I am familiar with VMware Workstation, but we don't actually use a workstation. We only use ESXi because we're running a big organization. We have people that are responsible for a Citrix farm that are running with a VDI infrastructure. Mainly, the servers for business and production are Windows and Linux running on the ESXi host. For vSAN, we are hosting virtual machines there. It's easy to use, as we aren't running on SAN because each host comes with a number of physical disks for the OS and additionally provides capacity. We are using Dell vSAN Ready Nodes.
Cloud and Managed Services at a construction company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Top 20
Jul 1, 2025
The main use cases with the Dell vSAN Ready Nodes have changed since Broadcom, but we still have customers that have legacy VMware in place. A lot of it had to do with Cloud Foundation, which was a product that VMware created that allowed you to run on-premise environments and then replicate it in AWS or Azure. There are also a number of providers. I completed large projects for state governments, including $15 million projects, where we went from a converged VCE network environment to Dell vSAN Ready Nodes with additional management features. We could then scale those and eliminate secondary data centers and scale them into AWS or Azure for VMware on AWS. It runs as a bare-metal platform using that whole Cloud Foundation stack. The value of deploying the Dell vSAN Ready Nodes on-premises and maintaining control over hardware assets and sensitive data is significant as many of our customers are moving to the cloud but still have on-premises needs. For example, we're implementing one where we're using the Azure cache file storage, running that on a three-node Dell vSAN Ready Node environment where we can run all their virtual machines and do everything there while being tied directly to the cloud. They have a local cache on the vSAN, and the other data where their environments are working in the cloud works effectively. As clients are moving more towards the cloud, and more of them are hybrid, you don't need the really big systems. You might need fewer than 50 workloads running on-premise, or you'll have designated workloads such as VDI. But even that's moving into Azure virtual desktops and other solutions. The Dell vSAN Ready Node's value is that you can still get a quality solution at a much lower cost entry point.
I am dedicated to Cisco and work with multiple products as a consultant from one of the managed service providers. Mostly it is compute, so I take care of this part only. The performance issues concern site and IOPS requirements, in the case of PCI cards to the VMs. Sometimes expected IOPS are not there, and storage IOPS are not present. It is not very frequent, but sometimes we encounter disk failure issues with the Dell vSAN Ready Nodes, and it generally takes some time to change the disks. My job is to be a solution architect, proposing and building items. It is more about designing solutions and implementation, not too much in daily operations and troubleshooting. I deal with multiple environments. Sometimes we see 20 plus nodes around 32 or even more. Sometimes it is a small cluster, two node cluster, or three node cluster. I would say all kinds of environments based on customer needs. Regarding existing environments and third-party solutions for backup and monitoring, primarily we do the installation of the VMware platform, VMware vSphere ESXi. VMware has one of the largest ecosystems with on-premises or private cloud providers. Integration perspectives require some API-based work. It is a starting story for AI, but we are taking some use cases leveraging the Dell vSAN Ready Nodes along with GPU cards from NVIDIA. We are exploring other providers such as AMD, and Intel is also doing enhancements based on AI. We are recommending customers leverage nodes which have AI-supported applications using Dell vSAN Ready Nodes that support AI-based workload primarily. The VMware container technology integration allows VMware customers to enable AI-based applications, but that is with the latest generation only, not with older ones.
Senior Engineering Manager at a media company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Top 10
Dec 3, 2024
The primary use case of vSAN ReadyNodes is for block storage and general-purpose compute hosting in a virtualized environment. It is beneficial for companies that want to run a private cloud.
Our customers use this solution for virtualization. It's suited to small and medium sized organizations. We have a partnership with Dell and I'm a senior technical consultant.
We provide HCI solutions for customers. Each customer has their own benefits about HCI. For example, I installed the HCI as an administrator for the government. I use the Dell vSAN Ready Nodes for file sharing. I enabled the feature and integrated it with an external disk using iSCSI.
System Administrator for virtual platforms at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Aug 11, 2022
We run the solution on VxRail and use nodes to create storage space for replication. Our main servers are critical and include DNS, active directories, domains, and mail. The vSAN Ready Cluster Node using Veeam accommodates replication every few hours so we always have a copy of the latest virtual server delivered from the VxRail to the data recovery cluster.
Sr. Customer Support Engineer at Magnamious Systems Pvt. Ltd.
Real User
May 13, 2022
We primarily use the solution for pharma, as they are using it for different kinds of things like their OTIP network. There are some cases in the hotel industry and mining as well. Nowadays most of the clients are going from traditional architecture to vSAN, or any other hyper-converged option
Technical Solutions Architect at a computer software company with 201-500 employees
Vendor
Feb 4, 2021
I am a data center solutions architect that specifies the solution and then implements it for our customers. 90% of the time, it is deployed on their local data center and their objective is to go to the cloud. This is what they will do once their applications are brought up to speed.
Pre-sales Consultant Engineer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Consultant
Jul 16, 2020
The current customer for this solution is a service provider currently using private cloud and hoping to become a public cloud provider later on. vSAN starts its customers with private cloud to give them a taste of the technology. Later on they move to implementing public cloud. I'm a pre-sales consultant and we're a partner of Dell.
