and improve its business. The server should work better on the data side. Data is a priority around the world. 

There are a lot of data platforms around, but it would be helpful if we could perform some basic data operations on the server so we don't need an extra vendor. Azure is their Microsoft Cloud solution, and they collaborate with data companies like Databricks. We are also on the cloud and work with Databricks, but they could add some basic features so an enterprise doesn't need to go for extra Databricks to do their data things. 

If data could be handled within the Dell server, we can achieve a milestone on all the low-level sites. Our company is global, with many sites in Sweden and small sites in other countries. We don't need a complete Databricks solution for them. We need Dell servers to handle basic data and talk to our application. We have to configure a bridge between Dell servers and use Databricks for analysis. We could save a lot of money if the fundamental data functions can be done within the server.

I have been using Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers for five years.

The stability is excellent. Our only problems are software issues that our technical team can manage. 

I rate PowerEdge six out of 10 for scalability. As our needs have grown, we've faced some challenges. 

I rate Dell's support five out of 10. Sometimes, the technical skills are lacking. I'm not an expert, but I have worked with Dell solutions for 10 years.  Not everyone is an expert, so sometimes I have to help them with the troubleshooting part. Sometimes, someone is having a bad day, or you get the wrong person. 

They improved communications by adding a point person in Sweden. That person is more of a salesperson but has helped in many ways. That was missing for a long time, but they implemented it in the last few years.

They needed someone who could connect with the customer. Dell is a massive global company, but we are a big customer, and sometimes I feel they forget about us. They should treat every customer as if they're your biggest. Biggest. I felt a few times like we weren't prioritized.

Neutral

Dell has been our traditional server, and we have not evaluated other brands because we've worked with Dell for a long time. It's significantly better than other server brands on the market based on key metrics, so we haven't looked at other ones. 

The initial setup has always been smooth because we take our time and have never rushed the deployment.

We did the implementation in-house. We used autopilot integration, but nothing beyond that.

I rate PowerEdge Rack Servers eight out of 10.

On-premises

We use Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers for data storage, data processing, and computations.

We must manage the data, and we have safety restrictions. It is imposed on us to not use the cloud. We do everything locally.

Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers are convenient. When we have a problem, we have a hotline that is efficient. They are also reliable.

Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers fit our resiliency needs. If we want to make them very resilient, we have presales engineers who are also technical. They are competent and able to help us.

The servers are fine in terms of energy consumption, but until now, we have not been very concerned about that.

They are aligned with our sustainability goals. This is very important for us when we buy a server. Previously, we used to get a five-year guarantee, and now, it is a seven-year guarantee, but we still have some servers working fine after ten years. We do replace them from time to time, but we do not have any problem with reliability. As far as the environment is concerned, we know that when we buy a machine, it will last a long time.

Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers have helped to reduce unplanned production downtime. They are very reliable, and we usually function by doubling up. We use a couple of servers, and we move our VM from one server to another between two buildings. Because the servers never, or very rarely, break down, we have a very resilient architecture.

The OpenManage console has not really affected our IT staff’s productivity.

The maintenance and remote monitoring are valuable.

The problem that we have had is not a technical one but an economic one. In other words, we are working with national markets, and HP Enterprise is cheaper. Dell could have made an effort there.

For example, two or three years ago, we spoke to a salesperson or a presales engineer about replacing our infrastructure with file servers, but the price that we were offered was very high.

I have been using Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers for about 15 years.

They are stable. There is no downtime or breakdowns.

We are a small research laboratory, but we have a few teams working together. We might gather all of the IT equipment together and buy extensions and all that.

As far as scalability is concerned, it is not a problem. It is very scalable but very expensive. For our needs, it is very overpriced. I am on campus, and there are several units, but we have to merge by 2025 and put everything back together and work with people whom I only ever met at the canteen. We shall see then if all of that is actually very scalable and if we can put it all together.

