FlexPod XCS Reviews

We run our VDI system on FlexPod, so I like the fact that it's easy to make changes to it. It was really easy to install, setup and get users involved. The user experience is really cool because you can bring up desktops on Apple, Windows and Linux systems. It really solved a lot of problems.

It solved a big problem for us; it solved a big user contention issue that we had with file stores and user data all over the place. Now, it's all centralized.

The only thing that comes to mind is more hooks in the Citrix side for working with Citrix more interactively. Speaking from the storage side, it is very straight forward and it's just like allocating storage for any other device in your environment, which is really cool.

Improving integration between the different interfaces would possibly help us. The thing about FlexPod is that you don't have to do any architecture to it; it solves the problem. You plug it in, and it solves the problem for you. It's hard to comment on where to take it to the next level. If we’re going to take it to the next level, being an engineer, I'd redesign the whole thing. :)

It's really good; it's very good the way it is. It's a great solution to an existing problem.

It’s been stable; it's been great. We've got great up time with the NetApp storage. The UCS servers are rock solid.

We have not had any scalability issues yet. We're probably six, seven or eight months into it, and we don't really have an expansion plan for it at this point.

I have not used technical support for this product in particular.

The previous solution was just a standard desktop Windows laptops and desktops platform and we just moved our users to FlexPod. We had user, data and file shares all over the place; now they're in a central location. The user experience for desktops was haphazard and they were getting a lot of different calls to the help desk on different issues with individual work stations. Now, if there's a problem, it's going to be a generic problem for everyone but it's a lot easier to troubleshoot a desktop issue or roll out another application for a user. It's very easy to add an application. I think it's a great productivity and time-saving tool.

From the outside, initial setup looked very, very complex but with FlexPod and everything being together in one unit, it actually makes it very easy, very simple to implement. I think that it was a little complex but it went very smoothly in the implementation and installation.

We have a relationship with NetApp and EMC, and it was kind of a pure play to go with NetApp. We have a Cisco relationship, also, and we have some in-house Citrix talent or skill sets, so it was easy to make that choice.

As far as some of the important criteria I look for in a vendor, we've got a relationship with our NetApp vendor. I can only really address the storage side because my interaction is only from the storage side. I usually don't deal with the UCS server side, the VMware side, or the Citrix side. I really can't comment on those but we've got a really good relationship with NetApp itself. They help to drive the purchase and make it easy for us in purchasing.

Work closely with your vendor. From the storage side – I always start with storage – you need to build a team that includes VMware, the storage people, the Citrix guys and someone who knows UCS. Once you have that team in place, your things are going to go very, very smoothly.

We haven't really had to look at expanding it but, I can see that it'll be an interesting experience doing expansion on the storage side, so I think four stars would be accurate for usability and implementation.

The most valuable feature of the solution is that it combines storage and server – very streamlined, very flexible, and built upon reliability.

It reduces the operational costs with just one platform to manage. It’s a seamless integration between three different products: servers, storage and switches.

I think that allowing faster certification times on newer codes on both Cisco and NetApp sides could be good as this is a pain point. They need to make certification more streamlined.

It's very stable and there's very few issues with it because it’s a certified product in which all the components work together.

It's very scalable so you can add more server, networking or storage infrastructure, or just add more FlexPods. You can add another FlexPod and have the same features, reliability and scalability with no issues.

Phenomenal – you can work through Cisco or Netapp and they will get the right people involved. The customer doesn’t need to call three people – it’s one entry point per customer.

It's deployed by NetApp or Cisco, so a lot of FlexPods are done through a partner so there is a single point of contact for the customers.

The most valuable feature is the reference architecture, which helps to standardize our computer stack.

It has helped us standardize what we get in terms of purchasing hardware, around VMware and Cisco, and the computing system.

I think that a unified dashboard would be beneficial across all three of the components to show you the status of all three components.

It’s extremely stable. Rock solid in our experience.

It has been very scalable – our guys scale it across six sites right now.

Good, the relationship between the three companies has been very good. It is not a case where one vendor dumps you off on the other; all companies involved have good information about the other companies involved in the product.

For our setup and deployment we put together a solution using all three components, and then they came out with the reference architecture so we standardized the system.

