Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] vs NetApp HCI [EOL] comparison

"Its most valuable feature is its flexibility."

"Support is very responsive."

"The automation is a valuable feature, it's interesting."

"The management feature is the solution's most valuable aspect."

"Cisco HyperFlex HX has improved the way our organization functions on the storage side by having one big storage space for hosting VMs. We do not have to provision other ones. That's a positive aspect of it."

"The most valuable feature of Cisco HyperFlex HX is that it is self-contained."

"It is very scalable. It is also easy to scan."

"The compression and deduplication are very high. Therefore, we can use the size of the product more efficiently than other storage solutions."

"NetApp HCI is used for enterprise-scale hybrid cloud infrastructure and we are using the standard version."

"Our goal with NetApp HCI is to have no single point of failure."

"The scalability is great, because it can scale independently."

"When it comes to DevOps, HCI has saved our organization time and money, especially with the number of resources that we have cut down."

"When you are doing lifecycles for your equipment, you can just swap out pieces of equipment. We used to do one big iron to another big iron, and that's a major migration hassle. Whereas, with this environment, you can go with small nodes, one at a time, and do a refresh."

"The initial setup was straightforward; it was easy and fast to deploy, and NetApp Cloud Manager made getting up and running with Cloud ONTAP amazing, easy to use, simple, and it basically did everything."

"The solution integrates well with all the other applications that we use on our environment."

"This is a strong product and it works very well, and the processes around it continue to grow and mature."

"If we compare it with VMware, the VMware product is basically very open, and it can be easily integrated with any platform. VMware product is also available on the cloud and is not an appliance-based product, whereas Cisco HyperFlex is an appliance-based product. Companies that want to use HCI as a platform or as a service would prefer something without an appliance. A SaaS-based product is better for a customer who is using the cloud and has multiple resources, workflows, and devices on the cloud and wants to go for a hyper-converged solution. This is where improvement is needed. In addition to an appliance-based product, Cisco should provide a SaaS-based product. Its price should be lower. Cisco needs to work on the pricing model for this product. Its price is a big road blocker when competing against Nutanix and VMware, which are its main competitors."

"It would have been nice if the product provided some cloud integrations."

"Their technical support is very bad. We had an issue where instead of an engineer we got a PDF "doctor" that didn't know anything about our problem which was very frustrating."

"Managing this solution is complex and should be improved."

"Cisco has to continue improve the management tools to provide a better command line interface with more functions. That would be better for administration."

"You cannot just apply the VSXi updates. You are dependent on Cisco HyperFlex for metric services, analytics, and everything else. I don't like that dependency."

"The problem is that we always have to keep an eye out for new releases to make sure that the version we're running is up-to-date."

"It was really painful, and we couldn't sort out the reason."

"Because I like block mode, I'd like to see SAN connectivity. I would like to be able to easily put it into my current environment."

"The price should be lowered. It's a little expensive."

"If you want to have a really dense data center then it's hard to have a big chunk of cabling going through everything."

"It is easy to install now, but could potentially be even simpler."

"I'd like to see some additional graphics capabilities because I'd like to look at some virtual desktop integration for CAD software."

"The deployment process has room for improvement. I would like for it to be a cookie-cutter deployment."

"The setup was a bit challenging because it's a fairly new product and I think some of the stuff is not quite well baked yet."

"The initial setup is very painful. It's not straightforward, requires a lot of knowledge to get it going."

"We negotiated with Cisco and we got some price benefit from that."

"HyperFlex is relatively expensive, but you get good value for money."

"The price is a bit high. It could be better, but the product is worth the cost."

"Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series is expensive. It's a standard license, and we pay for it yearly. I think we pay about 700."

"We have a yearly license."

"There is no additional licensing cost other than the cost for each part."

"The price is a bit too high."

"HyperFlex is a little pricey."

"The price of the solution is okay but could improve."

"The licensing fees are renewed annually."

"Its price is comparable to the competitors in the market."

"Its price is aligned with the market. In addition to the standard licensing fees, there is an integrator cost."

"All the licenses are included when you buy the program."

"This solution reduced our maintenance costs. We were going to have to pay one to two million dollars to put in compute nodes. We are avoiding those costs."

"Where we lost nearly 75 percent of our infrastructure due to a malicious attack and were able to recover two and a half hours into it due to the integration, it saved us and all of our customers. Because we were able to recover so fast from the attack, the solution paid for itself right there."

"There are the overall infrastructure costs. Even though the initial costing was higher, we calculated for year-to-year for five years. That brought us into a position where we decided, we have to go for HCI rather than having distributor systems."