It is different for PowerEdge. It is a bit different for the PCs. For the servers, support is very good indeed. I would rate them an eight out of ten. We do not know why, but there was a time when the support did not respond quickly enough or go from one level to another. We do need the expertise if we happen to have something that does not work correctly, but it is sporadic. This kind of problem can appear all of a sudden and be gone six months later. All is working well. There are no problems with customer service.

Positive

We were working with both Dell and HPE. We preferred Dell. I prefer not to do any counter-advertising, but HPE was not working out very well with regard to customer services, getting a quote, or even anything technical. We prefer Dell products, but we would prefer the prices of the servers to be a bit lower.

We did not have many issues with HPE at a technical level, but we have had some issues when communicating with them, even at the presales level. We could not even connect to their server to get a quote. It was so complicated. There were references that we did not understand. If we have to install a particular disk, we must buy some specific accessory or another, whereas, with Dell, if we want something, we just tell them, and we get the configuration.

In addition, for Dell’s website, we can use any browser, whereas with HPE, it is Chrome one day and something else another day. We use Firefox, and it does not work. We use something else, and it does not work either. Dell is very open.

Other than these two brands, I do not have knowledge of any other brand. We have had integrators for homemade servers, but that was a long time ago. It is usually Dell or HPE. Dell has about ¾th of the market.

I am involved in the deployment of these servers. I work in a research laboratory. We are about 100 people, but we are a part of the Paris Observatory. It is like a university with about 800 people. We all work daily together with the IT teams.

I am responsible for handling presales with the technical and salespeople from Dell or HPE. We are not in charge of the orders. We handle the equipment and install the machines, and we organize the rollout of the infrastructure, VMs, and all that. Afterwards, we also handle interfacing with users.

The initial setup is rather simple. We do not have any real problems, and even when we have had a problem, it was fairly quickly resolved.

In terms of implementation strategy, when you are a small company, there is no big strategy like big companies. We get there, we install it, and it works. There is no strategy.

We implement them ourselves. We have integrators but more for some third-party solutions. We have taken a license for safeguarding software on the campus. For that, we work with other companies, but for all of the equipment and for Dell infrastructure, we do not need help. It works very well, and there are no problems. We know that it is simple.

We are not salespeople, so it is difficult to comment on the return on investment, but when we buy a Dell server, we get value for money. We know that we will not have any problem, and it will work fine. We will install VMs and everything required. When I request a credit, my manager knows that the server will work for many years. We will not be having any issues, and I will not be asking for more money. We sometimes change some old machines, but that is only because the new ones are less energy-consuming, and we will be able to put more VMs on just one server, so, ecologically, we will use less energy. Sometimes, that is the only reason why we would change an old server. It still works, but it uses more energy than the new ones.

They are expensive. As far as the licenses are concerned, we are fine. It is more about the price of the equipment.

Some colleagues in other universities have done a comparison, and for a similar configuration, there was at least a 10% to 20% discount with HPE in comparison to the prices from Dell.

I would rate Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers a nine out of ten.

Foreign Language:(French)

Un support efficace, une maintenance facile et un bon rapport qualité-prix

Depuis combien de temps utilisez-vous les serveurs Dell PowerEdge Rack?

J’utilise les serveurs Dell PowerEdge Rack depuis environ 15 ans.

Quel est votre cas d’utilisation principal pour cette solution? (Décrivez votre environnement).

On utilise les serveurs Dell PowerEdge Rack pour du stockage de données, des traitements de données et des calculs.

On doit gérer les données et on a des contraintes de sécurité. On nous impose de ne pas utiliser tout ce qui est Cloud. On fait tout en local.

Comment est-ce que les serveurs Dell PowerEdge Rack ont amélioré votre organisation? Si ce n’est pas le cas, expliquez pourquoi.

Les serveurs Dell PowerEdge Rack sont pratiques. Lorsque nous avons un problème, nous avons aussi une assistance téléphonique qui est performante. Ils sont également fiables.

