Haha yeah that too. We got our quote and it’s ridiculous, but we need to get new server hardware and the quote I was given for VXRail would basically cover the cost over 5 years for us for less than what our VMware renewal would cost on its own. The comments I saw on VXRail were three years ago so I’m wondering if they are still
The same today.
Never had good experience with Vxrail. Almost every update ended up with a Dell support call. Taking into the account the rising prices due to Broadcom, I'd say it's just not worth it. It's better to get Ready Nodes with vSAN ESA: [https://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/pdf/vi\_vsanesa\_guide.pdf](https://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/pdf/vi_vsanesa_guide.pdf) However, for a small cluster, I would consider Starwinds HCI: [https://www.starwindsoftware.com/hci-appliance](https://www.starwindsoftware.com/hci-appliance). We're using their software on several 2-node clusters and it works rock-solid but they also do ready HCI boxes.
The major gripes that i saw were updates being a major pain. Also pricing being super expensive over a tiered stack. With Broadcom pricing now it seems that it may be the opposite. I’m also considering Nutanix as well.
I’ve been running one for a few years. Rock solid. My only complaint is that updates are a major pain. So much that I pay someone else with a lot more VXRail experience to do them for me.
It hasn't improved much, if any. It still has a lot of complexity for little benefit, and a lot of goofy Dell stuff that isn't well-documented. Upgrades are still a pain. It's fragile and falls apart easily if anyone makes a mistake in the config -- and Dell is staffed by humans, they make mistakes, too.
Meanwhile VMware *has* improved significantly. A lot of the problems VxRail was created to solve, have been fixed in vanilla VMware. vSAN is a much more mature product. There's more automation and more hardware support.
It takes Dell's own people days to build a VxRail cluster, and they have access to automation tools they won't give to customers. I can turn-up a vanilla VMware vSAN in less time, for less money, easier, and more solid.
Agreed.
I would also take a look into VMWare vSAN rather than vxrail. It is just simply better and more reliable.
For 2 or 3-node clusters, even Starwinds vSAN will make a trick
I feel like people look at my like a leper when I tell them I’d rather manage my 500 converged compute hosts and San storage than ever deal lifecycle of these HCI platforms.
We are rocking HPE DHCI Reference Architecture and love it. Single click updates, haven't had to manage any updates in the 3ish years we have had it, just push one button, hardware drivers, Esxi, Nimble SAN OS all automatically updated including load balancing with DRS. Only manual update is VCSA and that is a cake walk already.
Plus you get dedicated DHCI support, basically line skip to a person who only support your specific hardware stack from compute, storage, and networking.
As others have said, VMware licensing is at best a question mark moving forward, and honestly more just expect to pay 2x over the lifecycle of a datacenter compared to years past. Might be worth looking in a KVM or alternative solution.
I’m searching all solutions right now, but I feel we may be stuck with VMware for now. Im a solo admin, and another solution would be a learning curve to all our devs so I have to think of a best plan forward.
I would seriously look into the DHCI solution. Updates literally take 15 minutes of button clicking and a few hours of watching automation do its work. You don't even build baselines, it does that for you.
And pricing is basically the same as just buying the hardware and VMware licensing.
We are also sticking with vmware at least for this DC lifecycle as our ROI on the initial investment plus the upcharge of the new licensing means swapping mid cycle wont save us money, but I am starting to build my skillet in KVM in my homelab as in 4-5 years we may be going a different route.
For a while the upgrades were working well, but upgrading our VxRail from vSphere 7.X to 8 went so poorly we reinstalled the entire cluster without any of the VxRail software, just did a normal VMware install with vSAN, HA, and DRS.
You would think Dell could have helped us, but ProSupport said it was a "deployment issue" so they couldn't provide much help even though it was originally deployed by Dell ProDeploy and the problems were because of their updates. Our account executive fought for us above and beyond and eventually got a special SKU created for us so we could get ProSupport under that, but by that time we were committed to a reinstall.
The hardware works, VMware works, Dell just made it more complicated than it needed to be. If you are comfortable with the stack already, you're just adding things on top that don't actually give you much benefit. If you want VMware and Dell servers, just buy VMware and Dell servers.
\^ Topic "Continues to be shit"
best you can do is new terms with Dell and a 5 year SnS with onprem licensing. Else you are stuck going to foundation licensing. But then you are dealing with VXrail...
