Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] vs NetApp HCI [EOL] comparison

"It is a hyper-converged solution which integrates with the network instead of the product."

"Cisco provides the ability to configure BIOS, something that no one else can do, on a remote basis. That's really helpful sometimes. The bus-snooping alteration tool for BIOS is fantastic. That's one of the game-changing features that Cisco alone has at this point."

"Scalability is easy and simple."

"Cisco offers very good quality."

"There are some slight cost advantages when you need fewer resources to manage it."

"You can administer things easily. E.g., if you need more power, you can add a system."

"The most valuable feature is that it is something small that can be more easily deployed than a full data center set of servers."

"The initial setup is easy."

"It is easy to set up, and you don't have to do much work to get it to do what it needs to do."

"It is highly scalable. Their support is also extremely good."

"NetApp HCI is a stable solution."

"The most valuable aspects are that it's an all-in-one solution and it's very self-contained."

"Simple setup and having the storage and compute right on one deployment is the most valuable aspect of this solution. They're able to get set up and ready to go and start having their DevOp team deploy to that environment."

"It is a unique product with simplified setup and independent control over storage and compute."

"Stability is one of the things we absolutely have to have, because if the HCI is down, our assembly lines are down, and that could potentially lead to our customer being down. If our customer is down, that's $10,000 a minute; and any time the assembly line is down, that could potentially lead to overtime. We don't get to charge one and a half times for something we billed just because you happened to build it on overtime. Any technology we bring in, has to be built for what I call "three in the morning." It can't be built for whenever everybody's in the plant, everybody can watch it, and everybody can babysit. It has to be built for three a.m. when you've got a skeletal staff there, and you just have to know that it's just running. As I stand here, right now, I don't have to check my phone, I don't have to check my email. I know it's running. Period"

"The ability to size the available space in a way that matches our company's needs is most valuable. For instance, you can decide if you want 80/20, 70/30, or 60/40 space. Redundancy depends on your needs without changing the appliance. You just add space and decide the percentage of space that you need free and the percentage of space that you need for backup. It is all automatic, and you don't have to do anything. You just add space, and the system automatically configures itself with the chosen option."

"The initial setup can be complex."

"Lacks easy integration with other vendors."

"A stretch function is really needed. Germans think that because of the high availability and the security that two data centers are better but we want edge all in one cluster. This is a needed feature, the cluster feature, and we'd also like to see a possibility for ROBO offices."

"Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series could improve by having the documents be more readily available and the support could be more flexible."

"We are operating two clusters for site resiliency. I would like to support running redundant/resilient vCenter server instances on each rather than a supported external server."

"The initial setup could be faster, due to the prerequisites."

"I would rate the installation of Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series an eight out of ten. It can be complex."

"Some of our customers do not want to adopt the Cisco ACI solution. They want to manage Cisco HyperFlex by integrating it with their own management solution."

"To improve the product, they should make it more flexible."

"The product needs better support for installing the operating system on the machine."

"There's a limitation with a block in the file. That's where I see that it's not very efficient for upgrades and for management."

"I would like to have the ability to replicate to multiple sites."

"It is easy to install now, but could potentially be even simpler."

"If you want to have a really dense data center then it's hard to have a big chunk of cabling going through everything."

"I would like to see a better upgrade process, like the one that ONTAP has."

"The administration side of it needs to be improved. We expect an easier interface and a single upgrade for updating the infrastructure."

"The cost is expensive, but there is a chance to save money in the future."

"We would not have invested if we didn't feel the return was there for our customers."

"Here in Brazil... it is very expensive. It's very hard for almost all companies to buy even the small version of this solution."

"There is a license required to use this solution."

"The licensing is perpetual and the only thing that you may need to pay for on a monthly basis is if you're going to use their cloud-based management features."

"It is highly priced compared to other vendors."

"The product could be cheaper."

"The price is a bit high. It could be better, but the product is worth the cost."

"There are the overall infrastructure costs. Even though the initial costing was higher, we calculated for year-to-year for five years. That brought us into a position where we decided, we have to go for HCI rather than having distributor systems."

"This solution reduced our maintenance costs. We were going to have to pay one to two million dollars to put in compute nodes. We are avoiding those costs."

"You still have to pay for the licensing for VMware and Red Hat licenses separately. It's not all inclusive at this point."

"Its price is comparable to the competitors in the market."

"This solution saved our organization time (35 percent) and money. We have a hefty group of developers, and if you multiply that by 30 to 35 percent, that is quite a bit of money."

"All the licenses are included when you buy the program."

"Licenses run on a yearly basis, and there aren't any additional fees other than the standard licensing fee."

"Its price is aligned with the market. In addition to the standard licensing fees, there is an integrator cost."