EMC VXRail
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How would you rate their solution overall? Amy other serious contenders to consider like a starwind hca?
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@Jimmy9008 There is Scale computing as well.
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@Jimmy9008 said in EMC VXRail:
How would you rate their solution overall? Amy other serious contenders to consider like a starwind hca?
Starwind, Scale, and Simplivity are the shortlist. Those three you consider first.
VxRail is a perfectly good competitor, but as it is Vmware, it is a lot more costly than the three main players. It's high quality with 100% Dell parts end to end (compute, storage, software, support), but you really only look at it or anyone other than the main three, when you have a niche need. VxRail would probably be in my top five, but really I essentially never need more than the top two.
Starwind and Scale HC3 are so good, and so different from each other, that nearly all use cases are covered by them. It's extremely rare that one of the two aren't your best choice, especially in an SMB.
VxRail is designed around very large shops, predominantly already entrenched with Vmware.
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@wrx7m said in EMC VXRail:
@scottalanmiller said in EMC VXRail:
Simplivity
Don't recall hearing about them before.
HPE ring any bells?
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@DustinB3403 said in EMC VXRail:
@wrx7m said in EMC VXRail:
@scottalanmiller said in EMC VXRail:
Simplivity
Don't recall hearing about them before.
HPE ring any bells?
Oh. OK. Didn't realize it was HPE
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@scottalanmiller said in EMC VXRail:
Starwind
IIRC, at some point you said that starwind was good at 2 nodes, but 3 was way too complex. Also, how much overhead does running starwind produce?
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@wrx7m said in EMC VXRail:
@scottalanmiller said in EMC VXRail:
Starwind
IIRC, at some point you said that starwind was good at 2 nodes, but 3 was way too complex. Also, how much overhead does running starwind produce?
It's too complex without additional networking infrastructure. They have a 3-node system and appliances available. I'm sure @KOOLER can comment.
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consider also Nutanix , i have three different sites with 4 of them each , run very good . not flawless . of course you need to run their AHV software and not vmware as base .
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@galezer said in EMC VXRail:
consider also Nutanix , i have three different sites with 4 of them each , run very good . not flawless . of course you need to run their AHV software and not vmware as base .
But keep in mind that they are quite expensive and slow. They "work", but they will sue anyone who discloses problems with them. If there is one company in this field I'd avoid like the plague, it's them. If for no other reason than their ethics, I would never trust them on my network or in our office.
https://mangolassi.it/topic/5681/why-there-is-no-nutanix-review
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@galezer said in EMC VXRail:
of course you need to run their AHV software and not vmware as base .
Because famously they didn't license the VMware that they sold and left their customers vulnerable
AHV is KVM for those not aware.
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It's pretty expensive and it's kind of not the same vCenter. It looks the same but the VxRail Manager controls everything. I haven't used it since the VxRail Manager was integrated in vCenter. It used to be a completely separate interface and everything. There's something weird about how you have to replace nodes too. I'll have to verify what it was. You also can't go from a centralized vCenter to a VxRail local vCenter but you can go the other way.
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Did Scale ever give you the option to move disks between VMs? That seemed like such a crazy limitation that you couldn't have persistent disks (without special access or whatever it was).
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@stacksofplates said in EMC VXRail:
Did Scale ever give you the option to move disks between VMs? That seemed like such a crazy limitation that you couldn't have persistent disks (without special access or whatever it was).
Nope, the HEAT map still is the only mechanism for controlling that.
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@scottalanmiller said in EMC VXRail:
@stacksofplates said in EMC VXRail:
Did Scale ever give you the option to move disks between VMs? That seemed like such a crazy limitation that you couldn't have persistent disks (without special access or whatever it was).
Nope, the HEAT map still is the only mechanism for controlling that.
Wow. I thought they were working on a way to do that? It's been over a year since I last touched one.
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@stacksofplates said in EMC VXRail:
@scottalanmiller said in EMC VXRail:
@stacksofplates said in EMC VXRail:
Did Scale ever give you the option to move disks between VMs? That seemed like such a crazy limitation that you couldn't have persistent disks (without special access or whatever it was).
Nope, the HEAT map still is the only mechanism for controlling that.
Wow. I thought they were working on a way to do that? It's been over a year since I last touched one.
I've never heard them mention that as something that they wanted to put on their roadmap. Their product is based so completely around being "set and forget" and self managing, that that kind of goes against the goals. Obviously that comes with caveats - but their product design is based around a minimum of options, with a maximum of automation. If they start adding too many knobs and buttons, it defeats the goals for their core market.
Starwind is the opposite, going for as many knobs and buttons as possible so that you can tune anything.
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@scottalanmiller said in EMC VXRail:
@stacksofplates said in EMC VXRail:
@scottalanmiller said in EMC VXRail:
@stacksofplates said in EMC VXRail:
Did Scale ever give you the option to move disks between VMs? That seemed like such a crazy limitation that you couldn't have persistent disks (without special access or whatever it was).
Nope, the HEAT map still is the only mechanism for controlling that.
Wow. I thought they were working on a way to do that? It's been over a year since I last touched one.
I've never heard them mention that as something that they wanted to put on their roadmap. Their product is based so completely around being "set and forget" and self managing, that that kind of goes against the goals. Obviously that comes with caveats - but their product design is based around a minimum of options, with a maximum of automation. If they start adding too many knobs and buttons, it defeats the goals for their core market.
Starwind is the opposite, going for as many knobs and buttons as possible so that you can tune anything.
I thought I remembered them saying they had it planned, but I guess not.
Idk that seems like it's something that's not a very advanced thing. Like you have a data disk and just want to reattach it to a new VM. They had a video on how you can recover data by creating a snapshot, mounting that snapshot disk in a live image, and recovering data. That to me seems more complex than being able to attach a persistent disk. But it's not my product.
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Did they ever get outward facing APIs working either? I definitely know that was something they said they were working on.
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@stacksofplates said in EMC VXRail:
Did they ever get outward facing APIs working either? I definitely know that was something they said they were working on.
They were and some are done, I know of a few people who use them. But it's not popular.
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@stacksofplates said in EMC VXRail:
I thought I remembered them saying they had it planned, but I guess not.
They might have, but if they did, I missed it
