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FlexPod XCS vs Huawei FusionStorage comparison

 

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 (5th)
Huawei FusionStorage
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Storage (16th), File and Object Storage (19th)
 

Mindshare comparison

FlexPod XCS and Huawei FusionStorage aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. FlexPod XCS is designed for Converged Infrastructure and holds a mindshare of 9.2%, down 9.7% compared to last year.
Huawei FusionStorage, on the other hand, focuses on Cloud Storage, holds 1.9% mindshare, up 1.1% since last year.
Converged Infrastructure
Cloud Storage
 

Featured Reviews

John Kevin - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Wondwossen Abebe Kebede - PeerSpot reviewer
Reliable platform that integrates well with different IT infrastructures and systems
The product integrates well with different IT infrastructures and systems in the telecom sector. Our partners manage services, including detailed integration and migration-related operations. The platform upholds the uptime and reliability of our business applications. We classify our systems into different tiers, ranging from machine-critical to business-critical, and FusionStorage helps us run all the services. It delivers a remarkable uptime of 99.9%. With our expectations for continuous service availability, we are operating 24/7. In cases where system interruptions occur, it enables rapid restoration, ensuring a prompt return to normal service levels. I rate it an eight out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We have absolutely been able to save space."
"The vendor delivers a fully-configured prebuilt system with a certain baseline on it."
"Backup, restore, and ease of deployment are the most valuable features."
"The solution is innovative when it comes to compute storage and networking. Each environment has knowledge of another in a FlexPod environment. This would be difficult to operate separately."
"The biggest lesson that I have learned from this solution is the ease of actually setting it up and learning it."
"The data is available, compressed, and deduped."
"I really like the architecture and I like the fact that on the storage side I can swap it out. Right now I'm on NetApp, I might go to Pure Storage. I have the flexibility. But as far as the equipment itself, the way it's all bundled together, from the UCS perspective, its rock solid."
"It is an easy, straightforward system to set up and maintain."
"In cases where system interruptions occur, it enables rapid restoration, ensuring a prompt return to normal service levels."
"It is a stable solution."
"The product has a very simple GUI-based management platform and it is very simple to use. There is a very easy step-by-step configuration procedure that guides you through, and you can configure it very easily."
"The solution’s most valuable feature is its performance."
"Huawei FusionStorage does well in its basic functions and offers broad utility."
"Provides easy access to our data."
 

Cons

"On the UCS side, sometimes it is difficult to set up."
"Installation with FlexPod is a bit complex, but it can be upgraded easily. I think Flexpod is phasing out, but it is still the right solution."
"The initial setup for FlexPod is complex."
"I would like to see more interoperability within FlexPods. This comes into more of how we grow from multiple domains to a massive domain."
"Unified management would be really nice, having one a single pane of glass to manage everything do with the solution."
"I think they are working on it, but I would like to be able to log into a portal and see the end-to-end solution and understand where it stands, from a supportability perspective."
"If they could reduce some of the complexity at the system manager level for ONTAP. I find it gives a lot of flexibility. You can do as much or as little as you want. But to be able to do as little as you want, you do have to do a lot. So, if they could bring that down to a more manageable effort level, that would be nice and simplify it a bit."
"The upgrades should be improved. We would like to have the ability to do unified upgrades of the whole infrastructure from beginning to end."
"The product needs improvement in terms of affordability."
"The initial setup and installation is not that straightforward. It should be made easier and the time to install should be reduced."
"The problem with Huawei is that it generally oversells. As a principle, Huawei does not educate the partner or the end user enough to scale up their solution correctly."
"Their cloud services could be improved."
"The solution’s support could be improved."
"I hope for improvements in the product's processing ability and performance."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The scalability is very good. I wish it was a more cost-effective, but you get what you pay for."
"The total cost of ownership with this solution is good."
"We definitely saw a lot of operational cost savings using FlexPod. As far as capital outlay goes, that was a little bit too much for us to swallow and we weren't able to recognize enough savings in that area to afford it."
"Overall, the solution works pretty well. The biggest complaint I have from customers is the cost."
"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 can just swap in new equipment or hardware as we need, which has probably saved us several weeks."
"Everything is purchased, so we do not do any leasing with this product."
"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."
"If one is a cheap solution and ten means it is a very expensive product, I would rate the price as two or three."
"It is expensive but might be optimal based on the partnership."
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Comparison Review

it_user244362 - PeerSpot reviewer
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
Manufacturing Company
20%
Educational Organization
13%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Computer Software Company
13%
Retailer
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about FlexPod?
The system is designed for easy scaling. Because we define everything clearly. So when we plug the system in, we apply the profile, and it scales easily.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for FlexPod?
The pricing is not cheaper, but stability is more important for us now. We focus on business gains, not static numbers. Following XCS rules ensures a stable environment, which is crucial. For me, C...
What needs improvement with FlexPod?
FlexPod should focus more on automation. Integrating an automation tool with FlexPod would enable customers to leverage automation capabilities. More automation would be helpful. Currently, we cont...
What do you like most about Huawei FusionStorage?
In cases where system interruptions occur, it enables rapid restoration, ensuring a prompt return to normal service levels.
What needs improvement with Huawei FusionStorage?
The solution’s support could be improved.
What is your primary use case for Huawei FusionStorage?
Huawei FusionStorage provides a scalable, high-performance, and highly available distributed storage solution designed to support critical enterprise applications and big data workloads. We deploye...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

University of Sao Paulo, WD-40, The Commonwell Mutual Insurance Group
China Merchants Bank, Liaoning, Zhejiang
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Oracle and others in Converged Infrastructure. Updated: June 2025.
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