FlexPod XCS Reviews

Name: FlexPod XCS
Brand: NetApp
Rating: 4.3 (295 reviews)

4.3 out of 5

295 reviews
96% willing to recommend

What is FlexPod XCS?

FlexPod XCS is the secure platform your applications need from edge to cloud. Easily manage your suite of cloud-native, edge, and enterprise apps. Integrate advanced cloud services without compromising performance, security, reliability, or scale.

Get the FlexPod XCS Buyer's Guide and find out what your peers are saying about FlexPod XCS, Dell PowerEdge VRTX, HPE ConvergedSystem and more!

FlexPod XCS is the #5 ranked solution in top Converged Infrastructure solutions. PeerSpot users give FlexPod XCS an average rating of 8.6 out of 10. FlexPod XCS is most commonly compared to Dell PowerEdge VRTX: FlexPod XCS vs Dell PowerEdge VRTX. FlexPod XCS is popular among the large enterprise segment, accounting for 57% of users researching this solution on PeerSpot. The top industry researching this solution are professionals from a manufacturing company, accounting for 20% of all views.

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Featured FlexPod XCS reviews

John Kevin

Deputy IT Manager at MBBank

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.

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Chris Haight

Sr. Solutions Architect at CDW Canada Inc.

The traditional UCS Blades do not take much storage internally. You would be challenged to create an HCI (Hype converged Infrastructure) solution on FlexPod / UCS or any other solution that pools internal storage. Now, with UCS X-Series, you can carve off an HCI solution, software defined pooled solution if you want. This was one area of improvement that I wanted to see and can now realize with the refresh of the Cisco UCS infrastructure. With modern modular infrastructure, RESTful API has been added, there are more integrations, ServiceNow and vCenter along with tighter plug-ins. There is cross-user interface launching, for example with Windows Admin Center. The solutions are using Ansible and Terraform for deploying infrastructure as code. All the improvements that I wanted from the last gen are here or coming. With modern workloads and GPU use on the rise, adding GPUs to modern modular infrastructure will have some pros and cons. Typically, you can add one or two GPU's to a blade with no or little trade off. With the UCS X-Series, if you are doing a GPU farm, then you may have to sacrifice compute blades in the front slots to put in a GPU tray / module. A chassis holds eight compute blades, but if you are adding a ton of GPUs, a single GPU tray or more will reduce your blade count by as many GPU trays you add. This is not just a Cisco UCS X-Series problem. It is an industry problem with modular infrastructure and one that I would like to see get solved! I am looking into one such solution, VMware BITFUSION where you can send CUDA requests over the network to a BITFUSION server with the results sent back to the requestor, early stages here and only scratched the surface thus far. With Cisco UCS X-Series, I would like to see the fabric interconnects built into the chassis instead of being external. With the fabric interconnects, the real footprint of UCS X-Series is 9U, where some of the competing solutions are 7U and have collapsed the network fabric into the chassis. This is another thing that I would like to see from Cisco, though, not really on the NetApp side of the fence, NetApp is solid storage.

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Christian Schuster

Solution Designer at a logistics company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Key benefits, which our customers like, are the solution's customer service, storage, and ability to do operations. FlexPod's native integration with hyperscalers is very important since every customer is thinking about cloud at some stage. They need to keep in mind that some workloads sometimes go into the cloud, so this flexibility needs to be there. That is why the possibility to choose one of the three hyperscalers is very important. FlexPod’s prevalidated architectures are very important because our technicians can refer to standardized setups. This helps us know how the SAN should be integrated in the perfect way. We totally count on this. I also love the partnership between Cisco and NetApp on this. We have seen at least a 20% increase in operational efforts due to these prevalidated designs. The evolution of the solution with Intersight has been very important for reducing operational costs as well as creating customer trust with validated solutions. The flexibility, operational efficiency, and scalability of FlexPod has been a huge factor for us because our customers have workloads that need to run on classical HTTPs, flash storage, or possibly in the cloud. This flexibility and enhanced ability of the solution is very important for this. We trust in it. The enhanced ability of the solution is the feature where we can add capacity to the compute, if necessary. So, it is good that it is flexible.

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FlexPod XCS mindshare

As of July 2025, the mindshare of FlexPod XCS in the Converged Infrastructure category stands at 9.2%, down from 9.7% compared to the previous year, according to calculations based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Converged Infrastructure

PeerResearch reports based on FlexPod XCS reviews

Type	Title	Date
Category	Converged Infrastructure	Jul 14, 2025	Download
Product	Reviews, tips, and advice from real users	Jul 14, 2025	Download
Comparison	FlexPod XCS vs Dell PowerEdge VRTX	Jul 14, 2025	Download
Comparison	FlexPod XCS vs HPE ConvergedSystem	Jul 14, 2025	Download
Comparison	FlexPod XCS vs Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers	Jul 14, 2025	Download

Title	Rating	Mindshare	Recommending
Dell PowerEdge VRTX	4.2	19.7%	90%	20 interviews Add to research
HPE ConvergedSystem	4.2	17.2%	96%	21 interviews Add to research

Valuable Features

"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."
"The tool's most valuable features are the flexibility and ability to adapt to redundancy."
"One of the most valuable aspects is its integrated convergence infrastructure, particularly the LAN and SAN cloud features that offer a unified fabric."

Room for Improvement

"FlexPod should focus more on automation. Integrating an automation tool with FlexPod would enable customers to leverage automation capabilities."
"FlexPod XCS' pricing could be cheaper. You need to find the right person for support."
"There could be room for improvement in terms of offering more flexibility in CBD options."

ROI

Determining ROI from FlexPod XCS varies significantly due to factors like system size and components. Businesses benefit from reduced downtime, increased productivity, easier management, and enhanced application performance. Users report substantial time and cost savings, particularly in deploying new services and reducing support needs. Data center expenses are minimized through decreased physical space and energy, while operational efficiencies and high user satisfaction are achieved without the necessity for additional staff.

Pricing

"The pricing is not cheaper, but stability is more important for us now. We focus on business gains, not static numbers."
"I find the licensing and pricing structure to be favorable."
"The product's pricing is high and I would rate it a nine out of ten."

Service and Support

FlexPod XCS excels in service and technical support, praised for its efficiency and responsiveness. Users appreciate the unified support from NetApp and Cisco, enabling faster issue resolution without vendor finger-pointing. NetApp's support stands out for its quick response and knowledgeable staff. Some find Cisco's Tier 1 challenging, but better after escalation. FlexPod's single support contact point simplifies experiences, particularly with its seamless integration of multiple technologies. Users value the proactive approach, especially with joint vendor cooperation.

These insights are based on the in-depth reviews provided by peers to help you make a better buying decision.

Download our FlexPod XCS Buyer's Guide for additional reliable information.