FlexPod XCS vs Vblock [EOL] comparison

"Because we use it everywhere, it is standard to set up. Therefore, if you can manage the set up in one place, then you can manage the whole infrastructure."

"It is an easy, straightforward system to set up and maintain."

"FlexPod is the primary solution we recommend for clients with high-availability server requirements. Our clients find FlexPod's management helpful. You can manage everything via plugins."

"I have never seen a more resilient HA product out there then NetApp's solution. If I want to know that I'm putting my workload on a solution, from a storage perspective, that is going to be up 100% of the time, I'm going to choose NetApp."

"The most valuable features are the CVDs and the support behind it from both companies."

"Going from the old monolithic server and silo storage that they used to use is an improvement. With the FlexPod solution, just being able to manage and monitor the overall environment helps."

"We initially started out with siloed clusters and now we've been able to cluster everything together so that we have multiple nodes in our clusters. We have multiples on different data in different data centers. We've able to do replication between data centers. That's been very beneficial for us as we look to derive a mature DR model."

"I see the most value in the UCS portion. I love Cisco UCS."

"The component integration means I don't have to worry about technology mismatches."

"Systems run solidly."

"​We have seen measurable increases in our system performance. Those increases have been directly measurable in application performance and the delivery of critical business information to our users.​"

"It's an integrated box Mac solution, so it's a plug and play. The deployment and build is pre-made and ready to deploy. It makes it easy to apply."

"The most valuable features are reliability and high availability."

"Finding a fully bundled, deployed, and configured solution with a short delivery time and unique support is really attractive."

"The high redundancy of components has minimized frequent service degradation/failure."

"Some of the key features are the ease of operation and access, without constraining actions. The tool is available to actually move things around, do things quickly quickly."

"Sometimes, when the newer versions of any of the partners’ firmware or software come out, there's still sometimes a lag of the partners to support all of those new components."

"The networking configurations with UCS need improvement."

"There is a history of issues with hardware availability. For example, we'll buy an array or a filer with a particular configuration and particular size of drive, sizing it appropriately. Then, as we grow, they're like, "Oh, you can always get more." Then when you go to get more, that model or type of disk is no longer available. It becomes this big process to try to figure out what we need to get, how it'll work, and how that'll integrate into the system. That could be simpler. They could do a bit more to guarantee the availability of parts. Obviously, not being the largest storage vendor, I know they can't sometimes control what the hardware vendors do. However, a bit more transparency and communication about this would be helpful."

"With the UCS X-Series, I would like to see the fabric interconnects in the chassis. Instead of hanging out so the chassis is 7U, you are increasing your footprint to 9U with the fabric enhancer, where some of the competing solutions are 7U and have collapsed that network fabric into the chassis. This is another thing that I would like to see from Cisco, though not really on the NetApp side since that is pretty solid."

"The biggest thing that I would like to see is more cost-effective FlexPod solutions."

"We have experienced issues with patching. When there are Cisco releases, there are some vulnerabilities, i.e., security vulnerabilities. We are as a financial company and need to be on top patching. As a company, we cannot have continuous downtime to do patching, which is a challenge that we have faced."

"With the next solution, if there is a virtual Flex part where we can deploy it to private clouds or in public clouds rather tying up the hardware, it would reduce costs and complexity. Then, we could do a lot more automation."

"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 integration with other vendors' products needs to be looked at. It's not as flexible as we would like it to be."

"Improve the patching process and timeliness of updates/releases."

"In the next release, I would like to see a smaller footprint in the data center and have improvements to disk performance."

"The user control could be more advanced. They should work to improve this in future releases."

"The implementation and support could be better."

"VCE tools, like Vision or AMP were not stand alone, and depended too much on other management consoles."

"Troublesome relationships with VCE at the beginning of our use came undone quickly after we went live."

"Tighter alignment could simplify and speed up the configuration and delivery process.​"

"The FlexPod licensing can adjust to your purse, i.e. there are different levels available for businesses of all sizes."

"We pay approximately $1,400 USD in total for between five-thousand and ten-thousand ports."

"We have saved time with Snapshots, SnapMirrors, and backup and DR capabilities versus other platforms that we have looked at in the past."

"It has saved us hundreds of man-hours by using this converged infrastructure."

"We have seen a five to ten percent savings on new service deployments."

"We have saved time, money, space, and power consumption on new service deployments. We have a data center in Toronto which had ten racks on one of the new servers. This was all reduced to two racks with six chassis, which is amazing."

"It is expensive. My company is small. When you look at the price point, this is a big thing for us to invest in."

"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."

"I would not say the pricing is not good value. It is still on the expensive side, near the top-end of cost compared to what's available now. Also, the licensing has to be improved. There has to be a clear definition of the licensing from the initial set-up so the customer knows what they are paying for, without being hit later on with extra licensing. The licensing definitions should be clearer and, perhaps, have one set of licenses rather than multiple licenses."

"Strive for a consolidated ELA."

"The paid support for Vblock is expensive."

"Related to tech support: I believe it is too expensive."

"I think the pricing is on the higher end of the spectrum. There could be some adjustments that could be made there. Regarding licensing, watch compatibility with external products that you run on Vblock. It has got to be properly architected, otherwise, you will run into licensing issues."

"Vblock appears from the first while to be very expensive. There are more items you cannot see in the BOQ: customer service, support, delivery short time, and highly experienced VCE engineers."

"It is not cheap."

"Vblock is priced at a premium because people don't want the headache of managing and deploying different products."