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FlexPod XCS vs SteelFusion comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

FlexPod XCS
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
295
Ranking in other categories
Converged Infrastructure (2nd)
SteelFusion
Average Rating
9.0
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
HCI (30th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Storage Solutions solutions, they serve different purposes. FlexPod XCS is designed for Converged Infrastructure and holds a mindshare of 12.7%, up 12.0% compared to last year.
SteelFusion, on the other hand, focuses on HCI, holds 1.4% mindshare, up 0.4% since last year.
Converged Infrastructure Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
FlexPod XCS12.7%
HPE ConvergedSystem11.0%
Dell VxBlock System9.5%
Other66.8%
Converged Infrastructure
HCI Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SteelFusion1.4%
VxRail9.3%
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)9.0%
Other80.3%
HCI
 

Featured Reviews

John Kevin - PeerSpot reviewer
Data Scientist Assistant at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees
Enforces standardized setup procedures following Certified Validated Design (CVD) guidelines and offers greater flexibility and control over the system compared to traditional systems
The GUI setup follows the right setup, meaning we have to follow the CVDi.e. Certified Validated Design. Everything is clear, because you can build CI yourself, but without rules, it can be messy. With FlexPod, there are rules to follow, making it more standardized. This helps with troubleshooting and compatibility assessments, simplifying troubleshooting significantly. We also use FlexPod pre-validated architectures to validate the design. It is very, very important to us because we had a bad case in 2015 where separate items integrated poorly due to no version or firmware compatibility certification. Troubleshooting became a nightmare. So, standards are crucial for us, and everything entering production should be verified or at least documented for certification.
it_user866178 - PeerSpot reviewer
Chief Technology Officer at MAZZETTI+GBA
Sync to Central and edge protection mitigate my risk in our branch offices
The level of tech support depends on who you get. There are some techs that just read the script and ask you if you’ve rebooted, but once you get past that - or if you have a very technical issue - the support is great. They really know the product and get you up and running again ASAP.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The Cisco Validated Designs are the most valuable feature along with the Industry-leading technology, put together; and the fact that it just works."
"We haven't had one UCS or NetApp hardware problem on any of the FlexPods the whole time."
"The solution’s unified support for the entire stack provides one stop shopping."
"Due to the way the equipment is all together, with its resiliency, typically we have zero downtime."
"Any single point of failure has been removed from the FlexPods, so they all have multiple redundancies built-in."
"I run all the critical applications for the university on my FlexPod solution; it needs to be up 24/7, 365, I don't need "five nines," I need "eight nines" - and it stays up."
"FlexPod is definitely easy to deploy and go with."
"The biggest benefit for us, as a partner, is the ease of implementing it."
"Sync to Central and edge protection mitigate my risk in our branch offices. All services that need to be local to the user exist on local servers. Users run applications and access data locally while the data is constantly being synced to Central, and protected. If an edge device fails, we can recover quickly."
"That is why Riverbed SteelFusion has delivered a masterclass technology that not only abstracted and virtualized the storage vendors’ unique logical storage structures, it has made it logically closer and seamless to the branch applications from a performance and experience perspective."
 

Cons

"As we do much of the Tier-I support ourselves, and thus don't normally need it, there is time wasted in moving up to the next level."
"There is a lot of documentation that has to be reviewed before you go through an upgrade. It is not as straightforward as some other solutions."
"Since 2018 or 2019, maybe due to COVID and the chipsets, my DIMMs are dying left and right."
"Support could be more integrated. For example, you might call NetApp, and they'll determine that VMware is the issue. It would be helpful if they could automatically engage VMware and bring them onto the same call to transfer ticket information and work together."
"I would like to see improvements in the documentation. I understanding how things are coming together and a lot of that is from the UCS side."
"The procedure for contacting technical support could be simplified."
"FlexPod was born to be used like building-block elements, to create large EDP premises. If used to create a single FlexPod CED, optional operational collaterals (backup, management, etc.) are missing, both in docs and in design."
"This is an expensive solution."
"Setting up disks for use is a multi-step process that could use some refinement. Setting up a core-to-core replication or DR strategy is also cumbersome."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The footprint in the data center is quite large, especially when you scale out. Maybe find some hardware in the future, where if a new blade comes out, then Cisco can say, "Look, we'll buy those blades back off you, and we'll give you this blade for X amount of money." A buyback scheme would be good for hardware, and even NetApp as well. Something like a buyback scheme for blades and stuff moving forward would be good, because I know that they're going to put more power into them. E.g., replacing four blades might equal one blade, which would be awesome, but we are still going to have those four blades around. Maybe having something where it will give you this much money for these blades so we can upgrade. That would be perfect."
"Everything is purchased, so we do not do any leasing with this product."
"We pay approximately $1,400 USD in total for between five-thousand and ten-thousand ports."
"The product is kind of expensive even from an entry-level standpoint. I would say FlexPod would be the way to go if you are a larger business or one with large data volume."
"We have saved time and money for new service deployments."
"We have seen an 80 percent improvement in application performance."
"Pricing and licensing is very affordable from a FlexPod perspective."
"You get better management and orchestration, but it still costs you money."
"Price is an issue – this is expensive stuff. My advice is to beat up Riverbed as much as possible on price. These things are expensive and there is room for negotiation."
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Comparison Review

it_user244362 - PeerSpot reviewer
Managing Consultant with 51-200 employees
Aug 30, 2015
Nutanix vs. VMware EVO:RAIL vs. FlexPod
Originally posted at www.storagegaga.com/dont-get-too-drunk-on-hyper-converged/ I hate the fact that I am bursting the big bubble brewing about Hyper Convergence (HC). I urge all to look past the hot air and hype frenzy that are going on, because in the end, the HC platforms have to be aligned…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Construction Company
10%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business35
Midsize Enterprise66
Large Enterprise182
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

University of Sao Paulo, WD-40, The Commonwell Mutual Insurance Group
Roxtec, Engen, Bobst, CBP, IUCN, Mahoning County, Kentucky Transportation Cabinet
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, NetApp, Rackspace Technology and others in Converged Infrastructure. Updated: October 2026.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.