Les serveurs Dell PowerEdge Rack correspondent à nos besoins de résilience. Si on veut les rendre vraiment très résilient, on a des ingénieurs qui sont également des technico-commerciaux avant-vente. Ils sont très compétents et peuvent nous aider.

Les serveurs Dell PowerEdge Rack sont bien en termes de consommation d'énergie mais pour l’instant, on ne s’en est pas trop préoccupés.

Les serveurs Dell PowerEdge Rack sont alignés sur nos objectifs de durabilité. C’est très important pour nous lorsque nous achetons un serveur. Avant, on recevait une garantie de cinq ans et maintenant, la garantie est de sept ans mais nous avons encore des serveurs qui tournent toujours après dix ans. On les remplace de temps en temps mais on n’a vraiment pas de problème de fiabilité. Au niveau écologique, on sait que lorsqu’on achète une machine, elle va durer longtemps.

Les serveurs Dell PowerEdge Rack ont permis de réduire les temps d’arrêt de production imprévus. Ils sont très fiables et généralement, on marche en doublant. On prend un couple de serveurs et on déplace nos VM d’un serveur sur l’autre et sur deux bâtiments. Les serveurs ne tombant jamais en panne, ou très rarement, on obtient une architecture résiliente.

La console OpenManage n’a pas vraiment affecté la productivité de notre personnel informatique.

Quelles fonctionnalités avez-vous trouvé les plus utiles et pourquoi?

La maintenance et le contrôle à distance sont utiles.

Dans quels domaines les serveurs Dell PowerEdge Rack pourraient-ils être améliorés?

Le problème que nous avons eu n’est pas un problème technique mais plutôt économique. Autrement dit, on travaille avec des marchés nationaux et HP, ou HP Enterprise est moins cher. Dell aurait donc pu faire un effort au niveau du prix.

Par exemple, il y a deux ou trois ans, on parlait avec un commercial ou un ingénieur avant-vente sur le remplacement de notre infrastructure des serveurs de fichiers mais le prix qu’on nous a proposé était très élevé.

Avez-vous utilisé une solution différente auparavant et si c’est le cas, pourquoi avez-vous changé?

On travaillait avec Dell et HPE. On préférait Dell. Je préfère ne pas faire de la contre publicité mais ça ne marchait pas très bien avec HPE aussi bien au niveau service client, que de faire un devis ou même pour quoi que ce soit de technique. On préfère les produits Dell mais on préférerait que les prix des serveurs soient un peu plus bas.

On n’avait pas vraiment de soucis avec HPE au niveau technique mais on avait du mal à communiquer avec eux, même au niveau avant-ventes. On n’arrivait même plus à se connecter sur leurs serveurs pour faire un devis. C'était tellement compliqué. Il y avait des références qu’on ne comprenait pas. Si on doit mettre un certain disque, il faut acheter tel ou tel accessoire particulier. Alors que chez Dell, si nous voulons quelque chose, il suffit de leur dire et on a la configuration.

En plus, avec le site web de Dell, on peut utiliser n’importe quel navigateur alors que chez HPE, un jour c’est Chrome et un autre jour, c’est autre chose. Ou on a Firefox et ça ne marche pas alors on prend quelque chose d’autre et ça ne marche pas non plus. Dell est, par contre, vraiment très ouvert.

Je n’ai pas vraiment de connaissances sur d’autres marques à part ces deux-là. On a eu des intégrateurs pour des serveurs faits maison mais il y a longtemps. C’est généralement Dell ou HPE. C’est Dell qui a le marché les ¾ du temps.

Que conseillez-vous en ce qui concerne les coûts d’installation, les tarifs et/ou les licences?

Ils sont chers. Au niveau des licences, ça va. C’est plutôt au niveau des prix du matériel.

