FlexPod XCS Reviews

Our customers use this solution. It's a validated design and there's one solution for compute and storage. The validated design is an advantage when you take all of the separate parts.

The flexibility between Cisco and NetApp is valuable. When there are new parts of new devices like the new AFF 400, then the speed is not fast enough to implement what the customer asks for, but the design is not validated. It's faster to validate the design for new equipment.

FlexPod's unified support for the entire stack is very important. Before, the customers would log a ticket by Cisco and a ticket by NetApp. It's better when vendors can partner and look for a solution together. 

It improves application performance for our customers. Before FlexPod, you could make a design and that design was not strong enough for some applications and now there is a good validated design. The validated design gives space for the applications to run or not. Performance has been improved by 50%. Before we had to make separate designs, now, we are more confident that a design is good to work for the type of application. 

It has decreased unplanned downtime incidents. 

It's easier to sell to a customer because it is a validated design but sometimes the customer wants another feature and then it's a problem. You must build each block separately, that's a disadvantage sometimes.

The stability is good. 

It's very scalable. 

Sometimes we reach out to the NetApp support from the NetApp part or the Cisco part but the engineers by us are also certified to install FlexPod. We have had good experiences with them. They speak the same language as us which is an advantage. 

Our customers choose this solution because of the validated design and for the one-stop solution where it's one contract. It's one building block which is an advantage for the customer instead of buying separate items.

Our customers also look at Dell EMC. 

I would rate it a nine out of ten.

Our primary use case is for virtualization, the VMs.

FlexPod has enabled us to consolidate some of our stuff. 

The validated designs for major enterprise apps are an integral part of our company. We only do validated designs in our thing and then we remove our data center consolidation and move stuff onto that.

It simplifies the infrastructure from edge to core. It simplifies the configuration metrics and saved time. FlexPod simplified and saved time overall for all of the configuration and deployment.

Backup, restore, and ease of deployment are the most valuable features.

It hasn't changed the application performance in our company but obviously the new hardware gives it the performance increase. Overall nothing more changed.

I would like to have the installation of the top virtualization on its own rather than doing it through the admin. For example, if FlexPod is configured after the configuration of the host, the ESXi is installed also, but it should be part of it rather than doing it as a separate system.

It is pretty solid.

It's scalable. 

I don't remember having needed to contact their technical support. 

We knew we needed to invest in a solution like FlexPod because we were growing and we have evaluated different solutions and after that we decided.

The initial setup was straightforward because we did not do it, Cisco did it.

I deployed through Cisco. We had a positive experience with them.

We have seen ROI. 

It actually initially increased our CapEx.

We looked at Red Hat, VMware, HP, Cisco. We chose FlexPod because of the consolidation and reduced footprint.

If configuration, unification, and standardization are the concern and if they are using it with Cisco as a network edge then I think it will be a good solution to go with FlexPod.

I would rate it a seven out of ten. Not a ten because a seven means for me that it is more than a five. A 10 would mean that I don't have to do anything else to improve. Improvements could be ESXi installations at vCenter installation and all of that. I have this to do it. It is a solution, but it has stops at a certain point. It is not a complete solution. 

We use FlexPod for all of our tier two and tier three storage, in all of our business units.

The ability to scale on demand allows us to get the capacity for the customer in a much more efficient manner in a better timeframe.

From an infrastructure standpoint, we have more cohesiveness between the teams. This was a concern to us and we're working to solve it so that we can operate in a more efficient manner.

From an ESX node standpoint, using this solution has reduced our footprint tremendously. I would say that it has decreased by approximately thirty-five percent.

We have done a lot of consolidation on the storage side. We have been able to put into one cluster what would have taken three or four in the older environment. It benefits us because there is less administration.

Some of our applications were on solid-state flash disks and some were on a hybrid platform. This new configuration is all-flash, solid-state, so nobody should have complaints about the performance.

The storage performance has most likely increased anywhere from ten percent to probably twenty percent, attributed to the all-flash, solid-state hardware.