Peer reviews are very important because you want to know what experiences other people are having.

NetApp’s scalability and high fault tolerance are features that we, in our organization, like about deploying NetApp’s NAS solutions.

We designed and installed NetApps FAS8040 dual controllers with FAS4246 and FAS2246 Storage Disk to provide NAS for the Cisco UCS 5100 system and has provided our client the ability to easily provision virtual machines and storage to those virtual machines.

Product price is always a concern.

I've used it for one year.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

10/10

10/10 - NetApp’s service support personnel were excellent in getting us the help we needed.

No previous solution was used.

NetApp’s documentation helped us with the initial setup and configuration. Great documentation always leads to better designs and better operations and maintenance experience.

We worked with a vendor and had a successful implementation.

No other options were looked at.

NetApp’s FAS system is an excellent line of product. In today’s world the need for virtualization is continuingly increasing. Therefore having a storage platform that can be flexible in terms of configuration and scalability it’s important to the successful deployment of virtualization in the datacenter.

It’s basically very scalable and reliable. Also, the total cost of ownership is low. It’s an effective solution for any company, and it fits for our needs.

It's easy to deploy, and efficient. The efficiency in thin provisioning and deduplication has suited all sorts of applications in our business.

Awareness amongst the customers could be better. Also, the customer base, enhanced blogs and discussions are needed, as there's a small user base right now.

Stability is 100% or 99.99999%, 24/7/365.

It's very scalable, and its horizontal scalability is great.

Excellent whenever you call you can speak to either NetApp, Cisco or VMware and they are all great.

Straightforward, very systematic and streamlined. A lot of centralized virtual desktops.

We looked at a lot of vendors, but we selected this because it seems to be a strong business going forward.

The fact that it’s a validated design, so you are not running into any gotchas.

By having a FlexPod we're able to call a vendor and they can use back channels and reach out to other two vendors to get us a solution, instead of each vendor passing the blame from one to another. It's one stop shopping.

The price.

It's very stable, and just runs and runs and runs until you upgrade something.

It's very easy to grow and very simple. There's nothing major to add more chassis and blades, or storage if you need to.

Their support is dynamite, and it's a lot easier to escalate with NetApp than with VMware. VMware has taken us a lot longer than with NetApp.

It’s very complex if you’re new to it, but once you’ve done it its pretty easy.

I would like it to be cheaper but other than that nothing to add. As much as I can try to get the price lower, why should I have to negotiate in the first place?

I would say do it, do it now. Spend the money and buy it, it makes it easy.

The ease of configuration and the reliability are the most valuable features.

Every deployment we’ve done has been on FlexPod. The ease of configuration saves us a lot of time and we can stand up in remote offices without highly-trained people.

I think the support has been our pain point, the hardware and setup are pretty good, and solid but the support could be improved. We always tell them about that.

We’ve been using it since 2009.

So far it’s been really good. It was rough for the first year or so on the Cisco side but last couple of years it’s been pretty stable.

It’s really easy to scale out, and I feel like it scales very well.

It's gotten better, as it was rough at the start. On the NetApp side they will open up the case for you with the other vendors. I had experiences where they didn’t know why we were calling or what a FlexPod was, but that was years ago and since then it has gotten far more streamlined.

Very straightforward and easy.

Peer reviews are not as important as user conferences but market research is there for a reason.

The fact that it’s a validated design, that’s the most valuable feature, plus it has a single point of contact for support.

It’s the single point of support, so you don’t get handed off. If you have a problem with a piece of it, you don’t get one of the vendors saying “it's their problem.”

I really don’t have anything. It's what we use, we have four in our main site, and two in our disaster recovery site.

It's hyper stable.

It’s as scalable as you want to make it. We have not had an issue yet where we couldn’t grow to scale.

It’s top notch because of that single point of contact. Our provider will escalate the call for us.

Initial setup is complex as it’s a complex solution, but it’s a validated design so it all comes ready to assemble.

We bring in support to set up, so we used a vendor team to help deploy.

I’d advise them to get one that’s bigger than you need obviously, the nature of the sheer growth that the industry is seeing is logarithmic not linear.