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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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  • 261 Comparison Views
96% willing to recommend
Vblock [EOL]
Read 24 Vblock [EOL] reviews
    84% willing to recommend
     

    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.

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    To learn more, read our detailed Converged Infrastructure Report (Updated: February 2025).
    Buyer's Guide
    Converged Infrastructure
    February 2025
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    Helped 838,713 peers since 2012

    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 (5th)
    Vblock [EOL]
    Average Rating
    8.0
    Number of Reviews
    24
    Ranking in other categories
    No ranking in other categories
     

    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.
    Read full review
    FA
    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.
    Read full review

    Quotes from Members

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

    Pros

    "DR has been tremendously easier."
    "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."
    "The solution’s unified support for the entire stack provides one stop shopping."
    "Our footprint is lower than it used to be."
    "Provides unified support: Being able to get a vendor from one company or another company on the line without having to go back through the call queue."
    "The Validated Designs are very good because they act as a reference to see whether we have done things properly."
    "The hardware has been rock solid so far. It has gone up easy. It runs well. We have not had issues with it."
    "The guides that we use to install FlexPods are always up-to-date. This is really helpful, especially if there is a new product with NetApp moving so far forward and Cisco as well. For them to join together and update a centralized document for the install process, it is really good. It helps us understand if there are features from the first version that we installed while upgrading that we need to implement. Those are in the document. So, we find that document useful and helpful when moving forward."
    More FlexPod XCS pros
    "Capability for scale and growth within a single rack brings strong possibilities for capacity planning."
    "Systems run solidly."
    "Some of the key features are the ease of operation and access, without constraining actions. The tool is available to actually move things around, do things quickly quickly."
    "​It has improved system performance, batch times for off-hours processing, and reliability with production applications.​"
    "​The XtremIO All-Flash array delivers​ performance, reliability, and deduplication."
    "VMware NSX: Provides the ability for our organisation to deliver true DR."
    "​We have seen measurable increases in our system performance. Those increases have been directly measurable in application performance and the delivery of critical business information to our users.​"
    "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."
    More Vblock [EOL] pros
     

    Cons

    "There are apparently some new products coming around the whole FlexPod side of things with regards to auditing, to ensure everything is configured correctly. It's basically a "delta" if there have been any changes. It's important to us, from a support perspective, to know if there have been changes and what impact they have actually had."
    "FlexPod will do very well on the average app, but there's room for improvement in performance and the data center side."
    "Because when you try to do automation, there are many bits and pieces tied together. Sometimes, automation gets a little tricky for provisioning."
    "Not a ten because it could always be cheaper, it could always be faster."
    "The initial setup was complex. UCS is not the easiest thing to configure from the ground up. The networking pieces can get confusing, especially when you are talking about virtual segmentation. It is not as easy as other things now on the market, such as hyperconverged."
    "There are certain things that are just hard to do on a physical infrastructure, like for instance you need to make petabytes of data available at high speed."
    "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."
    "We have had a bit of struggle on the support side. From a customer perspective, it has been up to us to make sure that we get both NetApp and Cisco involved when we have had an issue."
    More FlexPod XCS cons
    "In the next release, I would like to see a smaller footprint in the data center and have improvements to disk performance."
    "The implementation and support could be better."
    "RCM upgrades are painful."
    "It needs more customer/client involvement in back-end management."
    "OEM services requires too much planning and low availability of certified engineers."
    "The integration with other vendors' products needs to be looked at. It's not as flexible as we would like it to be."
    "Improve the patching process and timeliness of updates/releases."
    "I would like to see them improve their switching infrastructure and rely on Cisco configurations. They are a bit more complex and technical, but result in a slightly reduced cost in terms of switching on the network side of it."
    More Vblock [EOL] cons
     

    Pricing and Cost Advice

    "We would like everything in one piece of hardware. This way we can just sell the product like a silo by putting everything in a stack together."
    "Buy storage based on the solutions you need, the technologies you need, and what will make your life a lot easier down the road."
    "We have saved time with Snapshots, SnapMirrors, and backup and DR capabilities versus other platforms that we have looked at in the past."
    "It's expensive, but when you pay for enterprise support and enterprise products, you have to pay the big bucks."
    "The solution has saved our customers' organization in terms of CapEx. E.g., with the cloud availability, it's turned into sort of a hybrid CapEx/OpEx model."
    "Everything is purchased, so we do not do any leasing with this product."
    "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."
    "The scalability is very expensive."
    More FlexPod XCS pricing and cost advice
    "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."
    "Vblock is priced at a premium because people don't want the headache of managing and deploying different products."
    "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."
    "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."
    "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 - 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…
    Read full review
     

    Top Industries

    By visitors reading reviews
    Manufacturing Company
    20%
    Computer Software Company
    12%
    Financial Services Firm
    11%
    Educational Organization
    11%
    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
    Ask a question
    Earn 20 points
     

    Comparisons

    Dell PowerFlex vs FlexPod XCS Logo
    Dell PowerFlex vs FlexPod XCS
    Compared 27% of the time
    Dell VxBlock System vs FlexPod XCS Logo
    Dell VxBlock System vs FlexPod XCS
    Compared 11% of the time
    Oracle Private Cloud Appliance vs FlexPod XCS Logo
    Oracle Private Cloud Appliance vs FlexPod XCS
    Compared 10% of the time
    Dell PowerEdge VRTX vs FlexPod XCS Logo
    Dell PowerEdge VRTX vs FlexPod XCS
    Compared 10% of the time
    VMware vSAN vs FlexPod XCS Logo
    VMware vSAN vs FlexPod XCS
    Compared 9% of the time
    More FlexPod XCS Competitors
    Dell VxBlock System vs Vblock [EOL] Logo
    Dell VxBlock System vs Vblock [EOL]
    Compared 100% of the time
    More Vblock [EOL] Competitors
     

    Product Reports

    Buyer's Guide
    FlexPod XCS
    February 2025
    FlexPod XCS reportDownload FlexPod XCS product report
    Buyer's Guide
    Vblock [EOL]
    February 2025
    Vblock [EOL] reportDownload Vblock [EOL] product report
     

    Also Known As

    No data available
    VCE Vblock
     

    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.

    NetApp

    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.

    Dell Technologies
     

    Sample Customers

    University of Sao Paulo, WD-40, The Commonwell Mutual Insurance Group
    Xerox, ACS, and Columbia Sportswear.
    Buyer's Guide
    Converged Infrastructure
    February 2025
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