We have seen a more efficient use of compute resources because we have fewer nodes committed. I would say that we are probably thirty to thirty-five percent more efficient.

Our maintenance costs have absolutely been reduced. We were going to have to pay between one and two million dollars, and by putting this in, we're avoiding those costs.

Our TCO has been reduced because one big piece of our former infrastructure was made up of Cisco SAN switches, and they are pretty pricey per port when you're using fiber channel. Now, we're using iSCSI, so we're saving a lot of money.  

The most valuable feature for me is that you can swap out pieces when you have to lifecycle your equipment. You never have to go through a big freeze, but instead, do small pieces at a time. It reduces the migration hassle.

The tools bring the compute and storage together so that we can see it in a single pane of glass.

I would like to be able to pull in a file to specify a configuration upfront, rather than go through a lot of screens. There is a lot of manual effort there, and that is one place that mistakes can happen.

In the SolidFire interface, if you use the GUI, you have to create one run at a time, or one device at a time, which is something that needs to be fixed. Having to do that is ludicrous.

The stability has been good so far. We have had some drive-type issues where we had to apply a new code level, but in my opinion, it is just part of the normal business transactions. The storage nodes cause certain drives to act as though they've failed, but they really haven't. You just have to remove them, re-insert them, and they work again. It is a bug.

We've grown and grown, and we've done it all online, so there are no concerns around scaling from a storage standpoint.

We have been in contact with technical support a few times. Not a whole lot. I don't have any concerns with them.

The setup of this solution is lengthy and complex, but we have been speaking with people about how to make it more efficient.

The complexity has a lot to do with when you're initially setting the equipment up. There's a lot of values that you have to plug into their various screens, and then you also have to do a reboot to pick up whether it's going to be a storage node or a compute node. Then, they're looking to fix status too, and you have to do a reboot after that, so you lose forty-five minutes and if you have a large install, that's a long time to build the environment.

We used some of the professional services that were tied to the bundled packages.  We also obtain our hardware and resources through a third-party called WWT, and everything is great with them.

ROI is difficult to figure out but I can say that we have had two to three million dollars in OE savings by deploying this and getting rid of older equipment.

Even though this is a fairly new product, it is very appropriate for business solutions, and not just your mom-and-pop shops. It scales rather well, and to me, the big thing is the rolling upgrade scenario as far as when it comes time to lifecycle your equipment. 

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

It's a tenant environment. We sell it off to customers who need an environment, depending on the scale of their company, where there might be a couple of servers or 100 to 200 servers.

We are our own cloud provider. We use VMware vCloud Director because we provide that to our customers.

For UCS, we are on version 6.2. For NetApp, we are on 9.5.

Our private cloud sector of our company has grown exponentially thanks to the ease of deployment of the FlexPod architecture. We are also able to deploy a console to customers who want on-prem environments in a smaller deployment structure with a UCS Mini and direct-attached storage. So, it's helped us exponentially grow the business.

All-flash has helped the company a lot, especially for business critical applications. We found that customers want more performance than ever based on what is out there in the market. We find that innovation and integration with the whole FlexPod design has helped a lot.

The guides that we use to install FlexPods are always up-to-date. This is really helpful, especially if there is a new product with NetApp moving so far forward and Cisco as well. For them to join together and update a centralized document for the install process, it is really good. It helps us understand if there are features from the first version that we installed while upgrading that we need to implement. Those are in the document. So, we find that document useful and helpful when moving forward.

The solution’s validated designs for major enterprise apps in our organization is very important. It helps us to understand what we need to do and deliver, doing it at a supported level for our customers.

It would be nice to have something like an automated, upgrade solution The tasks needed to upgrade the hardware within FlexPod are still quite behind compared to some of its other aspects. That's more on the Cisco side. For the NetApp side, the upgrade process is quite simple. It's been simplified. So, that's something that could be looked at.