Des collègues dans d’autres universités ont fait des comparatifs et pour une configuration équivalente, il y a avait facilement jusqu'à 10% à 20% de réduction chez HPE, par rapport aux prix Dell.

Quelles sont vos impressions sur la scalabilité de cette solution?

Nous sommes un petit laboratoire de recherche mais nous avons quelques équipes qui travaillent ensemble. Il nous arrive de regrouper tout le matériel informatique ensemble et d’acheter des extensions et tout ce qu’il faut.

Au niveau scalabilité, il n’y a pas de problème. C’est très évolutif mais c’est très cher. Par rapport à nos besoins, c’est vraiment surévalué. Je suis dans un campus avec plusieurs unités mais on doit fusionner d’ici 2025, tout remettre ensemble et travailler avec des gens que je côtoyais juste à la cantine. On verra bien à ce moment si c’est vraiment très scalable et si on parviendra à tout remettre ensemble.

Quelles sont vos impressions au niveau de la stabilité de cette solution?

Ils sont stables. Il n’y a pas de temps morts, ni de panne.

Avez-vous constaté un RSI (Retour Sur Investissement? Si oui, dans quel sens (p. ex. mesures/points de données)?

On n’est pas des commerciaux donc, c’est difficile de parler d’un retour sur investissement mais quand on achète un serveur Dell, on rentre vraiment dans nos frais. On sait qu’on n’aura pas de problème et que ça va fonctionner. On va mettre des VMs et on va faire tout ce qu’il faut. Quand je demande des crédits à mon responsable, il sait que le serveur va marcher pendant tant d’années. On n’aura pas de soucis et je n’aurai pas plus d’argent à demander. Parfois, on change des anciennes machines mais uniquement parce que les nouvelles seront moins énergivores et on pourra mettre plus de VMs sur un seul serveur. Donc, au niveau écologique, on consomme moins d'énergie. C’est parfois la seule raison pour laquelle on change de vieux serveurs. Ils marchent encore mais ils consomment plus d'énergie que les nouveaux.

La configuration initiale était-elle simple ou complexe et de quelle manière?

Je suis impliqué dans le déploiement de ces serveurs. Je travaille dans un laboratoire de recherche. Nous sommes une centaine de personnes mais nous sommes intégrés à l’Observatoire de Paris. C’est comme une université mais avec environ 800 personnes. On travaille ensemble avec toutes les équipes informatiques.

Je suis responsable des choix avant-vente avec l'équipe de personnel technico-commerciaux de Dell ou HPE. On ne passe pas les commandes. On reçoit le matériel, on installe les machines et on organise le déploiement de l’infrastructure, des VMs et tout le reste. Et après, on assure l’interface avec les utilisateurs.

Le déploiement inicial est plutôt simple. On n’a pas vraiment de problèmes et même quand on a eu des problèmes, ça s'est résolu assez rapidement.

En termes de stratégie de mise en œuvre, quand on est une petite structure, il n’y a pas vraiment de grande stratégie comme pour dans les grosses sociétés. On arrive, on installe et ça marche. Il n’y a pas de stratégie.

Vous avez fait l’implémentation avec un revendeur ou votre propre équipe? Si vous avez utilisé un revendeur, comment évalueriez-vous leur niveau d’expertise?

On fait l’implémentation nous-mêmes. On a des intégrateurs mais pour des solutions tierce-parties. On a pris une licence pour des logiciels de sauvegarde au niveau du campus. On travaille avec d’autres sociétés pour cela mais au niveau du matériel et tout ce qui est infrastructure Dell, on n’a pas besoin d’aide. Ça marche très bien et il n’y a aucun problème. On sait que c’est simple.

Décrivez votre expérience avec le service client et le support.

