FlexPod XCS Reviews

Converged Infrastructure and tight integration with Cisco.

The solution has allowed us to reduce the overall operational overhead – once you deploy the system, you run everything as policy based so everything is very simple. You now have network, hardware, and storage in one place.

The vision is not clear with NetApp as to how they want FlexPod to be, as they want it to be for everything but it's not. It needs a specific vision and agenda, what purpose is this solution for, etc.

I would say that the stability is semi-enterprise ready, but not fully from our use case. It has its own limitations, it’s supposed to be extremely flexible because of the architecture, but there are a lot of challenges in terms of supporting multiple hypervisors. But there are no tight integrations, and this leads to stability issues. If workload analysis is not done beforehand, then you may encounter problems.

It should be able to be full scale architecture, you cannot limit it to between eight and 14 nodes (approximately), and it’s a scale up architecture not a scale out.

6/10 due to mostly skill-set issues. There are not many experts in the converged infrastructure space, and it has taken us a long time.

It was complicated. You need to have professionals engaged, as it's not plug-n-play. It requires professional services help to get it up and running, and even then there is a huge learning curve.

The infrastructure should be de-coupled from the workload, there should not be any dependency. It should be abstracted, do not look to FlexPod as the solution, but as one of many solutions. You need to understand your environment and what you need.

The features that are the most valuable to me are the simplified setup and administration, and the scalability of the system.

FlexPods are very easy to setup and maintain, and they are scalable. That brings a high level of value to companies because the system can be upgraded and utilized for many years.

A unified interface for all the components would be a great start. Since FlexPods are a mixture of three different technologies, each component must be separately administered.

I have been using and installing FlexPods for the past three years. I have installed FlexPods in multiple environments as well as with multiple models of hardware.

Each deployment is different for every client. The use of the FlexPod architecture is different nearly every time in some fashion. Any issues that arise come more from a design aspect than the actual FlexPod itself. Clients tend to design around their needs, and the FlexPod is flexible enough to accommodate, if installed correctly.

FlexPods are wonderful for tech support and customer service. Because it is a mixture of three different technologies, Cisco and NetApp and VMware have worked out a deal that you can call any of their support numbers and they’ll get the other vendors on the line as needed to troubleshoot your problems. This is a great way to handle things, instead of you having to call each vendor separately and being given the run-around.

Many companies have used different solutions in the past. Blade server and bare metal servers have been around for a long time, but Cisco got it right with UCS. The UCS computing platform is the key to making a FlexPod what it is, and the primary reason for clients to choose it for their computing needs.

The initial setup of each component is very simple, and usually taking only a few minutes for each. Once each part is setup, it then becomes more complex to integrate them together. Typically, a good FlexPod setup, following the validated designs, can take four to five days to build, then another couple days to verify.

I am the vendor, so I do the delivery of the FlexPod and installation and configuration. My advice for implementation is to have a qualified, knowledgable vendor either do the installation, or assist. I am not saying this from a business standpoint, but from personal knowledge of the product. It is something that can be done by anyone, but it would take less time and be setup with best practices in mind if you get someone who knows what they are doing.

ROI is very difficult to truly quantify, but as far as pricing goes, it totally depends on the size of the system and what components you desire. Because the FlexPod is really just an architecture based on standards, pricing can range all over the place. For small businesses, you might want a FlexPod mini. For larger corporations, you might want multiple FlexPod installations.

Licensing is also an interesting topic since you will need to license UCS for the number of chassis as well as rack servers. NetApp needs to be licensed by the features you intend to use. Nexus licensing is based on the number of ports in the switch if I remember correctly. Then it comes down to what kind of installation you’re doing for any additional licensing. If you’re installing VMware, you need licensing for that product. If you chose to install Hyper-V, then licensing is different. If you choose Oracle Linux, or Windows, or something else, licensing changes again. What I suggest if to get a vendor in to help discuss and design the FlexPod around the needs of the company.

FlexPod is is not really a product, but more of an architecture based on Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS), Cisco Nexus Switches, and NetApp Storage. It is one of the best unified computing architectures out there, and is highly scalable.

FlexPods are perfect for nearly any environment, can be scaled out to fit the needs of the company, have longevity, and can be managed globally. Get a vendor who knows what they are doing and they can help you be successful.

Our primary use is mostly for footprint consolidation — reducing the number of cables and easing the management model compared to just working with monolithic servers. Having access to the UCSM (Unified Computing System Manager) and managing that way seems to be a lot easier.

Going from the old monolithic server and silo storage that they used to use is an improvement. With the FlexPod solution, just being able to manage and monitor the overall environment helps. It saves a lot of money on all the various tools that are required to manage a traditional solution. Most of the necessary management and monitoring tools are included with the FlexPod solution. So, that's nice.