It has gone to HTML5, but it's still quite a bit bland. It still seems a bit like there were some features in the Java version that are quite hard to get into in the HTML5 version of UCS Manager, where you go to a profile and you need to drag it in. You can't move the box across. All the boxes are different sizes. If you have a lot of names, then you can't move it across, which is quite annoying when you're trying to do it.

I would like more with the integration pieces, e.g., more with the REST APIs to be able to access it remotely.

The footprint in the data center is quite large, especially when you scale out. Maybe find some hardware in the future, where if a new blade comes out, then Cisco can say, "Look, we'll buy those blades back off you, and we'll give you this blade for X amount of money." A buyback scheme would be good for hardware, and even NetApp as well. Something like a buyback scheme for blades and stuff moving forward would be good, because I know that they're going to put more power into them. E.g., replacing four blades might equal one blade, which would be awesome, but we are still going to have those four blades around. Maybe having something where it will give you this much money for these blades so we can upgrade. That would be perfect. 

With the upgrading, making that a little bit more streamlined and a bit easier to do, so it doesn't require as many man hours to do. I would like prerequisites for an upgrade.

It's very stable. Since we've had it in, knock on wood, it's been absolutely flawless. We've had some issues, but that's to do with the upgrades and mainly with the fabric interconnects, and they can be a bit finicky. They're not as robust. They're robust in a way if you don't touch them, they look fine. But, in the upgrade process, we've had a lot of issues where there would either be corrupted images or they wouldn't upgrade, which would cause one of the switches to fail. Some of that stuff is very worrying. But from a performance perspective, it's worked as it should.

It's highly scalable. It scales really well, but that also comes back to how you want to scale it. In terms of whether you want to add more chassis and if you want to add anything more to that. Then, that comes under the costings of the data center because the chassis are quite big. However, the scalability of it is perfect. We haven't had an issues with it.

The technical support is pretty good. I would give it a seven or eight out of 10. A full 10 would be having the automated upgrading, getting them to do the upgrades, as that would take a lot of time off us having to do them. I am sure that there is a team you can get for that support, but it's quite expensive. Maybe that type of support for upgrades can be bundled in when someone buys a FlexPod deployment. Most of our time on the environment is spent on upgrading of the infrastructure.

We have really good support from NetApp. We get really good, really fast support from Cisco, as well. E.g., if there is a failed memory chip in one of the host servers that needs replacements, they are always on time. They send it out when they need to, and if the problem is not resolved, then they move that forward to the next tier.

We used NetApp from the start. Before my time, I'm not too sure what they were using. I think before it was just storage on servers, like integrated in. As long as I've been here, I've been using NetApp. 

At the time we went with that solution, public clouds didn't exist. However, knowing that it does integrate with public clouds is an absolute bonus. It's awesome because we're moving towards that type of integration. Knowing this makes our lives a lot easier because we don't have to move from where we are to get to where we want to go. We've already got what we want, which is absolutely amazing. So, it's great.

We are very strong NetApp partners.

The initial setup was straightforward. Complexity was added more from a customer perspective, where you need that custom setup for what they require. With the bundle, we did get to go to training for FlexPod's deployment and that sort of area. That also helped us a lot to understand the nuts and bolts and detail of what it is as well, which helped a lot with that knowledge.

We work with Cisco and NetApp for the deployment. The guides are absolutely intuitive. You go from start to finish, deploying it all in one. In terms of time, we have used them to reference different aspects of how we should set it up if there are custom requirements, because not all deployments are put it in and deploy it as we go. We have had some custom requirements over time, but the initial one was just straight in and cable. It was quite intuitive for us, which was good. We didn't need for anyone to come out and install it.

I haven't seen ROI.

From an application point of view, customers have seen an improvement in response times for mainly database-based applications, and the need to have a lot of reads and writes for all-flash storage. The upgrades with the hosts from UCS to the new blades with PASA processes and more memory have also improved.

From a flexible deployment and scalability point of view, we got NetApp. From enterprise and beyond, they are doing above and beyond anything that anyone else is doing at the moment.

