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FlexPod XCS vs HPE ConvergedSystem comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 2, 2025

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

FlexPod XCS
Ranking in Converged Infrastructure
6th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
295
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
HPE ConvergedSystem
Ranking in Converged Infrastructure
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
21
Ranking in other categories
Converged Infrastructure for SAP HANA (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Converged Infrastructure category, the mindshare of FlexPod XCS is 9.4%, down from 9.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE ConvergedSystem is 19.5%, up from 16.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Converged Infrastructure
 

Featured Reviews

Chris Haight - PeerSpot reviewer
Integrates everything so you are using fewer tools
The traditional UCS Blades do not take much storage internally. You would be challenged to create an HCI (Hype converged Infrastructure) solution on FlexPod / UCS or any other solution that pools internal storage. Now, with UCS X-Series, you can carve off an HCI solution, software defined pooled solution if you want. This was one area of improvement that I wanted to see and can now realize with the refresh of the Cisco UCS infrastructure. With modern modular infrastructure, RESTful API has been added, there are more integrations, ServiceNow and vCenter along with tighter plug-ins. There is cross-user interface launching, for example with Windows Admin Center. The solutions are using Ansible and Terraform for deploying infrastructure as code. All the improvements that I wanted from the last gen are here or coming. With modern workloads and GPU use on the rise, adding GPUs to modern modular infrastructure will have some pros and cons. Typically, you can add one or two GPU's to a blade with no or little trade off. With the UCS X-Series, if you are doing a GPU farm, then you may have to sacrifice compute blades in the front slots to put in a GPU tray / module. A chassis holds eight compute blades, but if you are adding a ton of GPUs, a single GPU tray or more will reduce your blade count by as many GPU trays you add. This is not just a Cisco UCS X-Series problem. It is an industry problem with modular infrastructure and one that I would like to see get solved! I am looking into one such solution, VMware BITFUSION where you can send CUDA requests over the network to a BITFUSION server with the results sent back to the requestor, early stages here and only scratched the surface thus far. With Cisco UCS X-Series, I would like to see the fabric interconnects built into the chassis instead of being external. With the fabric interconnects, the real footprint of UCS X-Series is 9U, where some of the competing solutions are 7U and have collapsed the network fabric into the chassis. This is another thing that I would like to see from Cisco, though, not really on the NetApp side of the fence, NetApp is solid storage.
Fatai Akinwande - PeerSpot reviewer
Has the ability to easily scale resources and redistribute workloads across multiple hosts
HPE ConvergedSystem could be enhanced by improving the built-in backup solution, as the current one fell short of our needs and led us to opt for third-party tools like Veeam. Additionally, addressing challenges related to remote copy functionality, especially in low-bandwidth conditions, would significantly improve the overall usability and effectiveness of HPE solutions in our setup.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Integration is most valuable. This is a reference architecture. So, we don't have to design something from scratch and figure out how it is going to work."
"The product is very stable and it does what it needs to do."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is that there is one call for support."
"A valuable feature of the FlexPod solution is that it is all one architecture and I can call one number and get support for Cisco and NetApp without having to jump through open TAC (Technical Assistance Center) cases and do multiple things to get issues addressed."
"It scales easily. We went through an upgrade of adding additional chassis, and it wasn't a big deal."
"Things got a lot faster. We can pull and test in DEV systems much more rapidly and are clearing up a lot of DBA time. In the past, every time we tested it, we needed to be refreshed. In the past, it would take a day of our DBA's time, and now it's just point, click, and ten minutes later it's done."
"We enjoy the standardization and having things consistent across the whole data center sphere."
"FlexPod impacted us by making things easier to deploy. The solution is a private, hybrid, and multi-cloud environment. That's very important to us. We're doing a lot of hybrid cloud."
"This is a scalable solution. Our customers begin with an initial configuration and later add more servers, memory and other options to meet the demands of increased processing."
"We use the solution for DDI."
"The tool's most valuable features are stability and scalability."
"The storage, BladeSystems, Virtual Connect, and simplicity with hyper-converged solutions are the most valuable features of this solution."
"This solution is very simple to use."
"The solution's technical support was good. I rate the technical support a ten out of ten."
"The solution's most valuable feature is its ability to restore lost machines. Essentially its high availability capabilities are extremely valuable to us."
"Consolidation and duplications features."
 

