Dell's PowerEdge R is a line of rack servers, offering a range of options from cost-efficient one-socket servers to four-socket servers designed to support intensive and critical data center workloads.
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XenServer
Score 8.1 out of 10
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XenServer (formerly Citrix Hypervisor) is a virtualization management platform optimized for application, desktop and server virtualization infrastructures.
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Pricing
Dell PowerEdge
XenServer
Editions & Modules
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Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Dell PowerEdge
XenServer
Free Trial
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No
Free/Freemium Version
No
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
No
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
No setup fee
Additional Details
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More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Dell PowerEdge
XenServer
Features
Dell PowerEdge
XenServer
Server Virtualization
Comparison of Server Virtualization features of Product A and Product B
An excellent warranty and excellent technical assistance can be expected from the PowerEdge C Series, which comes from a well-known brand with a long track record in the market. Scalability, physical space optimization and performance and dependability for handling sensitive and vital data like databases and ERP systems that are fairly sophisticated are just some of the benefits we get from Dell gear, which saves us resources and energy by up to 40%.
It can be really helpful & useful if we are using Citrix Hypervisor with other provisioning tools. Here are some specific scenarios where Citrix Hypervisor (formerly Citrix XenServer) is well-suited: Server Consolidation, Virtual Desktops, Disaster Recovery, Development & Testing Environments. On the other hand, there are some scenarios where Citrix Hypervisor may be less appropriate: Small-scale Deployments, Highly Heterogeneous Environments, and Limited Virtualization Requirements.
Good price - Compared to other vendors’ server platforms. In our scenario (virtualization) we found out PowerEdge offers the best price/vCPU and RAM ratio.
Customizable - We were able to select optimal memory/disk capacity for our use case. Other platform's minimum requirements were above our needs, hence needlessly expensive.
Good warranty and service - Our project did not involve creating a big cluster with a lot of spare capacity, so the next business day warranty came handy.
Adding or presenting additional storage to the host can often be a task that is far more involved than competitive products.
The product can require reboots more frequently than competitors due to the DOM kernel getting "hung up".
Sometimes when a virtual machine is deleted it still leaves behind orphaned vdisks.
Recovering from the loss of a host can sometimes cause virtual machines to require lengthy command prompt scripting to fix so they can be powered back on from another host.
With the knowledge and usage of solutions from VMware and Microsoft offering more compelling cloud integrated options it makes it more compelling in many environments which I consult. XenServer is a good product and fits the bill in many smaller environments but as clients look to the cloud or a hybrid cloud it can in some cases make it a bit more difficult.
The Dell PowerEdge R range is just intuitive when you have skills engineers managing them in-house, although even with new members of staff on the team, the learning curve is very low providing they have previous general service hardware management experience. From the specification through to the management of this range, the usability is excellent.
XenServer is a good product in its use and probably free if you have the right Citrix licenses already. However, it does require specific knowledge to manage, which makes it harder to manage if you don't have that knowledge in house.
It's been a little problematic in the past at larger VDI deployments requiring a bit more care and feeding than other vendors. But the latest releases (6.5.x) have brought about huge improvements in the stability and availability.
We consider Dell's support to be best-in-class compared to other solutions and is also reasonably priced. Their SLA targets have almost always been met, except for minor occasions that have had extenuating circumstances. The service staff is also professional and thorough. Overall, we are very satisfied with the level of support we receive.
The staff I've worked with are very knowledgeable or able to get a very well articulated and capable support team member on the phone or helping them if necessary and they always want to ensure the best experience possible for you on the platform. The ability for the support team to reach out to hardware vendors for assistance is a nice plus too.
Part of a training for certification to become a trainer for Citrix included an in-person training with a Master CCI. The XenServer training at this time was pretty simplified due to the product primarily being installed however you did have to work with it and mildly configure the system.
Haven't given it a real go with any online training however there are some options out there. I have taught a course following Citrix material for XenDesktop which leverages XenServer and it is pre-built so not the best for XenServer specifically for installation but configuration is mildly touched on
Ensure you review the HCL (hardware compatibility list) and reach out to the hardware vendors to ensure they support the platform and in case they have documentation that can be followed for the implementation. Also ensure the prerequisites are completed prior to implementation so that as few unexpected delays occur as you can control.
Against hp servers, Dell has outperformed them in terms of incidents regarding hardware memory parts. With the Dell PowerEdge R series servers we have not had any incidents regarding memory modules. On the other hand, with HP servers, we encountered a lot of failures regarding memory modules during the first year of implementation.
Feature for feature they are neck and neck. I have used Hyper-V 2012 and 2016, VMware ESXi and XenServer evenly. XenServer is a fast install, good documentation, with enterprise features out the box that compare or exceed what VMWare offered with a higher cost of entry.
The servers latest versions have made massive improvements to scalability. But from past experience there have been issues when running workloads for extended periods of time without reboot on the hosts. I would need to run similar workloads on the 6.5 release which has changed much of the bottlenecks or issues so I'd imagine its far more capable now, Perhaps able to stand near the best in the market.
From the perspective of physical server consolidations, when servers spread across multiple branch and remote offices are gathered into a central data center, this simplification process provides ROI in several ways. One, the configuration control, restriction of server access.
Reduce complexity and enable greater standardization of hardware purchases, which lowers costs.
Increased security of the move are important.
The costs of moves, add-ins, and changes are reduced, as well as the costs of travel time and maintenance.
Migrating legacy operating systems to a newer version via rehosting brings similar ROI benefits when it comes to server consolidation.
Xenserver is easy to learn. We paid for support only for installation and deployment in the first three years, and now our team has the knowledge to solve most problems.
Low CAPEX if you have a team that uses open source software day by day.
But paid support is necessary to solve critical problems. The open source community is not enough. Actually, we have difficulty solving some bugs without paying for support.
Medium OPEX if you have a team that uses open source software day by day.