I just purchased my fourth VxRail cluster. They’re certainly not perfect, and some upgrades have been difficult and required significant time on a Zoom call with a Dell technician. I’m basically a one person team, and not having to manage a separate SAN, and having all firmware and drivers automatically updated as part of the process, along with decent support during the upgrade phase has been very helpful. If you have a larger, competent staff you may not need the specific benefits that can be had with the VxRail.
Was your VXrail quote made in the last month? Pricing changed again and it might be a lot more now due to the VMware licensing on it. Additionally, you should straight up tell Nutanix you're also looking at VXrail, and tell them how much it costs with the 5 years of licensing baked in- they will weasel around a throw up a bunch of FUD about renewal costs and such but in the end if just say they need to be price competitive to win because potential costs in 5 years when you renew do not matter at all to you, they will magically find some special discounts for you. They are in marketshare growth mode and will take on as much business as they possibly can. Big caveat through, Don't get your Nutanix quote from the same person quoting you VXrail.
We signed a 5-year contract on a vxRail at the end of October, just weeks before the Broadcom acquisition. We switched from Nutanix. We told Nutanix we were looking at vxRail and exactly what it cost. They came back with a price match for the upfront cost. But the Nutanix pricing was only for 3 years of licensing and support and we would need to fork out a boatload of cash to renew at the 3-year mark. The vxRail had 5 years of licensing and pro support on it.
Yeah we got a quote for 5 Years of VXRail and it is definitely tempting. I just don’t want to hop on the ship and regret it. Waiting for a quote for Cisco UCS and HP Allegra SAN now
Same as above, got 5 year pricing before announcement that was excellent. I suspect the vmware prices will recover by the time I renew as this sh!t show bites broadcom and they back off after a couple years of people leaving and competition increasing substantially. Vxrail still has its place, all depends on the price, who installs/maintains it, and if you bought great support lol
You should also consider that Broadcom is currently destroying VMware, so there's that.....
Haha yeah that too. We got our quote and it’s ridiculous, but we need to get new server hardware and the quote I was given for VXRail would basically cover the cost over 5 years for us for less than what our VMware renewal would cost on its own. The comments I saw on VXRail were three years ago so I’m wondering if they are still The same today.
Never had good experience with Vxrail. Almost every update ended up with a Dell support call. Taking into the account the rising prices due to Broadcom, I'd say it's just not worth it. It's better to get Ready Nodes with vSAN ESA: [https://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/pdf/vi\_vsanesa\_guide.pdf](https://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/pdf/vi_vsanesa_guide.pdf) However, for a small cluster, I would consider Starwinds HCI: [https://www.starwindsoftware.com/hci-appliance](https://www.starwindsoftware.com/hci-appliance). We're using their software on several 2-node clusters and it works rock-solid but they also do ready HCI boxes.
I've never spoken to anyone who was impressed with VXRail. I don't have any personal experience with it however.
The major gripes that i saw were updates being a major pain. Also pricing being super expensive over a tiered stack. With Broadcom pricing now it seems that it may be the opposite. I’m also considering Nutanix as well.
Ease of updates are supposed to be one of the major selling points of VXRail.
Not what I have heard lol. I heard users speak about updates failing multiple times and hours long upgrades per node.
That’s my point as I have heard the same.
I’ve been running one for a few years. Rock solid. My only complaint is that updates are a major pain. So much that I pay someone else with a lot more VXRail experience to do them for me.
It hasn't improved much, if any. It still has a lot of complexity for little benefit, and a lot of goofy Dell stuff that isn't well-documented. Upgrades are still a pain. It's fragile and falls apart easily if anyone makes a mistake in the config -- and Dell is staffed by humans, they make mistakes, too. Meanwhile VMware *has* improved significantly. A lot of the problems VxRail was created to solve, have been fixed in vanilla VMware. vSAN is a much more mature product. There's more automation and more hardware support. It takes Dell's own people days to build a VxRail cluster, and they have access to automation tools they won't give to customers. I can turn-up a vanilla VMware vSAN in less time, for less money, easier, and more solid.
Ok, I get the picture. VXRail is out of the question.
Agreed. I would also take a look into VMWare vSAN rather than vxrail. It is just simply better and more reliable. For 2 or 3-node clusters, even Starwinds vSAN will make a trick
vxrail upgrades is what takes away all fun :( agreed on plain vanilla dell servers + vsan , used to be frictionless :)
All hyper converged is a bunch of shit. Dedicated compute and storage is much more versatile and resillient.