Potentially through the use of NetApp technologies on the back end — like the FlexCloning and the Snapshots — we have changed the way we do our development workflows and actually the way we do DR (Disaster Recovery) as well. So, we are using UCS (Unified Computing System) on service profiles and leveraging all their servers for test development in normal operating conditions. In the case of DR, you just have to switch service profiles. You boot to a different line off of that and you are able to turn the development test into the DR environment. That's nice.

For me, the most valuable feature is probably just the orchestration and automation that can be done around the whole solution from top to bottom, from servers to storage, networking, and using UCS Director. With the FlexPod solution, you are able to quickly provision all your hosts and all the resources that you need for the environment.

In the next generation, I'd just like to see bigger, faster, and better. I think that's partly there. Just shove more memory in them, throw a faster proxy in them, use 100 gig infrastructure. Having more hundred gig ports and AIML (Artificial Intelligence Markup/Modeling Language) workloads would be very nice.

Scalability is nice. With this product, you can just add more compute, buy another chassis, and it might be fairly inexpensive, but you plug it in and away you go. There is no more dedicating ILO (Integrated Lights-Out) ports or track ports or whatever, out-of-band management, et cetera. So, that makes the opportunities for scaling nice.

I give both Cisco and NetApp a ten for their efforts in technical support. I have used a lot of other vendors' support services, and pretty often it is an absolute joke. If there is an issue, the FlexPod support team is there to fix it.

The initial setup is fairly straightforward. Once you get the understanding of how the system works, it is fairly easy to set it up. 

We do the consultations, so I set it up myself.

There are a lot of hyper-converged solutions out on the market these days, a couple of our customers have tried those and they felt a little constrained within those environments. The FlexPod is nice because it is still made up of separate components but it is centrally managed. 

I actually used to manage the FlexPod at one company I was with. It was great there because it was all Cisco UCS. We leveraged Cisco UCS director to provision and add capacity when we needed to. Another company I was at used a Blade infrastructure along with fabric switches so that was the same sort of model. It is just easier when compared to other solutions. Fewer points of entry make it more manageable.

I used the Gen4 FlexPod at a previous company and we are reselling Gen5 to a couple of other companies. All using 40 gigs. It would be tough to quantify how much is actually saved, but I know it is a significant reduction in the number of cables, number of switches, and number of servers that they have to use. On $1 million billing for materials, I'm guessing they're probably saving at least $25,000 to $30,000. Overall they see a bit of return on investment.

We have talked about getting a hundred gig infrastructure so we can incorporate AI or machine learning, but they are not there yet.

The efficiency of data protection and data management goes back to leveraging UCS director and UCSM. Just the ability to provision the environments quickly is significant. I would say that FlexPod simplifies IT operations for unifying data management. Our customer is not currently using any cloud right now. I personally have not used any cloud, but I know there are opportunities for some integrations. 

They are leveraging SnapMirror to replicate all their source data and their production data center over to DR, as well as test development. It is easier than a host-based copy. Keeping all the switching within the FlexPod environment instead of having to go up to the core all the time probably helps out.

In terms of switches, cabling, the chassis — being able to fit eight servers in 6U obviously, helps out in terms of data center savings.

The advice I would give to people considering this solution is to certainly leverage all the tools and applications that Cisco and NetApp have developed around the FlexPod solution. You could certainly buy things separately and piecemeal it together, but things like the CSA and the solutions support becomes a nightmare. When you get a nice certified FlexPod solution, all the tools come with it. It makes a big difference in the environment and usability.

On a scale of one to ten where ten is the best, I would rate FlexPod as a nine or a ten. I love it. Again, there are obviously a lot of new HCI products that are coming out. But in terms of being able to manage it, I think that FlexPod is pretty solid as is.

We use this solution for our servers. We are getting ready to move to the cloud.

We have a network team and assistance team in our organization, and this solution has helped them to combine and work together a lot better.

The solution's granular scalability and broad application support help us to meet the needs of diverse workloads.

The performance has improved with a couple of applications that we have. I’m not sure of the percentage, but I would say about twenty percent. It also optimizes operations.

It has increased staff productivity because we can work on other stuff. 

The most valuable feature is that it is all-in-one, and it is easy to get support on it.

There are times where we have had issues with technical support.

In terms of stability, it is very stable.

This solution is scalable.

Technical support is pretty good. I would rate it seven out of ten.

Sometimes we still have issues with support. We have had instances where we’ve called in and not gotten the right people on the phone.

We began to look for a new solution when the stuff we had was at end-of-life.

The initial setup of this solution is straightforward. You simply follow the documentation.

We performed the implementation in-house.

We looked at Cisco and HP when we were researching this solution.

This is a very stable product and we have had really good luck with it, so I would recommend it to a colleague at another company.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

Our primary use for it is in the healthcare market. We have a lot of customers using it because they want to have some flexibility with storage and compute. That is the reason we are selling it in the healthcare market.

It's much cheaper than the old legacy stuff, especially the storage. It means that our customers don't have to take care of separate storage, separate compute, but can combine them. It streamlines things, especially for development.

The flexibility of using it for compute as well as the flexibility of the storage itself.

