FlexPod XCS vs Vblock [EOL] comparison

NetApp and Dell Technologies are both solutions in the Converged Infrastructure category. Additionally, 96% of NetApp users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 84% of Dell Technologies users who would recommend it.

FlexPod XCS

Read 295 FlexPod XCS reviews

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301 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

Vblock [EOL]

Read 24 Vblock [EOL] reviews

84% willing to recommend

FlexPod XCS

Vblock [EOL]

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between FlexPod XCS and Vblock [EOL] based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, NetApp and others in Converged Infrastructure.

To learn more, read our detailed Converged Infrastructure Report (Updated: December 2024).

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Converged Infrastructure

December 2024

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Categories and Ranking

FlexPod XCS

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

295

Ranking in other categories

Converged Infrastructure (5th)

Vblock [EOL]

Average Rating

8.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Featured Reviews

Bob Greenwald

Senior Systems Engineer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

There are no limits in terms of integration.

The most significant benefit is storage flexibility. FlexPod is a reference design to build on and add the appropriate resources you need for your workloads. That's what differentiates it from something like HCI, where you have to buy certain size pieces when you want to expand. I can do just about anything storage-related with it. In a FlexPod environment, we can provide whatever you want from a data storage perspective. Replication, backup, disaster recovery, etc., are all there right out of the box. I can set up fiber channel LAN, channel-over-ethernet LAN, etc. Storage is highly flexible in this environment. I don't have to buy two or three products and don't have to do some sort of software virtualization of the storage, which takes away your performance. For hyperscalers, you have insights on the Cisco side that you can use to look at tons of stuff. From the storage side, you could put a range of NetApp tools in the cloud. You could put VMware in the cloud and talk back to the native on-prem Cisco compute environment. Their network environment extends into the cloud. There are no limits in terms of integration. NetApp is the most integrated hyper-scale for storage and moving data into the cloud for long-term backup storage. VMware is fully available, so you could run VMware or Kubernetes on VMware in the cloud and tie it to your local storage through NetApp integration. It's an excellent match because your compute could easily DR to the cloud and be ready to go with all your storage without any modifications necessary because of the native integrations. It integrates well with the hyperscalers.

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Fred Armantrout

Senior System Specialist at Burns & McDonnell

The VCE VBlocks came along and it was the best combination of an all-in-one virtual data center in a box Converged SAN, Network, and Compute that used VMware to drive the whole package.

The original pair of VBlock’s were purchased to replace a hodgepodge of small VM clusters of 3 to 4 VM hosts and an outdated SAN, in addition to moving from an old data center to a new data center. Moving the VM’s from the old systems to the new VBlock --which had more shared resources and a newer VMware version-- was a big win. Once in place, we virtualized as many servers as could be converted from freestanding servers to a VM. The only exception was when the licensing of an application was cost prohibitive; we keep these on stand-alone hosts. This was mainly due to application licensing bias, rather than limits on virtualization.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"High availability is outstanding. We haven't had any problems with that."

"It takes all of the homework out of building the solution. The prearchitected design simplifies your deployment, gets you a quicker time to market, and a single point of support."

"The solution is innovative when it comes to compute storage and networking. Each environment has knowledge of another in a FlexPod environment. This would be difficult to operate separately."

"Because we use it everywhere, it is standard to set up. Therefore, if you can manage the set up in one place, then you can manage the whole infrastructure."

"For us as an IT department, it helped us a lot. Before we implemented FlexPod, we were using different solutions all based on a virtual infrastructure. On VMware, before implementing FlexPod, we had a lot of problems doing backups with disaster recovery. After integrating it, it enabled us to have shorter maintenance windows, instant backups, instant recovery, which also minimized the number of alerts that we get from the application team and from the employees who were working on the application that something is not working."

"With the components that come in FlexPod, it has enabled us to reduce connectivity down to one wire, whereas before, we had eight, 12, or 20 wires going to one server."

"The real benefit of this solution is that it is pre-architected with the ability to scale-up and scale-out."

"We initially started out with siloed clusters and now we've been able to cluster everything together so that we have multiple nodes in our clusters. We have multiples on different data in different data centers. We've able to do replication between data centers. That's been very beneficial for us as we look to derive a mature DR model."

More FlexPod XCS pros

"It's an integrated box Mac solution, so it's a plug and play. The deployment and build is pre-made and ready to deploy. It makes it easy to apply."

"Capability for scale and growth within a single rack brings strong possibilities for capacity planning."

"Finding a fully bundled, deployed, and configured solution with a short delivery time and unique support is really attractive."

"It has improved system performance, batch times for off-hours processing, and reliability with production applications."

"VMware NSX: Provides the ability for our organisation to deliver true DR."