Cisco are the leaders in LAN technology. With their hardware for unified communication of the UCS bundle, it's so straightforward and easy to set up. It integrates with a lot of other major vendors, which makes our lives a lot easier.

I would definitely support integrating FlexPod within a company, depending on their requirements. Even if it wasn't a a full, flexible deployment, just having a smaller deployment of the UCS Mini with a smaller NetApp for a customer, it is so scalable. You can do it for a smaller customer to an enterprise customer. I would fully support them implementing this into a data center based on their requirements.

The solution has made our staff more efficient, enabling them to spend time on tasks that drive our business forward, but there's still a lot of manual overhead that needs to be done. We're installing new chassis or upgrades. Upgrades is a really big one.

We find that the UCS shells are still quite power intensive. Maybe moving forward to the new releases of the blades that they have in their FlexPod deployment, we might be able to change a couple of blades to one blade because the power is exactly the same. They have the same quality of processing and memory. Right now, we find that it does take up a lot of space and power. Hopefully, in the future, once we do go through the upgrade process, pull out the old blades, and whatever we need to replace, we might do that.

I would rate it a nine out of 10. Nothing is perfect. You always have that one percent where you say, "Aw, I wish it was doing this," but at the end of the day, it can't. You're always going to be a bit picky.

It is our primary on-premise infrastructure.

It runs our VMs. Our SQL databases are all on VMs, so everything is virtualized.

Once the FlexPod is built, managers provision additional VMs. So, it's pretty simplified.

With the all-flash array, I think it did improve application performance in our organization.

The solution’s validated designs for major enterprise apps in our organization are very important. We just followed them to make sure the CVD was compliant or matched to what they designed.

The solution’s unified support for the entire stack is beneficial. It is all in one.

I would like to see more of a centralized support model because we have all the FlexPod components and we hand build them. So, if we have issues with one particular stack, we're talking to individual vendors, e.g., for UCS, I have to call Cisco, and for storage, I have to call NetApp.

So far, the stability has been good. We haven't had downtime or issues since I built it. 

The old one did have some outages. The old UCS FIs went down during the firmware upgrade.

Our stuff usually doesn't go down, so the unplanned downtime isn't worse or better than before.

Our department is pretty small.

Our models are pretty small. So, we'll be able to expand additional chassis in place, then additional disk shelves.

We have had to file tech support cases. Our experience with them is okay. We dislike going online with the robot stuff. Many times, it has delayed our reaching out to a real support engineer.

When I came onboard, they had already purchased it. I just put everything together.

The setup is pretty straightforward. 

My recommendation: If you are not familiar with the technology, you probably should engage some type of professional services to set it up.

We hand built our FlexPod environment. It is composed of a Cisco UCS 6332-16UP FI, NetApp AFF A700, and an NDS.

It was easy to build. We had an old FlexPod built by someone else and I built the new one. We're in the process of migrating all the workloads over.

It hasn't decreased our data center cost by much. It just one rack replaced by another.

I heard the NVMe stuff is coming around. We don't have that license or that feature yet. So, we probably will try it out and see how much improvement that's over our current setup.

Give it a shot. If you are experienced with other types of technologies already, it's pretty simple to put it together.

I would rate the solution as an eight (out of 10).

Over the last year, we've implemented several solutions with FlexPod. We implemented whatever the latest version is. I know we just put one in that was the latest version in a New Jersey school.

Our customers are using on-premise. It's all on premise, but we have implemented solutions that are more hybrid where they are deploying a model where they want their app dev groups to be able to deploy resources much easier to an on-premise infrastructure, as compared to an AWS subscription.

Generally, it's a mix between Azure and AWS. That's what we're seeing from customers overall. 

For a large food distributor using FlexPod, we were able to move them away from traditional server storage, networking, etc. This allowed them to have the ability in both data centers to have hybridity where the FlexPod infrastructure was local and wasn't hosted, then using cloud automation (mainly AWS) and being able to deploy company resources for their teams.

