FlexPod XCS Reviews

Our primary use case for NetApp has been as part of a Cisco UCS chassis. We have seven or eight different instances of it now, spread around the world. So far, it has been very reliable, other than a few hard drive failures here and there, but those are expected.

We run a lot of the same OS's so it really saves us a lot on infrastructure cost.

It helped us really jump into the private cloud infrastructure instead of just trying to jump straight into public, which is way more expensive in the long run. That is what most businesses will be looking for in the end. It really is a cost saving when you can keep it in-house.

The flexibility and data deduplication have been the biggest practical applications.

More flash is going to be the biggest thing for us. We use a lot of SaaS currently, but flash is the way to go.

It has been very stable. We've had UCS with NetApp for about six years now and I would venture to say it's "five nines" so far.

We typically add a new chassis about every six months, so it's very scalable.

I haven't personally used the technical support, but we do have a few people who worked for NetApp who have come to work for us. Their interactions with NetApp have been great.

FlexPod was really our first major endeavor in large converged hardware.

Our most important criteria when selecting a vendor are the availability of support, to get it when we need it, and to upgrade as fast as possible when we need to.

I was involved in the Initial design and configuration. It was as straightforward as it gets.

We were looking at EMC as well. At the time, Cisco was partnered with both, but we went for the data deduplication from NetApp. EMC wasn't quite the same.

It doesn't really get simpler than the setup that we had, and the maintenance that we have had. I would tell colleagues that NetApp is the way to go.

My primary use case for FlexPod is for usage at our remote and small branch offices.

It has had a big, positive impact, because now everything is centralized. I do not have to have a storage or network admin, nor a hypervisor. Everything is preconfigured. Therefore, we can ship it and manage it remotely from any server. It is all in a box. 

We have been very impressed with it.

The biggest challenge that FlexPod helped me with: Now, I am not replying everyone at all my remote locations. I have approximately 38 small offices. Previously, I provided a lot of physical service, and replied to people. 

How I fixed the issue: I configure a FlexPod. I will ship it. I will install it. Then, everything I can, I will manage from my main office. Thus, I reply to fewer people at all my locations.

We would like something like a FlexPod Express; we want a smaller version for small offices. At the moment, we have medium and larger offices, plus data centers, but we are also looking for something for smaller offices. A smaller, customizable, express solution, which would fulfill our local, small office needs.

I want to use the expansion to its fullest extent, scaling by deploying 10 to 15 virtual missions in a given FlexPod. Right now, all my virtual missions are approximately five or less, which does not appear to be utilizing the product fully. I want to have scalability in any situation, even during major outages. 

We have been using it for the last four years. It has not had any outages yet, and I have had about eight deployments so far.

I use FlexPod for small remote offices. I do not come across scalability often because I have a three node minimum, which is working out well. If we want to scale, we would need a lot of technical assessment. However, from what I have read and heard, it is easy to scale, so it should not be a problem.

Once in a while, we do call Cisco. Sometimes Cisco will transfer call to NetApp. Sometimes my admins, by default, will call NetApp. Either way, it works fine. No one pushes back and says, "Why did you call Cisco or NetApp?" Both companies partner behind the scenes getting us the support that we need and help guide us through the process.

We did not have a previous solution. We used to use Dell, IBM, and HPE machines, which were all old. We used to always have a lot of problems with other domain controllers, file servers, DNS, and DNCP. 

Everything is now in FlexPod and virtual. It is always up and running.

The initial setup is pretty straightforward. We do leverage a reseller to size it. Our partners are RoundTower and WWT. They configure the sizing, then they install the basic hardware. Afterwards, they will ship it to us. 

We configure the hypervisor and storage network, then we ship it to branch office.

We are looking at the Dell solution, and also we are looking at Cisco Flex. 

Right now, there is no immediate need to switch over.

This is the best hyperconverged infrastructure. No need to be worried (or scared) on how these three solutions will sit in a box. Everything is prepackaged and rebuilt. It is seamless when you want to install or ship it. No complaints.

Most important criteria when working with a vendor: We were concerned how these three partners, NetApp, Cisco, and VMware, would come together for network, storage, and compute. At the beginning, we were a little concerned. It has been four years now with no issues, and it is going well.

We primarily deploy FlexPod with customers that have defined business requirements. For customers that have used it in the past, we basically rinse and repeat because they do like the product and reuse it continually.

For our support side, our service desk, it's very helpful. They've got a single point of contact. They know what the solution looks like. It's a consistent experience for them as well.

The most valuable features are that the solution is vetted and validated and it's supported end-to-end.

