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FlexPod XCS pros and cons

Vendor: NetApp

4.3 out of 5

295 reviews
96% willing to recommend

Pros & Cons summary

FlexPod XCS is a highly scalable solution offering seamless integration with existing systems, including VMware, enhancing virtualization benefits. High availability and redundancy make it reliable for critical operations. Unified support from Cisco and NetApp simplifies issue resolution. Validated design configurations and automation streamline deployment. However, compatibility issues require additional components, and improvements in technical support and visibility are necessary. Initial setup complexity challenges less experienced users, affecting performance and efficiency.

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Prominent pros & cons

PROS

FlexPod XCS is praised for its high availability, providing consistent performance and reliability.

It features convenient scalability, enabling easy expansion and upgrades without disruptions.

The integrated convergence infrastructure offers a unified fabric for LAN and SAN cloud features.

Support is seamless, with unified assistance across Cisco and NetApp components, minimizing downtime and complexity.

FlexPod XCS provides effective storage and resource efficiency, benefiting data management and reducing power consumption.

CONS

FlexPod XCS faces challenges with compatibility issues that arise when integrating newer partners' software and firmware versions, as there is sometimes a delay in support for new components.

Documentation improvements are necessary, particularly concerning how components integrate, predominantly on the UCS side.

Managing multiple systems and infrastructure can be complex, involving various consoles like UCS, VMware, and ESXi installations, leading to difficulty in setup and deployment.

Cisco's support and escalation processes can be time-consuming, and opening cases with FlexPod XCS may require centralization for improved case management.

FlexPod XCS has costly deployment, and finding cost-effective solutions could benefit customers.

FlexPod XCS Pros review quotes

Network Services System Administrator II at a retailer with 1,001-5,000 employees

Dec 3, 2016

High availability is outstanding. We haven't had any problems with that.

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Senior Customer Engineer at a tech services company with 5,001-10,000 employees

Nov 28, 2016

There are very many features, but from experience, the single point of contact for support has been valuable to our customers.

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Architect at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

Jul 10, 2017

From the integration standpoint, it is a lot easier to integrate than a lot of people initially felt. Being able to leverage either block or file capabilities of the storage is something that has been beneficial.

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Senior Engineer at Energysolutions

Oct 8, 2017

This sounds dumb, but it just works. I don't want to have to deal with support, and I don't need to because, again, it has just worked.

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Admin at Tower International

Oct 8, 2017

For anyone who needs the flexibility of moving around profiles from physical device to physical device, it really adds an additional layer of virtualization.

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Systems Infrastructure at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

Oct 8, 2017

We got the product and we have a small environment, but it was able to be scalable to when we started to grow.

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It Specialist at US EPA

Oct 8, 2017

We like it because everything is 10 Gig all the way through, from the storage to the switches to everything else, which is more than we need, and that's great.

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Senior Storage Engineer at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees

Oct 8, 2017

It's less resource-intensive, given that it comes in a package.

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Senior It Analyst at a energy/utilities company

Oct 8, 2017

The benefit is the speed, it's the performance. That's what it comes down to is the performance of the solution.

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System Engineer at Jones Walker Llp

Oct 8, 2017

That it works. That it does exactly what it says on the tin.

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FlexPod XCS Cons review quotes

Network Services System Administrator II at a retailer with 1,001-5,000 employees

Dec 3, 2016

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.

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Senior Customer Engineer at a tech services company with 5,001-10,000 employees

Nov 28, 2016

If you have expertise setting up such environments, then you are good, but for customers or novices, it becomes a nightmare and stuff may actually be left out.

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Architect at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

Jul 10, 2017

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.

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Free Report: FlexPod XCS Reviews and More

Learn what your peers think about FlexPod XCS. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: January 2026.

879,455 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Senior Engineer at Energysolutions

Oct 8, 2017

Upgrades are always scary because you just don't know. Nobody has six or seven different systems sitting around that you can test on before you go into production data.

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Admin at Tower International

Oct 8, 2017

The interface is a little convoluted.

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Systems Infrastructure at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

Oct 8, 2017

A progress bar would...be pretty cool.

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It Specialist at US EPA

Oct 8, 2017

The management interface of the UCS part of it is a little bit clunky. It uses Java, so when we're managing it, if I have a computer that doesn't have Java on it or has the wrong version of Java on it, there's some iterations that have to happen to get into the manager of it.

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Senior Storage Engineer at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees

Oct 8, 2017

Maybe in the future, they could include the HCI solution into the mix.

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Senior It Analyst at a energy/utilities company

Oct 8, 2017

I think they can always improve, whether it's dedupe or compression, those algorithms; and flash through better SSDs.

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System Engineer at Jones Walker Llp

Oct 8, 2017

Automatic tiering would be good to have.

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