This really opened up a lot of doors for them. Their CIO's mantra was sort of cloud first. Well, here's a way to start on that journey and keep some of your stuff local. I think everybody knows you can't just forklift everything to the cloud. You need cloud readiness assessments: What are your application dependencies and tools that are you using? This is how we came up with the FlexPod approach.

The solution has decreased unplanned downtime incidents at our customers' organizations, specifically in the database and SQL realms. We are talking to some of our customers about containerization as well.

The most valuable features is its ability to be able to have multiple options. It can be fully on-premise, it can be hosted, or it can be the hybrid model. For customers, this is the biggest windfall. 

Having the combined Cisco/NetApp platforms. Having the configuration options to tailor it a certain way. This Is a windfall as well, having options for configuration: small, medium, large, etc. Because every customer is different, and there's no cookie cutter.

It is very important that the solution validates the design for major enterprises. We rely on the validated design, specifically for the customer. When you look at the designs and what you have in mind, the prerequisites have already been done for you. So, it was easy to make the fit a little easier for each customer. Each customer being different.

The solution simplifies infrastructure from edge to core to cloud. It definitely simplifies it and aids in going to that journey. Cloud is the last piece of that route and this gives a seamless way to do this.

The solution’s unified support for the entire stack provides one stop shopping.

Data centers are shrinking. These solutions are part of that. Being able to have these solutions which will shrink your footprint in the data center and allow for easy cloud interaction, migration, and deployment.

I would like more support for different platforms, possibly different database platforms. I don't know if it supports Oracle today, but that would be a big improvement.

As the product matures, being able to support the things that customers are really looking at. FlexPod is supporting more containerizations, and that's a step in the right direction.

I just started working with it. I have only been with my company for about six weeks.

It's increased exponentially over time. I'm hearing a lot of this from my peers, as FlexPod has been out for a while now. With the improvements to the different versions, the stability has improved quite a bit.

It is very scalable. Though, I don't had any case examples of where we've had to scale it in terms of customer experience.

This is my understanding, since I don't deploy it. The initial setup is very straightforward compared to its competitors. Compared to an HPE solution, it is exponentially easier to set up. I know that as a fact.

It's sort of the one throat to choke philosophy. The customers in particular don't have to call here. If it's easy to get support, it isolates the problem on whatever stack you're running on. So, FlexPod supports multiple stacks. It doesn't just support one hypervisor or site.

The solution has saved our customers' organization in terms of CapEx. E.g., with the cloud availability, it's turned into sort of a hybrid CapEx/OpEx model.

I'm only delving into this solution over the last six weeks or so. I don't have the same level of expertise with FlexPod as I do with other solutions. I'm getting there slowly; trial by fire.

I came from a much larger integrated reseller. I worked more with FlexPods competitors where they really want to have these connectors and bolt-ons in place to be able to deploy something to Azure. As easy as it is to do it to an on-prem infrastructure, that's really where it's going for a lot of the commercial space.

For my current organization, it's opened up a whole new door for us as a NetApp partner to be able to have a competitive product against Dell EMC, HPE, etc., and to what I think to a degree is a better product in most cases, to go after that business. We go after the different verticals as well because we are in both the public sector and commercial space. So, these are much different verticals. Thus, you need to be able to the scalable solution. You need a solution that can meet the needs of these customers. When you're dealing with a healthcare versus a hedge fund, it is very different. Certain other companies they didn't have the same, they weren't able to scale or fit in these verticals.

Put them side by side. Do your diligence. There are other vendors out there. There are three other big players in this field: Dell EMC, Nutanix, and HPE. Obviously, each customer is different. But, if you're really looking at a true solution for hybridity with the ability to deploy to the cloud, take a real good hard look at the FlexPod CI solution.

We sell other products, and there are times because of the customer's relationship with another vendor that we might go with a different solution. However, we certainly look at putting them side by side.