Cons

"The interface is a little convoluted."
"They could improve their technical support team. They need to have a specific phone number for you to call in for the FlexPod solution. Some of the partner support knows if it is for FlexPod, they will get you to the right department."
"You must build each block separately, that's a disadvantage sometimes."
"On the NetApp side, there are definitely things to improve in terms of software updates."
"Cisco support is much slower. Opening cases with Cisco tech is sometimes a bit tedious. The return time for less important calls can be slower. Even Priority 1 calls can sometimes be a bit long and they will have to call me back."
"The ability to manage the templates across sites. We would like to easily take out the configuration of one FlexPod and copy it over, just making minor changes. There is a way to do it, but it's clumsy."
"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 we do much of the Tier-I support ourselves, and thus don't normally need it, there is time wasted in moving up to the next level."
"I would like to see monitoring solutions included, as well as brand support."
"The MTG inside HP could be improved."
"Pricing is an area of concern in the solution where improvements are required."
"The solution has a complicated front-end."
"Perhaps they can work on providing faster allocation of memory or storage."
"Features that should be addressed concern the HPE functionality and the interaction with VMware."
"The tool has shortcomings in its performance monitoring part."
"I would like to see better manageability and integration with third-party tools."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"You get better management and orchestration, but it still costs you money."
"Our licensing costs are about $50,000 per year."
"The product is kind of expensive even from an entry-level standpoint. I would say FlexPod would be the way to go if you are a larger business or one with large data volume."
"We have saved money using FlexPod. We have saved time and money for new service deployments."
"We have absolutely seen ROI. We have saved between two to four million dollars on travel alone over the past 24 months."
"We have reduced our manpower with the solution."
"Because the solution is now stable, we are saving about $100 million USD a year."
"Coming from a rack and stack server model to FlexPod, it has saved us a lot of time (approximately hundreds to thousands of hours)."
"Pricing is good. We have not calculated what hyper-converged infrastructure has brought us but I think there has to be some lower cost for us, compared to the public cloud. Obviously, there would be a lower cost, probably by more than half."
"The pricing is sensitive."
"The tool's licensing costs are yearly."
"My company has a five year contract for HPE ConvergedSystem. The contracts depend on companies and sometimes it can be three years. The solution is worth its price."
"This is an expensive system and not every customer has the kind of budget to support it."
"This is an expensive solution."
"There are some extra costs in addition to the licensing costs for the yearly maintenance from professional third-party services."
"The pricing is competitive. Not a major problem. We have a subscription model."
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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
Manufacturing Company
20%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Educational Organization
10%
Computer Software Company
18%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Government
7%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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...
What do you like most about HPE ConvergedSystem?
The most valuable features of the solution are the flexibility and the availability of the machines.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for HPE ConvergedSystem?
I rate the product price an eight and a half on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive.
What needs improvement with HPE ConvergedSystem?
Pricing is an area of concern in the solution where improvements are required.
 

Also Known As

No data available
HPE ConvergedSystem 700, HPE ConvergedSystem for SAP HANA, CS500, HPE ConvergedSystem 900, HPE ConvergedSystem 500, HPE ConvergedSystem 300
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

University of Sao Paulo, WD-40, The Commonwell Mutual Insurance Group
FAW-Volkswagen, NICS, NBrIX, Pinpoint, HPE Technology Services, SWS, Ko Sistem, HPE
Find out what your peers are saying about FlexPod XCS vs. HPE ConvergedSystem and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
845,040 professionals have used our research since 2012.