Moving from HP to Dell hardware

[jasonboche]

We're moving from HP servers (blades, commodity boxes, workhorses) to Dell servers (blades, commodity boxes, workhorses). The "why" part is irrelevant - these decisions were made higher up. It's going to happen. At this point it's servers only. Existing external storage and networking infrastructure will remain in place.

I'm interested in hearing from anyone on what to expect with Dell from hardware, software, and support standpoints. I've heard a few negative sketchy details on the hardware over the years but I'm curious what the Dell server landscape looks like lately.

Thank you in advance,

Jas

[i]Jason Boche[/i]

[VMware Communities User Moderator|http://www.vmware.com/communities/content/community_terms/][/i]

[Minneapolis Area VMware User Group Leader|http://communities.vmware.com/community/vmug/us-central/minneapolis][/i]

[williambishop]

I've actually never heard positive reviews of Dell server hardware....desktop side, yes...but never on the server side. I'll keep tabs on this thread. My personal experience with Dell servers is not good however.

[Kahonu]

Aloha - We've had three 2950's running ESX 3.x for nearly two years with no issues.

[deploylinux]

Honestly, both HP and Dell make reliable servers and both have a good selection of VMware/ESX appropriate systems. If you do your due diligence and research before buying, you will likely not have any more issues occur with Dell than HP.

As far as Dell specific stuff, there is a huge difference in how Dell treats its enterprise verse small business customers which is reflected by the support contract service levels. The NBD and free/low cost support contracts are not appropriate for VMware ESX hosts. Dell changes the names of the various service levels about once a year so it can get confusing, but generally as long as you get a contract in the mid or high range, they'll take care of you well and simple tasks like replacing failed drives and other components are handled extremely fast (e.g. replacement parts actually are actually hand delivered within 2-4 hours of being called in).

Failure rate wise, we have almost no issues with any hardware that is more than 90 days old. Occasionally a new box will develop issues with a raid card or drives, but anything that has been in production for awhile is extremely reliable.

[malaysiavm]

http://malaysiavm.com/blog/best-server-model-for-virtualization-r900-r905/

I will personally suggest to go with R900 if budget is allowed. In term of support wise, you should able to engagae DELL and VMware if required depend where you purchase your license from

Malaysia VMware Communities -

[chrisfmss]

We have both HP and Dell Servers. I prefer HP servers, because It is very more easy to manage. Remote Management, ILO is better than DRAC. With DRAC I had many issues with the Active X. With HP, they have Drivers Pack or you can use Version control for installing drivers. With Dell, download one by one. Finally, the main point for me is Storage Management. HP array configuration is so easy to use and more flexible. With Dell, I am not able to do the same thing as HP Array Configuration. This is my opinion.

[Texiwill]

Hello,

I use HP, about 3/4s of my customers use Dell. The DRAC is an issue, but if you do not use IE7 you should be fine. Other than that my customers are happy with their purchases. Just be careful about IO cards, Dell did try to sell unsupported Qlogic adapters to one of my customers.

Best regards,

Edward L. Haletky

VMware Communities User Moderator

====

Author of the book 'VMWare ESX Server in the Enterprise: Planning and Securing Virtualization Servers', Copyright 2008 Pearson Education.

CIO Virtualization Blog: http://www.cio.com/blog/index/topic/168354

As well as the Virtualization Wiki at http://www.astroarch.com/wiki/index.php/Virtualization

[chrisfmss]

But is not normal that the Drac couldn't run fine on IE7.

[azn2kew]

Jason,

I'm totally agreed with deploylinux, he is extremely correct on Dell services, if you're high end enterprise business, wow, they treat you really well in terms of services and get back to you. I remember my last consulting project was for 13 data centers worldwide and about 10,000+ servers and we use majority of Dell PE 2950 & 6950 series and we're very happy with them for our ESX deployment. I believe before I left, they start shipping R900 series for beefier performance like SQL, Oracle needs but hey if you have switch to Dell, dont' worry its rock solid nothing major and they stands behind their brand. Great things about this, very often those account manager take your whole IT team out for dinner or lunch pretty quit often because we purchased a lot of hardware from them. Enjoy!

If you found this information useful, please consider awarding points for "Correct" or "Helpful". Thanks!!!

Regards,

Stefan Nguyen

iGeek Systems Inc.

VMware, Citrix, Microsoft Consultant

[mylvisaker]

Jason,

We went through a similar change earlier this year. We now have R900's for our ESX hosts and performance is good. DRAC is functional - it does what I need it to do. Support, so far, has been good. Haven't really needed it - I forget what our support level is called but its an enterprise level. We did call once and had a real human on the phone right away. The actual switch from HP to Dell was less dramatic than the discussion leading up to it.

Mark

Minneapolis

[Ken_Cline]

We're moving from HP servers (blades, commodity boxes, workhorses) to Dell servers

I bet I know what's going to be in Jas' basement in a couple months Got any spare HP kit you can send East?

Ken Cline

Technical Director, Virtualization

Wells Landers

TVAR Solutions, A Wells Landers Group Company

VMware Communities User Moderator

[mcowger]

We are running 16 2950's and 8 M600 blades for our current env. And in the process of buying 24 more blades to expand.

We are pretty happy with them.

--Matt

[admin]

PAIN TIME

FACT ---Dell sell more OEM VMware Licences than IBM & HP

So they can't be that bad, my only experience was a global rollout with 2950's a few years ago and for what it is worth, they are not as bad as what people say I just hated the perc card + it was a scripted build via USB key great stuff.

Saying that 2 years ago I deployed to Fujitsu Siemans ESX +SAN and no I don't work for them, I thought it was awsome and no one ever mentions them, no waiting for IBM to support the latest SVC / UUpdateXpress etc...etc, HP SIM crashing the box/zombie porcesses / Weird RAM & BSOD - everything was supported for the latest versions of VMware ESX -- sometimes the biggest ain't the best look at all the banks Rock on Nothern R**k etc...

[TomHowarth]

And futher East :smileygrin:

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Tom Howarth

VMware Communities User Moderator

[TomHowarth]

FSC kit is impressive, their new BX600 chasis and blades very nice Hosts indeed :smileygrin:

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Tom Howarth

VMware Communities User Moderator

[joergriether]

We run 6 DELL 2950´s all with ESX3.5U2 connected to 4 Equallogic Arrays. No problems at all. DRAC is OK and if you update to latest BIOS VC will discover the Hardware Status of your 2950´s very well.

my two cents.

best regards

Joerg