FlexPod XCS Reviews

My use case was a small FlexPod architecture (seven Cisco B-Series Blades, a FAS8200 in CDOT, two Cisco Nexus switches). One rack. We used Cisco 3xxx switches. Six profiles were defined so six blades were running and one was a spare.

On top of the infrastructure we used Oracle Hypervisor (OVM); the VMs were based on Oracle Linux. On top the virtual machines we hosted Oracle Database (pinned, to reduce license costs) or applications.

So two levels of flexibility per DR were activated: one based on profiles and one based on the hypervisor.

The customer added the FlexPod-based solution to a real-time system to improve their overall system with a new analytics environment.

• Software flexibility. Everything is fully configurable. 
• The reliability results from the design. Elements are well projected (disks, blade, network, etc.).
• No single point of failure is identifiable.

FlexPod was born to be used like building-block elements, to create large EDP premises. If used to create a single FlexPod CED, optional operational collaterals (backup, management, etc.) are missing, both in docs and in design.

• It's ready to use, just plug and play
• It's easy to manage
• Single administration console

One of the benefits of the solution is management. We do not need to contact multiple vendor OEMs for any VMware issues, NetApp issues, or Cisco UCS issues. We can conduct it all with a single point of reference.

One feature we would like to see is SSD with the Cisco UCS Mini already available.

Also, integration with the other OEMs. Right now it is their intent that we could integrate with the EMC and the Hitachi, but still there are a few more OEMs out there, customs.

About three years.

No, it's good. We have many more than 50 customers that are using a solution with this platform.

It's scalable up to whatever you need. We can integrate it up to 160 servers.

It's good. We can always get to the right person for help.

We have been involved in the initial setup many times for many customers, from day one.

We currently have FlexPods and we are going to buy SolidFire to upgrade the FlexPods that we have. Peer organizations have recently purchased SolidFire and have seen a tremendous increase in their performance, not only just with speed, but with reliability. We don't have a choice, because it's that good.

It is always better to have faster, more reliable storage than unreliable and slow storage. Requirements are not getting smaller. We're not seeing a diminishing need for, or a plateauing of requirements.

The organization is growing. The storage requirements are growing. The move to big data that we're seeing is requiring faster storage and faster throughput. The common business applications we use this solution for are the Exchange Server, Outlook, and VMs.

I'm happy with the solution as it is.

I've only been here for a year, and we've had it the entire year I've been here. In the last year, there's been no downtime due to the equipment.

I have not seen anything that would indicate that it's not stable. It hasn't gone down on us, so that's a good thing. There has been no downtime that was the fault of the equipment.

In terms of technical support, we pay them and they do what we pay them to do. Sometimes we pay them, and they don't have to do anything.

I was not involved in the initial setup.

Don't buy magnetic media, but rather buy all-flash storage, solid state drives, or other types of flash media. I can't imagine that magnetic media is going to be around for much longer. Eventually, the old stuff is going to go away. Spinning platters are going to go away. I suggest investing in all-flash. Don't buy magnetic media, but rather put them in your garage.

The fact that it’s a validated design, so you are not running into any gotchas.

By having a FlexPod we're able to call a vendor and they can use back channels and reach out to other two vendors to get us a solution, instead of each vendor passing the blame from one to another. It's one stop shopping.

The price.

It's very stable, and just runs and runs and runs until you upgrade something.

It's very easy to grow and very simple. There's nothing major to add more chassis and blades, or storage if you need to.

Their support is dynamite, and it's a lot easier to escalate with NetApp than with VMware. VMware has taken us a lot longer than with NetApp.

It’s very complex if you’re new to it, but once you’ve done it its pretty easy.

I would like it to be cheaper but other than that nothing to add. As much as I can try to get the price lower, why should I have to negotiate in the first place?

I would say do it, do it now. Spend the money and buy it, it makes it easy.

I would say that it gives us more flexibility than an entire VM or bare metal solution. Its sole purpose where it mixes everything together allows compatibility to the SnapDrive manager.

Nothing I have seen can be improved, but I think we're still early in the usage.

We designed it about a year ago and have had it about six months.

It seems great so far.

So far we have not had to expand it, but are expanding shortly so we will find out.

I haven’t had to use them so far, but my colleagues who have used support have been happy so far.

It was straightforward.

Our vendor did it for us.

I would say that it seems to be the way to go in our environment. We're looking into it for new aspects as well but well see.

The most valuable feature is the flexibility because it scales to meet your needs. You don’t have to buy, like with other converged solutions where you have to buy hardware and storage at the same time, here you buy what you need.

It’s very stable, especially now. In its infancy UCS had its problems, but now it's rock solid. The nexus code has been rock solid. NetApp is bullet proof. Everything has to be configured correctly.

If you have FlexPod support, you have the support because you have Cisco and NetApp working on the same case to get the problem solved. Sometimes, vendors will pass off problems to one another, here they work hand in hand.

Configuration can be daunting the first time you look at it, but once you’ve done it a few times it's less so. There are a lot of little setting you have to make sure you configure, and every time it is a little different.

Licensing for fabric interconnects could be better. If you want to enable more ports, you have to buy licenses which can be costly, and you have to go back to Cisco and start the process again. It’s not a cheap product.

I work with the support side. Having the support structure, having the availability of one line and, having two vendors for that one call is a huge advantage over other solutions.

The valuable features are scalability and all-flash. We are using it with Cisco UCS Blade Servers, so the Cisco switches work very well as a unit. It provides us with the performance we need for our customers to get data on time. Our top customers are very happy with this solution.

The main benefits are scalability, modularity, and fast data transfer. I think the business benefit is a faster response time.

I would like to see the data fabric of the entire system because. The government is looking to deploy a government cloud solution. We want a data fabric which needs to be managed, for the entire cloud environment.

In this regard, if we use storage on our premises for our cloud infrastructure, along with some other vendor like Azure or AWS. We are wondering how all this data will be synchronized and if we can get a common solution and common input. That is the next challenge, not only for me, but for all of the members of the team.

I have been very happy with the scalability.

In terms of technical support team, the support is being provided by a partner of NetApp. However, NetApp people from India do visit us and they ask us if we are facing any problems. We hope to receive very good service from NetApp in the coming days.

I was as consultant for the initial implementation. The team was happy with the implementation.

We looked at other solutions like EMC, but NetApp was the most cost-effective solution.

I would highly recommend NetApp as a storage solution. I am impressed with all types of storage. In terms of choosing NetApp, FlexPod has a very good hyper-converged infrastructure and flash storage. It is a very good way of being cost effective. There are a lot of vendors, but not that many of them are as cost effective as NetApp.

In our facilities we use FlexPod to host business applications: bpm'online (our tool for the help desk), SugarCRM, Microsoft Exchange Server, Cisco CallManager, some applications related to telephony and collaboration, and for demonstrations of our solution.

On some occasions, when we have needed virtual machines to install new applications, the administrator has provided them in a matter of minutes. Similarly, we have created virtual desktops for environments of 50-100 users in minutes. Finally, the integration with VMware NSX has allowed us to recover from a failure of the main site in a matter of minutes.

• Centralized administration with Cisco UCS Director allows you to perform all administrative functions from a single interface, as well as automate tasks.
• UCS Profiles enable recovering a physical server in less than 15 minutes.
• FlexClone allows you to create copies of volumes in seconds, and without occupying physical space.

At the moment I do not find any functionality that could improve, other than perhaps the automation interface.

I consider this solution a 10 out of 10. It is a very complete solution and easy to administer.