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FlexPod XCS vs HPE Hyper Converged comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 24, 2024

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
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
295
Ranking in other categories
Converged Infrastructure (6th)
HPE Hyper Converged
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
35
Ranking in other categories
HCI (11th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Storage Solutions solutions, they serve different purposes. FlexPod XCS is designed for Converged Infrastructure and holds a mindshare of 9.4%, down 9.6% compared to last year.
HPE Hyper Converged, on the other hand, focuses on HCI, holds 3.2% mindshare, up 3.1% since last year.
Converged Infrastructure
HCI
 

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.
Ray Baruwa - PeerSpot reviewer
Advantageous from a sustainability perspective since the networking, storage, and compute are all located within one unit
Hyperconverged is used in an environment where the footprint in the data center is restricted. It is advantageous from a sustainability perspective since the networking, storage, and compute are all located within one unit The most beneficial feature is the life cycle management. I haven't had…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"NetApp is always coming up with features that I want before I know that I want them."
"For the management side of our UCS, it is a single pane of glass for multiple people, whether it is data center, sysadmin, or server deployment."
"It simplifies infrastructure from edge to port to cloud. It proves that deployment is easy and straightforward. There isn't any need to do extra work."
"It has simplified our support."
"The solution's granular scalability and broad application support helps us to meet the needs of diverse workloads."
"The initial setup is not complex. It is user-friendly since it is a single solution with all the components delivered in one package."
"I like the combination of the brands that they decided to include, in terms of its compatibility, e.g., they integrated UCS into this solution."
"Gives us a single point of contact for support."
"One of the good features would be the fast backup solution Hyper Converged offers, which is more efficient compared to other vendors."
"It is a scalable solution."
"Our storage and IT are now at an enterprise level with all the necessary controls and restrictions being enacted."
"I've found the data protection features the most valuable."
"The most valuable feature is the in-built backup system. The backup speed is also excellent."
"It scales very well."
"The HA, which means I have a copy of the VMs always available, and the moment a VM is down, the system tries to power it on again."
"The most valuable feature was its time to delivery."
 

Cons

"The interface is a little convoluted."
"They should have an easier user interface to get it up and running."
"It is not as easy as a hyperconverged solution, but you are going to have a hard time finding that anywhere, where you can just plugin and run a deployment app."
"We would like them to improve the validate designs. It is hard to stay in a supported config with the software and firmware versions of the platform. It's always a concern to ensure things not only work well, but they work at all. If we run into incompatibility inside of the NetApp, Cisco, or VMware versions, it can cause real issues."
"As the industry as a whole is moving more toward the simplification of IT, that is something where both Cisco and NetApp could look to improve further. Just simplifying the day to day management, the day to day issues that arise, and building more intuitiveness into the interfaces would help."
"Mainly, the interface needs improvement. I'm not a big fan of UCS Manager, sometimes. I believe they released the new one, and it seems like in every version something changes and something else doesn't work. When they switched to HTML5, I believe we had issues in version 3.2. They fixed it in the next version. The amount of work to upgrade a system for change control is tedious to have issues every time. I would recommend more regression testing, then testing the different browsers in that."
"Some of the define features could use improvement."
"We would like more security features."
"The solution is not very stable."
"In my country, the biggest issue is probably pricing."
"Scalability is an issue because it becomes very expensive. When you need to upgrade memory, you have to upgrade memory across the nodes. Suppose a customer has gone with a three-node HCI solution, then to increase the memory, you have to do it across the three nodes."
"In the Hyper Converged environment, some of the brands only support the OS VMware and not Hyper-V from Microsoft or even Red Hat or KVM."
"Its technical support services could be faster."
"Providing local technical support and improving the price are areas this service needs to consider improving."
"I would like to see improvement in the hardware underneath it. Currently, it's a Gen9 DL380. One day, there will be a Gen10 DL380 and maybe they will have bigger or smaller sizes."
"One of the things that can be improved is that today, is supporting VMware, maybe as a hypervisor. But it would be good to have an open kind of platform for other hypervisors, maybe. Like Nutanix is doing, it's very open."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We can just swap in new equipment or hardware as we need, which has probably saved us several weeks."
"It is not cheap, but there is a return on investment in time saved and efficiency."
"Storage is very expensive. To buy MIC cards and additional storage either on-prem or in the cloud, the IT department does not have money for it, so you need a more niche product or a more flexible way to store your data. That is the benefit that you get from this product."
"The FlexPod licensing can adjust to your purse, i.e. there are different levels available for businesses of all sizes."
"Make sure that you engage as much with whom you are buying from as a partnership, not just as a purchase."
"In terms of the cost, the last bill I saw was about $3.5 million, from the latest contract. That might have been for a five-year contract."
"Licensing can be interesting with the new version because of the Intersight integration. I don't know what that looks like yet. I have seen some of the different licensing models, but with the new purchasing, all customers are going to have to buy some sort of Intersight licensing with the Blades or FlexPod. I am curious to see how that option shakes out. Previous to the UCS X-Series, the licensing was the same."
"Pricing is always tough. We need to get to a point where the customer's happy. Then, as partners, we are also happy."
"The product's pricing is very competitive because HPE provides a buyback policy to users...Users can make either monthly or yearly payments towards the licensing cause of the solution."
"With this solution, I buy everything together, pre-packaged, pre-installed, and in just 15 minutes, it's installed."
"It could be cheaper, everything could be cheaper."
"Pricing with Dell EMC is double the price which I paid for HPE. However, in the end, Dell EMC is double in performance. This is not an apple to apple comparison though, as I have a four node from Dell EMC and a three node."
"I would rate the price at seven out of ten. There are no additional licensing fees, but it would be cheaper to go with a dHCI solution."
"It is an expensive solution, however. If they could adjust the pricing, that would be helpful."
"There are costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."
"The entire solution is packaged with all licenses and support."
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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
21%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Educational Organization
10%
Computer Software Company
14%
Government
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
 

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 Hyper Converged?
The solution's most valuable features are scalability, easy migration, easy recovery, and flexible backup possibilities.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for HPE Hyper Converged?
The pricing is competitive. Initially, I misunderstood and rated it as higher, but on a scale of one to ten where one is cheap, I would rate it as a four.
What needs improvement with HPE Hyper Converged?
I haven't had issues personally. I've heard from other people that maybe there could be some improvements around technical support.
 

Also Known As

No data available
HPE Hyper Converged 380, HPE Hyper Converged 250, HPE Hyper Converged 250 for Microsoft CPS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

University of Sao Paulo, WD-40, The Commonwell Mutual Insurance Group
North Lindsey College, FireWhat?, HudsonAlpha
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