The product improves over time, it's definitely helped in all-flash CI, private and hybrid cloud deployment, secure-multi-tenancy, end-to-end NVMW, and cloud storage tiering.

We are talking to customers about the solution’s storage tiering to public cloud, but we haven't implemented anything yet.

I would rate them a nine (out of 10). I don't think anybody rates a 10, but FlexPod is close.

We use FlexPod for customer data center solutions — as well as internal solutions in our data center — to host customer data.

FlexPod is easier for us to maintain and do build-outs with scalability. We're able to install a lot of the build-outs and service profiles more quickly and it takes a lot less time to have all that stuff set up for the customer. It cuts down on the man-hours it takes to get an implementation done.

The ease of setup is probably the most valuable feature for us. When we're bringing out a new solution, it's easy to get everything in the rack. When we need to add into it, later on, it's easier to have all that stuff available and then just adding to the installation as we need to in order to build it out. It's easier to bolt on components that are already created than to make them from scratch or retrofit them or replace components. The integration between the pieces is a lot easier on the setup side, too.

There are not really any additional features that I could think of that are not available already. As technology is enhanced, that may change.

We don't have any issues with stability as far as the product is concerned. It's solid. Issues are not directly related to the product itself.

We can scale the solution really easily. We've been doing that fluidly. We were probably one of the first Cisco customers to come online when the UCS line came out. We have a lot invested in our architecture and we pass that on to clients.

Scaling is easy to do. We can pretty much have any one of our clients do it on demand.

We use technical support from time to time. Most of the time if we really need assistance we end up having to get above the tier one support. We're able to do a lot of the tier one troubleshooting on our own. We have a lot of engineers who can handle that. We spend some time trying to get past tier one when we already know the issue is more complicated in order to get to the support we really need.

The setup is generally pretty easy and faster than most other systems.

We do our own installations as we are the ones who install for clients.

We have historically been a really big Cisco partner. We started doing more with hosted client opportunities for data. When they came out with that line, it was something that we moved right into as a natural progression. Once we thought it worked and saw how easy it was to scale it out, we decided to go that way and save a little extra money while scaling out the usage of what we already had in place.

I would probably rate the product as a seven out of ten. The amount of time it saved us on the setup, maintaining the system and the fact that we haven't had to do a whole lot of troubleshooting with it makes it valuable. 

As far as people entertaining the solution, they should go look at their equipment, know what their pain points are and then get in touch with somebody at Cisco. Reach out to an account manager or see a demo. I know when we were first looking at it, an account manager came out to us and brought a systems engineer with him. We had the opportunity to see the solution and they went over the potential benefits in great detail. It was easy for us to see the gain that we would be getting by implementing the product. 

People need to do their own due diligence in researching new solutions. Exploring other solutions is important to determine which particular solution is the best fit. Once you get the possibilities down to two or three solution sets that may work for you, compare them rigorously before committing. One will probably stand out as the best be it because of budget, features, capabilities or application.

Our primary use for this product is for virtual desktop infrastructure and for virtual server storage.

Since going to all Flash, employees are much happier working remotely in our VDI (Virtual Desktop Infrastructure).

The most valuable asset of the product is the use of all-flash storage, low latency I/O (quicker Input / Output).

No really good opportunities for product improvement come to mind. For our organization, it does what we need it to do.

The product is very stable. I don't think it's failed once since I have worked with it within the organization.

We have a pretty stable workload, so we have not had to consider the scalability of the solution.

We did an upgrade during my time but that was just moving to a newer version of the same product.

The initial installation was straightforward.

We implemented through Paramount.

Return on investment is not always tangible. The workload for individuals is faster and our employees are happier for being able to accomplish their responsibilities in less time.

Before this solution, the organization used some Synology products that were more appropriate for small businesses. The organization had many remote sites and it was not centralized. We also considered VMware vSAN as a solution.

On a scale of one to ten, I rate this product as an eight. That is mostly because the cost is comparatively high for what it does.

Storage I/O is pretty important for enhancing user experience and utility.