Lenovo Flex System Blade Servers vs. Netchex

It's possible that a Lenovo Flex System Blade Servers won't be useful in a less substantial setting. It is more cost-effective to buy separate servers if you need only a few. A BladeCenter would be useful if you have a requirement for several servers, require high levels of uptime and redundancy, or must share a SANS. I've dealt with other businesses where I was first instructed on how to use a mouse. Doing so is pointless given that you have been called to report a malfunctioning system. They are quick to respond, and if you require replacement hardware, they will even drive to your location to get and deliver the necessary components.

Incentivized

Netchex is great if you want to log in to one place to take care of all things employee-related. It is especially helpful if you have multiple locations or divisions as you can easily set these up and manage them as needed. The more employees you have, the more you will benefit from a program like Netchex that provides so much support for your business. Our company has multiple locations of stores and many employee position levels and Netchex has been great at keeping all of this simple when a lessor product could make it much more complicated. Netchex would not be as appropriate if you have a very small business or a simple payroll structure. It would definitely still work well for you, it would just be more sophisticated than you would require.

• The Lenovo BladeCenter has a management feature that notifies the IT staff when there are any hardware problems. It is extremely convenient to receive notifications for potential problems that we can address before they become problems. It also allows us to log into one place and see the status of all BladeCenter servers. That is very helpful.
• It is very easy to configure servers for purchase. You only need to choose the processor and memory, and maybe an additional card if you have special requirements. If you want the server to boot using it's own hard drives, then you would need to add that. If it will boot from a SANS, then that is not even needed. The rest is handled by the BladeCenter.
• The physical BladeCenter is designed to see if there are any issues at a glance. There are a led's on the front of the unit that allow you to see the status of much of the hardware.
• There is a remote management feature that allows you to see the servers from one application without having to open several remote sessions from Windows of some other VNC service. You can just open a web browser and easily click a drop down to switch back and forth to see your server screens. This is very convenient if you are doing mass server maintenance and restarting several servers at once.
• Hardware maintenance is very easy. Instead of dismounting a heavy server from a rack, or lifting a large server tower, these are light-weight blades that slide out of the BladeCenter. They are very easy to take out, add memory or change processors, or do whatever maintenance is needed, and then just slide back into the BladeCenter.

Incentivized

• My Netchex Service Team is very responsive and friendly. They are willing and able to spend the amount of time needed on one call to troubleshoot most problems or answer questions.
• Their recent updates to the employee dashboard have been well-received by our seasonal team. Employees are able to quickly find what they are looking for which has minimized the amount of requests that my team receives regarding questions on pay or updating personal information.
• Online W-2 forms have been a game-changer for us since moving to Netchex. Our staff tend to move around a lot and most do not get the mailed copy of their W-2. The electronic consent has saved me hours and hours of time.

Incentivized

• the management interface of network switches
• the management interface of the storage switches
• the response time of the node consoles through the CMM

Incentivized

• SOME CUST SVC REPS MAY NEED ADDITIONAL TRAINING ON WORK AROUNDS
• WOULD PREFER TO CHAT WITH SOMEONE, SOMETIMES WORDS IN TEXT COULD BE MISINTERPRETED. ALSO SPEAKING TO SOMEONE IS ALWAYS A POSITIVE
• NOT REALLY ANYTHING ELSE BUT HAVE BEEN USING THEM 3 MONTHS SO NOT LONG INTO IT.....VERY EASY SYSTEM AND LOVE I CAN DO A NEGATIVE INSTEAD OF HAVING TO CALL AND ASK THEM TO DO IT ON THEIR END.

Incentivized

Easy to work with.

They are reliable, safe and very profitable equipment, their operation is easy, they provide high availability as all their components are redundant and thus the continuity of the operation can be guaranteed wherever they are installed, in addition to having the option of gradual growth, you can start with a single node and grow until the chassis is full.

Incentivized

Very user friendly and great interface.

Incentivized

The first line CE team is phenomenal. They are helpful, friendly, and knowledgeable. We have had less luck with the responsiveness of the tax department. However, their response time has improved drastically over the past year.

Incentivized

Implementation took some time but was pretty much error free.

Data Domain is one of the most impressive things in the world. The possibility to reduce our backup size, and deliver without any losses back it's just impressive. I understand and it's easy for everyone to understand how it works, but looking in front of you, following the process, and seeing an entire VM return after a disaster recovery in 10 minutes is a dream come true.

Incentivized

I like that they are not so big that they ignore the small customers. They are also reasonably priced. Their support is excellent, I had worked with ADP in a prior position, and we did not have the same kind of support

• Rather than launching multiple Windows or VNC sessions to monitor multiple servers, you can use the application's remote management capability instead.
• Our IT department was able to more quickly and easily acquire buy-in for necessary expenditures and accomplish other goals.
• True cost savings require figuring in the price of the BladeCenter itself, which may seem exorbitant at first glance.

Incentivized

• Associates can easily access their data and make changes to things like their address and direct deposit, saving manager time to focus on more critical tasks within the organization
• NetRecruitier has one site that can be posted to multiple job boards with one applicant tracking system
• Electronic Onboarding allows us to get information out to the new employee so we can start with expectations on their first day and they know what to expect.