Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] vs FlexPod XCS comparison

"Stretch cluster allows us to warranty a service for the customer."

"It is scalable and easy to use."

"The product is easy to manage and flexible for upgrading without major changes."

"Cisco technical support is very skilled. From what I've had to access, there were quick responses and the necessary escalation."

"On the VDI side, because the storage is local to the HyperFlex, it was very easy and convenient. The performance is exceptional."

"It saves space for data centers, which is good."

"It consumes a smaller footprint when I compare it with other competitors."

"The workload can handle anything and has an extended capacity."

"CVDs reduce risks for implementations. We always make sure that all installations are based on best practices."

"The solution has granular scalability."

"The fact that it can run the entire stack in terms of protocols. The integration for most of our customers is VMware; the full-stack integration. Also, the ability to do rapid cloning."

"The most valuable feature is the one call number for support and the fact that all the documentation comes with it. They have all of the preprepared plans for the deployment model and we can just choose which one we want for VMware, etc. The hardware is all listed. We buy that and away we go. It's called validated design."

"The most valuable feature of this solution is the automation point because it's a lot less staff to have to manage it."

"It's amazingly scalable. It just works. It can expand to large MetroClusters and keep expanding."

"I am happy with the stability. I haven't had any major issues with it in four years. This includes upgrades."

"You can add more boxes and you can have more IOPS available if you want. It's very easy to add new hardware to the cluster."

"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."

"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."

"The initial setup can be a bit complex."

"There are sometimes issues with memory failure."

"The initial setup is very complex because there were some issues. It is not clear to how set up this solution."

"We would like HyperFlex to connect the storage directly into Fabric Interconnect along with the features of the solution. We have enough ports in HyperFlex. We don't want to buy another set of switches to connect to Fabric Interconnect, complicating the solution."

"Lacks some integration and documentation could be improved."

"Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series could improve by having the documents be more readily available and the support could be more flexible."

"We have had bugs which have been released, even though they have been minor."

"There have been issues upgrading the firmware."

"I had one problem at the site where I had an aggregate that would not shrink after I had deleted some stuff. It took a few tries to get the right guy on the call. We do have a NetApp SAM with our company, and it really took getting to him to get the solution fixed."

"I would like more orchestration and networking in-between the VMs, the virtualization layer for networking. I would like to see better tools for this."

"We use technical support from time to time. Most of the time if we really need assistance we end up having to get above the tier one support. We're able to do a lot of the tier one troubleshooting on our own."

"The majority of the time, if we need more storage, then we need to work with customizing the NetApp deployment. Right now, we just do a generic deployment, then wherever we have a need for storage, we have to move some application out of the next FlexPod deployment. One thing is to customize based on the requirements, but the requirements change so frequently, they are absolutely obsolete in six months."

"The initial setup for FlexPod is complex."

"FlexPod will do very well on the average app, but there's room for improvement in performance and the data center side."

"The cost is expensive, but there is a chance to save money in the future."

"The product could be cheaper."

"Initially HyperFlex was a little costly, it was higher, but Cisco wanted to get into our company, so they gave us a fair discount."

"The pricing is a bit expensive."

"For customers in the private sector, this product can have a very high return on investment."

"Our licensing is Hybrid. We have all of our applications for billing and outage management through this."

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

"It is highly priced compared to other vendors."

"We have saved time and money for new service deployments. Without FlexPod, it probably takes about ten hours. With FlexPod, within two hours, we are up and running. So, we have seen about an 80 percent time decrease."

"The solution has saved our customers' organization in terms of CapEx. E.g., with the cloud availability, it's turned into sort of a hybrid CapEx/OpEx model."

"We have absolutely seen ROI. We have saved between two to four million dollars on travel alone over the past 24 months."

"It is cheaper than other products. For example, Dell EMC VxBlock is more expensive."

"Coming from a rack and stack server model to FlexPod, it has saved us a lot of time (approximately hundreds to thousands of hours)."

"Because the solution is now stable, we are saving about $100 million USD a year."

"Make sure you are buying for performance, not just capacity."

"The product's pricing is high and I would rate it a nine out of ten."