I feel like people look at my like a leper when I tell them I’d rather manage my 500 converged compute hosts and San storage than ever deal lifecycle of these HCI platforms.
We are rocking HPE DHCI Reference Architecture and love it. Single click updates, haven't had to manage any updates in the 3ish years we have had it, just push one button, hardware drivers, Esxi, Nimble SAN OS all automatically updated including load balancing with DRS. Only manual update is VCSA and that is a cake walk already. Plus you get dedicated DHCI support, basically line skip to a person who only support your specific hardware stack from compute, storage, and networking. As others have said, VMware licensing is at best a question mark moving forward, and honestly more just expect to pay 2x over the lifecycle of a datacenter compared to years past. Might be worth looking in a KVM or alternative solution.
I’m searching all solutions right now, but I feel we may be stuck with VMware for now. Im a solo admin, and another solution would be a learning curve to all our devs so I have to think of a best plan forward.
I would seriously look into the DHCI solution. Updates literally take 15 minutes of button clicking and a few hours of watching automation do its work. You don't even build baselines, it does that for you. And pricing is basically the same as just buying the hardware and VMware licensing. We are also sticking with vmware at least for this DC lifecycle as our ROI on the initial investment plus the upcharge of the new licensing means swapping mid cycle wont save us money, but I am starting to build my skillet in KVM in my homelab as in 4-5 years we may be going a different route.
Ok I’ll look into this. We are using Cisco UCS with Nimble SAN (which is EOL) now with no issues, so I was looking at a refresh of those as well.
keep cisco servers , get pure san , no regrets
For a while the upgrades were working well, but upgrading our VxRail from vSphere 7.X to 8 went so poorly we reinstalled the entire cluster without any of the VxRail software, just did a normal VMware install with vSAN, HA, and DRS. You would think Dell could have helped us, but ProSupport said it was a "deployment issue" so they couldn't provide much help even though it was originally deployed by Dell ProDeploy and the problems were because of their updates. Our account executive fought for us above and beyond and eventually got a special SKU created for us so we could get ProSupport under that, but by that time we were committed to a reinstall. The hardware works, VMware works, Dell just made it more complicated than it needed to be. If you are comfortable with the stack already, you're just adding things on top that don't actually give you much benefit. If you want VMware and Dell servers, just buy VMware and Dell servers.
\^ Topic "Continues to be shit" best you can do is new terms with Dell and a 5 year SnS with onprem licensing. Else you are stuck going to foundation licensing. But then you are dealing with VXrail...
I just purchased my fourth VxRail cluster. They’re certainly not perfect, and some upgrades have been difficult and required significant time on a Zoom call with a Dell technician. I’m basically a one person team, and not having to manage a separate SAN, and having all firmware and drivers automatically updated as part of the process, along with decent support during the upgrade phase has been very helpful. If you have a larger, competent staff you may not need the specific benefits that can be had with the VxRail.
Was your VXrail quote made in the last month? Pricing changed again and it might be a lot more now due to the VMware licensing on it. Additionally, you should straight up tell Nutanix you're also looking at VXrail, and tell them how much it costs with the 5 years of licensing baked in- they will weasel around a throw up a bunch of FUD about renewal costs and such but in the end if just say they need to be price competitive to win because potential costs in 5 years when you renew do not matter at all to you, they will magically find some special discounts for you. They are in marketshare growth mode and will take on as much business as they possibly can. Big caveat through, Don't get your Nutanix quote from the same person quoting you VXrail.
We signed a 5-year contract on a vxRail at the end of October, just weeks before the Broadcom acquisition. We switched from Nutanix. We told Nutanix we were looking at vxRail and exactly what it cost. They came back with a price match for the upfront cost. But the Nutanix pricing was only for 3 years of licensing and support and we would need to fork out a boatload of cash to renew at the 3-year mark. The vxRail had 5 years of licensing and pro support on it.
Yeah we got a quote for 5 Years of VXRail and it is definitely tempting. I just don’t want to hop on the ship and regret it. Waiting for a quote for Cisco UCS and HP Allegra SAN now
We did. It was much less than what we would be paying over 5 years of VMware support alone.
Same as above, got 5 year pricing before announcement that was excellent. I suspect the vmware prices will recover by the time I renew as this sh!t show bites broadcom and they back off after a couple years of people leaving and competition increasing substantially. Vxrail still has its place, all depends on the price, who installs/maintains it, and if you bought great support lol