When it's running, it's running. It's fine. We are impressed with the product. At the beginning, because it was new for us, there were some issues, but now, after some implementations, it has been okay.

It's scalable.

Technical support has been very helpful, and also very polite. They guided us through the process, followed up with us. I've had a good experience with them.

The initial setup was straightforward.

We also looked at HyperFlex. HyperFlex is also compatible but I think NetApp SolidFire is more robust.

Our primary criteria when selecting a vendor are to get support, a good solution, one that our customers are happy with.

My advice would be, try it, buy it, see what you can do with it and get some experience with it. With that experience, you can better sell it to the customer.

Our primary use case for NetApp has been as part of a Cisco UCS chassis. We have seven or eight different instances of it now, spread around the world. So far, it has been very reliable, other than a few hard drive failures here and there, but those are expected.

We run a lot of the same OS's so it really saves us a lot on infrastructure cost.

It helped us really jump into the private cloud infrastructure instead of just trying to jump straight into public, which is way more expensive in the long run. That is what most businesses will be looking for in the end. It really is a cost saving when you can keep it in-house.

The flexibility and data deduplication have been the biggest practical applications.

More flash is going to be the biggest thing for us. We use a lot of SaaS currently, but flash is the way to go.

It has been very stable. We've had UCS with NetApp for about six years now and I would venture to say it's "five nines" so far.

We typically add a new chassis about every six months, so it's very scalable.

I haven't personally used the technical support, but we do have a few people who worked for NetApp who have come to work for us. Their interactions with NetApp have been great.

FlexPod was really our first major endeavor in large converged hardware.

Our most important criteria when selecting a vendor are the availability of support, to get it when we need it, and to upgrade as fast as possible when we need to.

I was involved in the Initial design and configuration. It was as straightforward as it gets.

We were looking at EMC as well. At the time, Cisco was partnered with both, but we went for the data deduplication from NetApp. EMC wasn't quite the same.

It doesn't really get simpler than the setup that we had, and the maintenance that we have had. I would tell colleagues that NetApp is the way to go.

We have our primary and backup data centers as our primary storage, not only for Windows Servers on NFS, but also as part of our users' data stores.

It has been a great product, primarily because of a lot of its deduplication features, and the out-of-the-box thinking on block level storage from NetApp, in particular. For the solution as a whole, it is great that all the different products work so well together.

Everyone's willingness to work together to solve problems. We have had a few minor issues where we have been able to get Cisco, NetApp, and VMware all on the phone to solve a problem together. No one points fingers and everyone understands each others' products.

We have had some technical issues around the Java UI, but nothing major.

It has been incredibly stable. As with any technology solutions, there are issues, but we were able to get those resolved very quickly. No one takes, "No," for an answer. We get it handled.

We have had to add some disk shelves to the system over the last couple years. We have never had issues here.

We get a lot of domestic support. We are in Kansas City, and the support office is in Wichita, Kansas. They are three hours away from us. They have never come, but it is great to have that local connection. They do a very good job of taking care of their stuff. They got a lot of pride in their equipment.

We had EMC storage before we got to the NetApp storage. We had a lot of supportability issues. It was an older system, so it was better just to upgrade the system or replace it.

We knew we needed to invest in a new solution when we were replacing four hard drives a day.

The initial setup was very straightforward. They provided a lot of documentation. They provided a lot of drawings as to how to cable it properly, along with a lot of tools, making sure it was set up properly.

I set it up myself.

We purchased from CDW•G. They are great partners on the government side.

I have been a happy NetApp/FlexPod customer for years.

Go through all the training, and make sure you understand all the systems. It is very different than a lot of the other systems. There are intricacies which are important to understand, especially with the duplication providers. Therefore, understanding all the challenges around it is important for long-term support.

Most important criteria when selecting a vendor: A vendor who cares about us as a customer. A vendor who is able to work through every issue, regardless of who is at fault, and solve the problem.

Primary use case is for virtualization of our phone systems and our domain.

Being able to contact one place to get support, e.g., if it is the virtualization end of it, hardware, or storage. There is just one place to get support.

It has simplified our support.

• Reference design
• Ease of use
• Ease of support

They could improve their technical support team.

Unified management would be really nice, having one a single pane of glass to manage everything do with the solution.

It has been very stable. There has been no downtime.

Over the last six years, it has scaled very well.

On scale of one to 10, I would rate them about a seven. 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. 

Overall, I do reach the right person when I call them and they do offer the proper guidance.

We were previously using very individual systems, then our vendor suggested this. Also, because our phone systems, we were also using reference design.

The initial setup was very straightforward.

We had a managed project team which did the installation.

We evaluated one other vendor.

We chose FlexPod because we were previous customers and know their support structure.

When considering a solution, look at it in total from purchase. Then, look at what is going on five years down the road. Do a comparison of expansion, ease of expansion, and everything else.

Most important criteria when selecting a vendor: reliability. We receive this now from the FlexPod solution.