Dell: Good servers and PCs, but for storage ... oh dear

Dell is a great IT company, but it is clear that they have to revise their storage strategy if they want to maintain some relevance in the IT infrastructure space. (and I’m talking about storage because I primarily cover this market … I’m sure that it wouldn’t be difficult to find similar weaknesses in fields like networking. …

[Nate Amsden]

Dell does pretty good in storage

I think at least. I don't use their stuff, but I'd wager storage is a strong #2 behind servers with Dell, with networking being a very distant 3rd. Maybe I'm wrong though. Compellent and Exanet are both pretty good sets of technology. I *wish* HP had something equivalent to an Exanet in their NAS lineup (StoreAll and StoreEasy don't cut it).

For Dell shops at least, I think what they have is good enough for a lot of folks. They've come a long way from being an EMC reseller and just have equallogic (which I'd never touch).

You say they need a better storage culture, they have a better storage culture through their acquisitions. It's miles ahead from where it was 5 years ago.

I'm not a Dell customer right now but I certainly respect Dell a hell of a lot more these days than I did 5-6 years ago in large part because of the progress they've made in storage.

They tried investing in networking but I think their acquisition of Force10 just fell apart(or so it seems anyway maybe I'm wrong), some of the Force10 stuff hasn't been updated in what seems like 8 years now.

[Nate Amsden]

dell sonicwall good

one area dell is good at in networking is Sonicwall. Been a customer since before they were acquired. Dell hasn't screwed up Sonicwall as far as I can tell. Completely forgot Dell bought em until 30 seconds ago.

[BruceBacka]

It's a new game for file storage

We (NTP Software) work extensively with Dell for file data solutions. A monolithic, does-everything NAS is no longer the right answer for most people. You need a seamlessly integrated Tier-1, Tier-2, archive / cloud solution.

Here Dell excels because of the mix of solutions it can bring to the table. With the right architecture, the end customer can save 60% to 80% of their operating expenses, improve their risk and compliance profile, while reducing the need for expensive primary file storage.

Time to replace the legacy Magnavox console stereo with a best-of-breed component system...

[Anonymous Coward]

Dell has no cloud?

I think the Enstratius team would disagree: http://www.enstratius.com/home

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Dell has no cloud?

Isnt that a 'cloud' manager, allows you to interface with google, amazon, joynet etc. to manage their 'cloud' solutions. Dell bills you to manage your machines in other peoples 'clouds', unless those account are created via dell.

[JJITgirl]

Wrong on no software appliances

Ever heard of AppAssure? KACE?

[LostSpirit]

Dr, not so good and getting worse...

We've had several Equallogic systems over the years, and the most recent one was a noticeable drop in build quality, to the point that it was the first one we retired...and replaced with a Nimble unit.

[Anonymous Coward]

BuyDDN

DELL should buy DDN to compete on the high end.

[W. Anderson]

Dell dilemma - choice between Microsoft proprietary and true Open Standards

Dell has a good reputation for good value servers and reasonably priced and performance storage, but with EMC and others moving most if not eventually all of their storage solutions to Open Standards based " and "Software Defined Network"- like (non-proprietary) Open Daylight foundation and Free/Open Sourc Software (FOSS), it will become inceasinly difficult for Dell to make great sales and adoption progress due to their being bound at the hip to Microsoft and it's rigidly proprietary Server Operating Systems (OS), Storage and non-ISO Networking protocols.

This is especially poignant in era of Cloud Computing with FOSS Containerization and virtualization, and international governments, corporations and societies standarzing on non-proprietary technology solutions.

[liquidsmoke66]

FS7600. It's a NAS ;)

[wankeler]

Nexenta sucks

Please explain

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Nexenta sucks

For basic storage (block and file) it works well when you take out the nexenta interface, which suck donkey balls (not stable, buggy). Which means you are left with any illumos based OS, nexenta have added a few extras, SMB3, VAAI, etc, which they have started to remove as it also sucks some donkey dick too. This is based over 4 years experience with it. So nexenta has no real added value over any of the free options, apart from support, which is hit and miss.

[Anonymous Coward]

No NAS

You might want to reference your own article about Dell's scale out NAS: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/04/07/dells_scalyheaded_file_system_gets_bigger/

[Anonymous Coward]

DEF in Copenhagen might be a great idea for the writer of this article...

(Disclaimer: I work for Dell)

There are several errors or misunderstandings in this article, too many to cover in a short reply, but if you, or your readers, want to know what's going on, please feel free to join Dell and partners at the Dell Enterprise Forum in Copenhagen in June.

"Be among the first to hear our vision for the software defined future and the transformation from convergence to hyper convergence as well as participate in detailed expert- and engineer-led sessions on the complete end-to-end Enterprise solutions portfolio."

http://events.dell.com/event/dell-enterprise-forum-2015/

[Anonymous Coward]

Solidfire ...

Dell OEM Solidfire ... I'd wager that Solidfire will be Dell's next acquisition.

[boatsman]

Enstratius.... ever heard about it ??

Mr author, you should at least have spent 5 minutes on Dell's website to check your facts.

your article is full of bold statements, without rationale or even basic fact checking.

you ought to be a little red in the face now. for a while to come.

better pull this article, if I were you.....