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Dell Vscale Architecture vs FlexPod XCS comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Dell Vscale Architecture
Ranking in Converged Infrastructure
8th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
FlexPod XCS
Ranking in Converged Infrastructure
3rd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
295
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Converged Infrastructure category, the mindshare of Dell Vscale Architecture is 3.3%, down from 3.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of FlexPod XCS is 10.1%, up from 10.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Converged Infrastructure Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
FlexPod XCS10.1%
Dell Vscale Architecture3.3%
Other86.6%
Converged Infrastructure
 

Featured Reviews

AR
Intuitive, robust, manageable, and agile
In terms of what could be improved, I particularly think the scope of automation is very much limited. So they should introduce some more STK's and APIs for automation first thing. Secondly, in terms of Vscale Architecture, they should have some evangelists. When I go to the community for VMware ESXi or NSX, I get lots of information online everywhere because community members are talking, evangelists are talking. Additionally, I usually have a lot of KV articles and lot of community articles I can read and sort out the minor issues. But, in terms of Vscale, you need to be very mature in all aspects of the technology and when you get disturbed, you have to go through the entire documentation to figure things out. I think I heard this from one or two customers as well. Their resources are not able to find much online support for Vscale. As for what should be included in future releases, customers are looking for a unified management console, which they have, but the console should be more user-friendly. Secondly, they should have more scope of orchestration. Thirdly, regarding monitoring, there should be a built-in monitoring engine like we have in Nutanix. These are the things customers complain about sometimes.
John Kevin - PeerSpot reviewer
Enforces standardized setup procedures following Certified Validated Design (CVD) guidelines and offers greater flexibility and control over the system compared to traditional systems
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.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Vscale's scalability is super good. Vscale's scalability, manageability, and performance are all three areas that I emphasize when I sell Vscale Architectures to the customer."
"With FlexPod, it is about the synergy of the server, the storage, and the whole management layer. Together, it is really about minimizing staff. You don't have to hire more people. You can work with the minimum level of resources and the availability is really good. We have had very little downtime."
"The most valuable features are the CVDs and the support behind it from both companies."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the automation point because it's a lot less staff to have to manage it."
"FlexPod’s prevalidated architectures are very important to our organization... Especially in healthcare, it is absolutely critical that we have a validated performance platform. It has to work every time."
"Our previous solution used to take 24 hours and now we're down to seven hours. It has really good performance."
"The data is available, compressed, and deduped."
"The solution is resilient, because it has good scalability, and other products in the market don't have this. It has scalable storage and service."
"It is very stable. We have had absolutely zero problems."
 

Cons

"In terms of what could be improved, I particularly think the scope of automation is very much limited. So they should introduce some more STK's and API's for automation first thing."
"I'd like to see a little more on the provisioning and the replication piece... Also, I don't want to say analytics are lacking but I'd like to see more analytics."
"The initial setup is complex because it has to be done in a certain way."
"There were several different management consoles that we had to deal with: UCS, VMware, and separate ESXi installations. Maybe one interface council where we could manage everything from might be a little easier."
"According to the product managers, there are some new products coming which will address some of our concerns around portability and compliance."
"I would like to see the following: Support for multiple vendors' hardware; support for SAN with Cisco 9000 switches; automated deployment and configuration with respect to CVD."
"There have been issues upgrading the firmware."
"Perhaps having a unified interface for managing the entire company could lead to improved efficiency and performance."
"One touch upgrades would be nice."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"FlexPod has saved data center costs, due to the fact that we reduced our footprint for storage in a big way. We went from three complete racks down to a 2U storage array for more than 300 terabytes of storage."
"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."
"We can just swap in new equipment or hardware as we need, which has probably saved us several weeks."
"Pricing is always tough. We need to get to a point where the customer's happy. Then, as partners, we are also happy."
"The NetApp portion was a $5 million investment five years ago. That has served the customer well over five and a half years."
"It's expensive, but when you pay for enterprise support and enterprise products, you have to pay the big bucks."
"We pay approximately $1,400 USD in total for between five-thousand and ten-thousand ports."
"The FlexPod licensing can adjust to your purse, i.e. there are different levels available for businesses of all sizes."
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Comparison Review

it_user244362 - PeerSpot reviewer
Aug 30, 2015
Nutanix vs. VMware EVO:RAIL vs. FlexPod
Originally posted at www.storagegaga.com/dont-get-too-drunk-on-hyper-converged/ I hate the fact that I am bursting the big bubble brewing about Hyper Convergence (HC). I urge all to look past the hot air and hype frenzy that are going on, because in the end, the HC platforms have to be aligned…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Manufacturing Company
20%
Educational Organization
15%
Performing Arts
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business34
Midsize Enterprise66
Large Enterprise182
 

Questions from the Community

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What do you like most about FlexPod?
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.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for FlexPod?
The pricing is not cheaper, but stability is more important for us now. We focus on business gains, not static numbers. Following XCS rules ensures a stable environment, which is crucial. For me, C...
What needs improvement with FlexPod?
FlexPod should focus more on automation. Integrating an automation tool with FlexPod would enable customers to leverage automation capabilities. More automation would be helpful. Currently, we cont...
 

Also Known As

VCE Vscale Architecture, Vscale Architecture
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
University of Sao Paulo, WD-40, The Commonwell Mutual Insurance Group
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