C’est assez différent en ce qui concerne les PowerEdge. C’est encore différent pour les PCs. Pour les serveurs, le support est vraiment bien. Je leur mettrai un huit sur dix. On ne sait pas pourquoi mais à un certain moment, il y a eu des périodes où le support ne répondait pas assez vite ou ça passait d’un niveau à l'autre. Il faut avoir de l’expertise si on a quelque chose qui ne fonctionne pas correctement mais c’est par périodes. Ce genre de problème peut apparaître subitement au bout de six mois et disparaître six mois plus tard. Tout fonctionne bien. Il n’y a plus de problèmes avec le service clients.

Comment est-ce que vous évaluerez le service et le support pour cette solution sur une échelle de 1 à10?

8

Sur une échelle de 1 à 10 (1=le pire, 10=le meilleur), comment est-ce que vous évaluerez les serveurs Dell PowerEdge Rack? Veuillez donner vos raisons.

Je donnerais aux serveurs Dell PowerEdge Rack une note de neuf sur dix.

In my work environment, I deploy Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers for servers. We are currently running database and file sharing workloads on our Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers.

The best features of the Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers include the fact that I haven't had any problems, and the Dell support at the ProSupport level is very good. The impact of the Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers on my organization has been positive, as I haven't had any outages. This is due to the equipment. Using the Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers has helped us reduce unplanned production downtime. We've reduced unplanned production downtime significantly, as I haven't had any hardware failures. The flexibility of my operations has been positively affected by the Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers, as they're good for space savings.

I don't have any issues or complaints with the Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers, but they could make the service tags larger as I get older. It's not that they aren't customizable; you can actually use your phone to scan the barcode, and everything's pretty good.

I have probably 15 years of experience with the Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers.

The issue was with the hardware, not on my side or Dell's side.

I would rate Dell support for their rack servers as a 10.

I've been using Dell throughout my entire career, so I've not experienced other solutions that don't measure up to Dell.

We used Computacenter as our third party reseller. My experience with the third party we used was very good.

I haven't seen ROI in terms of operational impacts; the reliability of the Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers is what stands out as the main thing.

I have only been using PowerEdge throughout my career without evaluating other options.

We recycle the devices as part of our sustainability efforts. We have not been using or running any AI workloads on the Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers. To someone considering running AI workloads on these servers but concerned about costs, that's a valid concern. We don't have a current need or workload for AI. It ensures we have the right technology, and what we're paying for that technology is good fair value. Our AI journey, while we're not using it right now, we probably plan to implement it within the next nine months.

Overall, I would rate the Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers a solid 10.

On-premises

We use Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers for branch office installations, acting as a standalone server. We primarily utilize it for virtualization.

There is nothing special, but Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers have a strong presence in Qatar, which influences our choice. We use it for virtualization, and for our use case, it works fine without issues.

We haven't upgraded anything yet. We are simply utilizing even the older models, as they are still working for us. Dell's pricing for hardware is fine, but the software installed on the servers is a cost driver, not the server itself. Regarding additional functions, upgrading storage speed with an SSD drive and increasing memory capacity is needed for improved performance.

I have been working with Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers for five years.

I would rate the stability of Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers at ten. I have no issues with their stability.

The scalability of Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers is excellent. I would rate it at ten.

The technical support from Dell is highly dependent on the service level agreement (SLA). With a higher level of support, such as pro-support, the service is exceptional. I would rate it at nine.

Positive

Previously, we were working with SolarWinds Security Event Manager. However, we switched to Google Graylog, an open-source solution.

The initial setup process was very straightforward and simple. Once delivered, we could spin it up within an hour.

Sometimes, integration is part of the project. Local partners, who provide installation and commissioning services, are involved in the process.

Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers have reasonable pricing, which I would rate at eight. Other brands might be cheaper, but Dell's pricing is acceptable for us. However, the software associated with servers, like VMware subscription licenses, drives costs.

I haven't worked with other servers, but I am aware of other brands like HP and IBM.

I do not have any specific suggestions for improvements or changes. Overall, Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers meet our requirements, and I have no issues with the hardware. I would rate the overall solution at ten.

On-premises