I was speaking to some product managers at NetApp yesterday, which is good. There are apparently some new products coming around the whole FlexPod side of things with regards to auditing, to ensure everything is configured correctly. It's basically a "delta" if there have been any changes. It's important to us, from a support perspective, to know if there have been changes and what impact they have actually had.

It's stable. I haven't had any issues at all.

Scalability is not something we have really hit. We generally deploy on the smaller side of things, but we haven't had any issues with size or anything like that.

We haven't called NetApp directly but we get tech support through Cisco and we get absolutely great support from them. They guide us from A to Z.

We didn't work with a previous solution. Our background was all Cisco networking. Then, when Cisco came into the compute market we moved into it.

When selecting a vendor my most important criteria are support and validated designs.

There are a lot of components to it, but setting up FlexPod is what we do every day, so it is easy enough for us to go through and do. We've got some intellectual property that we have built around it, but it becomes second nature.

My advice is to reach out to people who have used it. It's a good solution and the proof is from the users who use it.

I would rate it a nine, close to a 10 out of 10. The support is great. It's a validated solution. It's the best-of-breed of all the products that are in the FlexPod as well. It's just a great solution for us.

We primarily use it to provide compute resources for customers. It is basically a data center in a box, and it performs very well for us.

The biggest benefit for us, as a partner, is the ease of implementing it. Because the configuration tends to be relatively consistent, we have a series of configuration templates that we can just pretty much stamp out on demand. I can do an entire data to center deployment in under a day now.

It scales well. It allows us to have very flexible architecture but to have the same level of simplicity that we'd normally expect in hyper-converged environments.

I'd like to see a little bit simpler management pane. Using UCS Director to front everything is good and UCS Director is a good product and it's priced well for what it does, but for a lot of that upper mid-market, it's probably a little bit of overkill for what they need. They just want a nice, simply portal to go through and see what's going on. So if there was something that was middle of the road, it would be well received.

The stability has been awesome.

Technical support is very good. We've been very happy with the response we've received. I feel they guide us through the entire process. I don't necessarily get the right person the first time when calling, but I don't think you ever get that with a Support Desk.

We were just building stacks by hand. We were strongly encouraged by Cisco - we partner with them - and when the platform began to get some traction, we looked into it and got on board.

For me, the most important thing when working with a vendor is the flexibility. We have great partner relationships with Cisco and NetApp, but it's the flexibility of the platform and the product, the way we can sell and implement it, that makes it really easy for us.

The setup is not complex but there are a lot of moving pieces. There are a lot of components to go through and touch and configure the very first time, but once you get a couple under your belt it's very easy to go through and stamp it out from there. If you follow the standardized templates and the design guides, it takes a lot of the work out of it.

My advice is to read the design guides, that is the most important thing. Also, work with an integrator wherever possible.

I rate FlexPod an eight out of 10. If there was a simpler management pane, maybe a little bit more flexibility in terms of multiple hypervisors in a single deployment, I would rate it higher. But aside from those issues, we're very happy.

What we wanted to do with the FlexPod solution was get VMware, our NetApp, and Cisco solutions, all in one. Also, to be able to take all of our physical servers and move them into a virtual environment, which we were able to accomplish.

It took a server room where we had 280 servers and another with 180 and condensed them from 15 racks down to three racks. It's helping us in the data center with all our environmentals: we're talking about heat, air conditioning, our FM200s, all of that. It brought all of those down, so we're saving money there. Plus, we're saving money in support because we're condensing it all down. In addition, we're getting the ability of VMware, which is virtualization, so now we have redundancy on all of our boxes, instead of them being physical.

One of the most valuable things is the support. The reason for the FlexPod was that we didn't want solutions where everybody was pointing the finger at each other, blaming each other. With this solution, NetApp really takes control and really wraps its support around the whole solution. It gives us the ability to call one place and to get support and get the product up and running, smoothly.

In terms of features for a future release, that's more for my engineers to answer rather than me. For me, right now, no complaints. My big thing is getting the complaints - they come to me - and since we went to this system, we've had no complaints.

We have had it up now for about two years and we haven't had a problem with it yet.

We have already scaled it. In the last two years, we've already extended out with more hard drive space, with more memory, with more processing power. No problems whatsoever.

Their support is absolutely up to par. I even like their automation support. This morning, I got an email saying that one of our drives had a problem, and they were going to replace the drive. They send it to us and then they show us how to put it in.

We were using all standalone solutions. We had Dell standalones, we had HPE standalones, etc. The problem with the standalones was, if one box went down, whatever application was on it went down too.

When this whole age of virtualization came out, I made the choice that we needed to go that way, for a couple of reason. We have a slim IT department, our resources are valuable, and this allows us to put resources in other places and not have to worry about the technology.

What I like, when choosing a vendor is when they bring solutions to the table, and then they go through with those solutions.