"The most valuable feature is that it is centrally managed, as it is quite easy for our customers to manage everything, end-to-end."

"Systems run solidly."

"UCS Manager worked well for net/blade management and has allowed fairly easy use of dedicated bare-metal blades."

More Vblock [EOL] pros

Cons

"If they could reduce some of the complexity at the system manager level for ONTAP. I find it gives a lot of flexibility. You can do as much or as little as you want. But to be able to do as little as you want, you do have to do a lot. So, if they could bring that down to a more manageable effort level, that would be nice and simplify it a bit."

"We would like more integration with some other HCI solutions so we can take advantage of other opportunities."

"Support could be more integrated. For example, you might call NetApp, and they'll determine that VMware is the issue. It would be helpful if they could automatically engage VMware and bring them onto the same call to transfer ticket information and work together."

"I'd like to see a little bit simpler management pane. Using UCS Director to front everything is good but for a lot of that upper mid-market, it's probably a little bit of overkill for what they need. They just want a nice, simply portal to go through and see what's going on. So if there was something that was middle of the road, it would be well received."

"I want to use the expansion to its fullest extent, scaling by deploying 10 to 15 virtual missions in a given FlexPod."

"It could be more innovative."

"I would like to see a more centralized support model."

"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."

More FlexPod XCS cons

"RCM upgrades were not scripted, and you needed to roll on your own. We were led to believe this would be otherwise."

"Tighter alignment could simplify and speed up the configuration and delivery process."

"Troublesome relationships with VCE at the beginning of our use came undone quickly after we went live."

"The user control could be more advanced. They should work to improve this in future releases."

"Improve the patching process and timeliness of updates/releases."

"The implementation and support could be better."

"The integration with other vendors' products needs to be looked at. It's not as flexible as we would like it to be."

"While most public clouds are deployed on Linux, there is current no certified Vblock working on KVM hypervisors."

More Vblock [EOL] cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We definitely saw a lot of operational cost savings using FlexPod. As far as capital outlay goes, that was a little bit too much for us to swallow and we weren't able to recognize enough savings in that area to afford it."

"I find the licensing and pricing structure to be favorable."

"It seems very cost effective once it's in place, and it's easy to expand and easy to add capacity without a lot of extra money."

"Make sure that you engage as much with whom you are buying from as a partnership, not just as a purchase."

"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."

"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."

"We have reduced our manpower with the solution."

"The total cost of ownership with this solution is good."

More FlexPod XCS pricing and cost advice

"Vblock is priced at a premium because people don't want the headache of managing and deploying different products."

"Vblock appears from the first while to be very expensive. There are more items you cannot see in the BOQ: customer service, support, delivery short time, and highly experienced VCE engineers."

"Strive for a consolidated ELA."

"I think the pricing is on the higher end of the spectrum. There could be some adjustments that could be made there. Regarding licensing, watch compatibility with external products that you run on Vblock. It has got to be properly architected, otherwise, you will run into licensing issues."

"It is not cheap."

"I would not say the pricing is not good value. It is still on the expensive side, near the top-end of cost compared to what's available now. Also, the licensing has to be improved. There has to be a clear definition of the licensing from the initial set-up so the customer knows what they are paying for, without being hit later on with extra licensing. The licensing definitions should be clearer and, perhaps, have one set of licenses rather than multiple licenses."

"Related to tech support: I believe it is too expensive."

"The paid support for Vblock is expensive."

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Comparison Review

it_user244362

Managing Consultant with 51-200 employees

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…

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

18%

Computer Software Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Educational Organization

10%

No data available

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.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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Comparisons

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Dell VxBlock System vs FlexPod XCS

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Dell VxBlock System vs Vblock [EOL]

Compared 100% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

FlexPod XCS

December 2024

Download FlexPod XCS product report

Buyer's Guide

Vblock [EOL]

November 2024

Download Vblock [EOL] product report

Also Known As

No data available

VCE Vblock

Learn More

NetApp

Dell Technologies

Overview

FlexPod XCS is the secure platform your applications need from edge to cloud. Easily manage your suite of cloud-native, edge, and enterprise apps. Integrate advanced cloud services without compromising performance, security, reliability, or scale.

VCE Vblock Systems is an all-in-one virtualization platform that integrates the leading storage, network, and compute technologies from the likes of EMC, VMware and Cisco. VCE Vblock allows organizations to easily and securely deploy cloud computing and virtualization in their environments, supporting these multiple technologies and providing flexibility and agility for changing business needs.

Sample Customers

University of Sao Paulo, WD-40, The Commonwell Mutual Insurance Group

Xerox, ACS, and Columbia Sportswear.

Buyer's Guide

Converged Infrastructure

December 2024

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Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, NetApp and others in Converged Infrastructure. Updated: December 2024.

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