Dell EMC vSAN Ready Nodes are pre-configured building blocks that reduce deployment
risks with certified configurations, improve storage efficiency by up to 50%1
, and can help
you build or scale your vSAN cluster faster.14 Whether you're just getting started, and/or
expanding your existing VMware environment, Dell EMC is here for you every step of the
way with consulting, education, deployment and support services for the entire solution.
I am familiar with VMware Workstation, but we don't actually use a workstation. We only use ESXi because we're running a big organization. We have people that are responsible for a Citrix farm that are running with a VDI infrastructure. Mainly, the servers for business and production are Windows and Linux running on the ESXi host. For vSAN, we are hosting virtual machines there. It's easy to use, as we aren't running on SAN because each host comes with a number of physical disks for the OS and additionally provides capacity. We are using Dell vSAN Ready Nodes.
The main use cases with the Dell vSAN Ready Nodes have changed since Broadcom, but we still have customers that have legacy VMware in place. A lot of it had to do with Cloud Foundation, which was a product that VMware created that allowed you to run on-premise environments and then replicate it in AWS or Azure. There are also a number of providers. I completed large projects for state governments, including $15 million projects, where we went from a converged VCE network environment to Dell vSAN Ready Nodes with additional management features. We could then scale those and eliminate secondary data centers and scale them into AWS or Azure for VMware on AWS. It runs as a bare-metal platform using that whole Cloud Foundation stack. The value of deploying the Dell vSAN Ready Nodes on-premises and maintaining control over hardware assets and sensitive data is significant as many of our customers are moving to the cloud but still have on-premises needs. For example, we're implementing one where we're using the Azure cache file storage, running that on a three-node Dell vSAN Ready Node environment where we can run all their virtual machines and do everything there while being tied directly to the cloud. They have a local cache on the vSAN, and the other data where their environments are working in the cloud works effectively. As clients are moving more towards the cloud, and more of them are hybrid, you don't need the really big systems. You might need fewer than 50 workloads running on-premise, or you'll have designated workloads such as VDI. But even that's moving into Azure virtual desktops and other solutions. The Dell vSAN Ready Node's value is that you can still get a quality solution at a much lower cost entry point.
I am dedicated to Cisco and work with multiple products as a consultant from one of the managed service providers. Mostly it is compute, so I take care of this part only. The performance issues concern site and IOPS requirements, in the case of PCI cards to the VMs. Sometimes expected IOPS are not there, and storage IOPS are not present. It is not very frequent, but sometimes we encounter disk failure issues with the Dell vSAN Ready Nodes, and it generally takes some time to change the disks. My job is to be a solution architect, proposing and building items. It is more about designing solutions and implementation, not too much in daily operations and troubleshooting. I deal with multiple environments. Sometimes we see 20 plus nodes around 32 or even more. Sometimes it is a small cluster, two node cluster, or three node cluster. I would say all kinds of environments based on customer needs. Regarding existing environments and third-party solutions for backup and monitoring, primarily we do the installation of the VMware platform, VMware vSphere ESXi. VMware has one of the largest ecosystems with on-premises or private cloud providers. Integration perspectives require some API-based work. It is a starting story for AI, but we are taking some use cases leveraging the Dell vSAN Ready Nodes along with GPU cards from NVIDIA. We are exploring other providers such as AMD, and Intel is also doing enhancements based on AI. We are recommending customers leverage nodes which have AI-supported applications using Dell vSAN Ready Nodes that support AI-based workload primarily. The VMware container technology integration allows VMware customers to enable AI-based applications, but that is with the latest generation only, not with older ones.
The primary use case of vSAN ReadyNodes is for block storage and general-purpose compute hosting in a virtualized environment. It is beneficial for companies that want to run a private cloud.
We use Dell vSAN Ready Nodes for our insurance systems and employee systems, to host everything in one environment.
I have been using the product for a couple of years.
I use the solution to handle corporate use cases since some web-based applications run on it.
My customers use the product for server virtualization and as a virtual desktop.
Our customers use it to create the cluster. We use it for VMware; it's certified.
Our customers use this solution for virtualization. It's suited to small and medium sized organizations. We have a partnership with Dell and I'm a senior technical consultant.
We provide HCI solutions for customers. Each customer has their own benefits about HCI. For example, I installed the HCI as an administrator for the government. I use the Dell vSAN Ready Nodes for file sharing. I enabled the feature and integrated it with an external disk using iSCSI.
We run the solution on VxRail and use nodes to create storage space for replication. Our main servers are critical and include DNS, active directories, domains, and mail. The vSAN Ready Cluster Node using Veeam accommodates replication every few hours so we always have a copy of the latest virtual server delivered from the VxRail to the data recovery cluster.
We primarily use the solution for pharma, as they are using it for different kinds of things like their OTIP network. There are some cases in the hotel industry and mining as well. Nowadays most of the clients are going from traditional architecture to vSAN, or any other hyper-converged option
We use Dell EMC vSAN Ready Nodes in different types of workloads.
Dell EMC vSAN Ready Nodes is used for managing hyper-converged infrastructure.
I am a data center solutions architect that specifies the solution and then implements it for our customers. 90% of the time, it is deployed on their local data center and their objective is to go to the cloud. This is what they will do once their applications are brought up to speed.
The current customer for this solution is a service provider currently using private cloud and hoping to become a public cloud provider later on. vSAN starts its customers with private cloud to give them a taste of the technology. Later on they move to implementing public cloud. I'm a pre-sales consultant and we're a partner of Dell.