I wasn't involved personally in the initial setup but my staff was. It was very simple. We got on with NetApp, we got the Cisco guys together, we got our VM guys together. NetApp really took the lead and just pushed us through. So it was a very simple setup.

We had all of the options, but not as a FlexPod, rather as separate solutions. We were looking at VM, we were looking at HPE, and this solution brought it all together in a nice little package for us.

Definitely go with FlexPod. It's a great solution, especially with - I keep bringing up NetApp - but NetApp is a great company to work with. They really take the lead. I think it's worthwhile. You'll take your server farm from 200, or however many you have, condense it into one virtual environment, with the backing of Cisco, with the backing of NetApp. I think it's a perfect solution.

I would rate FlexPod a 10 out of 10, absolutely. The best.

We sell FlexPod and enable our customers to leverage it to run their data centers.

Based on the fact that our clients can use code to program the system, they are able to deploy solutions that are a lot more reliable. That enables them to focus more on their business, rather than solving technology problems.

• Flexibility
• Programmability 
• Scalability
  

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. Something like that has been there, in one form or another over the years, but I believe that they're working to make it something that's more well-supported going forward.

It's very stable.

It scales very well, absolutely.

Technical support is knowledgeable, we reach the right person when we contact them. We, ourselves, also provide first-call support for FlexPod.

Setup is very straightforward. We understand the customer requirements. We take those and translate them into the configuration scripts. We can set it up very quickly and reliably and get them into production a lot faster than most traditional solutions.

Our most important criteria when working with or selecting a vendor include their maturity in the market, their customer satisfaction, their NPS score, and their ability to be flexible as a partner to us

I rate FlexPod highly because it was the first converged solution that was supported by all of the vendors at the same time, which is as flexible as it is, from a scalability and supportability perspective.

My advice is to make sure you understand the business requirements and size it appropriately.

We have our primary and backup data centers as our primary storage, not only for Windows Servers on NFS, but also as part of our users' data stores.

It has been a great product, primarily because of a lot of its deduplication features, and the out-of-the-box thinking on block level storage from NetApp, in particular. For the solution as a whole, it is great that all the different products work so well together.

Everyone's willingness to work together to solve problems. We have had a few minor issues where we have been able to get Cisco, NetApp, and VMware all on the phone to solve a problem together. No one points fingers and everyone understands each others' products.

We have had some technical issues around the Java UI, but nothing major.

It has been incredibly stable. As with any technology solutions, there are issues, but we were able to get those resolved very quickly. No one takes, "No," for an answer. We get it handled.

We have had to add some disk shelves to the system over the last couple years. We have never had issues here.

We get a lot of domestic support. We are in Kansas City, and the support office is in Wichita, Kansas. They are three hours away from us. They have never come, but it is great to have that local connection. They do a very good job of taking care of their stuff. They got a lot of pride in their equipment.

We had EMC storage before we got to the NetApp storage. We had a lot of supportability issues. It was an older system, so it was better just to upgrade the system or replace it.

We knew we needed to invest in a new solution when we were replacing four hard drives a day.

The initial setup was very straightforward. They provided a lot of documentation. They provided a lot of drawings as to how to cable it properly, along with a lot of tools, making sure it was set up properly.

I set it up myself.

We purchased from CDW•G. They are great partners on the government side.

I have been a happy NetApp/FlexPod customer for years.

Go through all the training, and make sure you understand all the systems. It is very different than a lot of the other systems. There are intricacies which are important to understand, especially with the duplication providers. Therefore, understanding all the challenges around it is important for long-term support.

Most important criteria when selecting a vendor: A vendor who cares about us as a customer. A vendor who is able to work through every issue, regardless of who is at fault, and solve the problem.

It is where we keep our production network: all our main controllers, accounting applications, and our file servers. They are running on FlexPod.

The virtual environment is a lot more efficient than physical boxes. It allows us to move stuff around a lot, adding resources and removing resources with minimal disruption.

It is a simple turnkey solution.

When we purchased it, we had to configure everything. However, everything was already there. We just cabled it up and started to build the virtual machines (VMs).

It is been pretty stable. We have had it running for over five years now, and have had minimal problems.

It is pretty scalable. It has allowed us to add more stuff very easily.

The technical support is amazing. The NetApp support is really good. We had some problems with the storage, so we contacted them. They jumped right in and were able to take care of the issue quickly.

The solution was already implemented when I arrived at the company.

I was not involved in the initial setup, but sometimes I am involved with upgrades which are challenging. This is because 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. However, the product is very stable and it does what it needs to do.

Make sure you have your NetApp support up-to-date.

Most important criteria when selecting a vendor: reliability, support, and value for money.