FlexPod XCS Reviews

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.

Our use case is for a life sciences cloud offering.

It makes us more lateral and faster to production.

Quick deployment.

I have not really heard any complaints from our storage engineers.

It is pretty flexible. We are able to deploy faster.

I have not personally used support. 

We were using a different solution between Hitachi and other NetApp solutions. 

We switched to FlexPod for its flexibility and quicker deployment. Also, we use other NetApp products.

I was involved in the networking side of the initial setup. It was pretty straightforward.

We did the installation with a core internal team. We had some NetApp help for the storage guys, but for the network portion, it was more self-explanatory.

Most important criteria when selecting a vendor: flexibility and licensing costs.

A valuable feature is being a one-rack solution. It was easy to implement and integrate to the existing network. The complexity of how things connect was taken out of it. We use it for mostly for cloud television, CloudTV platforms, and storage of VMware images.

It's a storage solution. That's the benefit.

I do not like the NetApp licensing fees. They are exorbitant. That could become a turn-off to other companies. There are a lot of other streamlined and better solutions out there for a lower price.

It is very stable.

Scalability is very good. You have better horsepower solutions which are great. It is very easy and very scalable. FlexPod itself is pretty scalable. I am pretty happy with the solution itself.

Customer support is very good.

There are several solutions that we used, but I can't be specific for proprietary reasons. We have researched other solutions. We're always researching.

I was involved in some of the initial setup and design. It was very straightforward and very easy.

We are always researching other options. We develop solutions in-house when needed.

It's a great solution. I would recommend FlexPod, except for the licensing fee. I can speak about the implementation part. I don't know what the system admins would say. I'm not able to speak from their perspective.

NetApp’s scalability and high fault tolerance are features that we, in our organization, like about deploying NetApp’s NAS solutions.

We designed and installed NetApps FAS8040 dual controllers with FAS4246 and FAS2246 Storage Disk to provide NAS for the Cisco UCS 5100 system and has provided our client the ability to easily provision virtual machines and storage to those virtual machines.

Product price is always a concern.

I've used it for one year.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

10/10

10/10 - NetApp’s service support personnel were excellent in getting us the help we needed.

No previous solution was used.

NetApp’s documentation helped us with the initial setup and configuration. Great documentation always leads to better designs and better operations and maintenance experience.

We worked with a vendor and had a successful implementation.

No other options were looked at.

NetApp’s FAS system is an excellent line of product. In today’s world the need for virtualization is continuingly increasing. Therefore having a storage platform that can be flexible in terms of configuration and scalability it’s important to the successful deployment of virtualization in the datacenter.

It’s basically very scalable and reliable. Also, the total cost of ownership is low. It’s an effective solution for any company, and it fits for our needs.

It's easy to deploy, and efficient. The efficiency in thin provisioning and deduplication has suited all sorts of applications in our business.

Awareness amongst the customers could be better. Also, the customer base, enhanced blogs and discussions are needed, as there's a small user base right now.

Stability is 100% or 99.99999%, 24/7/365.

It's very scalable, and its horizontal scalability is great.

Excellent whenever you call you can speak to either NetApp, Cisco or VMware and they are all great.

Straightforward, very systematic and streamlined. A lot of centralized virtual desktops.

We looked at a lot of vendors, but we selected this because it seems to be a strong business going forward.

• The simplicity
• It's really scalable
• The integration with Cisco and NetApp is perfect

Since the customer had Cisco, he was really into Cisco, all the gear was Cisco, the network, the security, etc. It was easier to show UCS and Nexus and then to attach a NetApp storage. I can say that since we have a lot of Cisco clients, Flexpod is really valuable, because they are used to Cisco and it's easier to position NetApp.

I know about NetApp, not Cisco. So I don't know what's going on in the next release. But for NetApp, I expect with 9.3 coming out, a lot of features, more improvement of the data usage.

The memory, that you can enable flash to even increase your performance. So this will SCM.

Stability is really nice. The support of both NetApp and Cisco, the unified support, is really good.

The scalability is really good because it's not a silo. You can expand both storage-wise or network-wise or even servers, and if we pick another convergent infrastructure, it's difficult or they are locked. So you can scale either way, either vertically or horizontally.

When we are positioning against a cheaper solution it's really difficult to sell NetApp to our small customers, so it's really difficult to position. The customer has to see a lot of value. Once we have medium and bigger customers, it's really easy to position and it's perfect.

The most valuable feature of the solution is that it combines storage and server – very streamlined, very flexible, and built upon reliability.

It reduces the operational costs with just one platform to manage. It’s a seamless integration between three different products: servers, storage and switches.

I think that allowing faster certification times on newer codes on both Cisco and NetApp sides could be good as this is a pain point. They need to make certification more streamlined.

It's very stable and there's very few issues with it because it’s a certified product in which all the components work together.

It's very scalable so you can add more server, networking or storage infrastructure, or just add more FlexPods. You can add another FlexPod and have the same features, reliability and scalability with no issues.

Phenomenal – you can work through Cisco or Netapp and they will get the right people involved. The customer doesn’t need to call three people – it’s one entry point per customer.

It's deployed by NetApp or Cisco, so a lot of FlexPods are done through a partner so there is a single point of contact for the customers.

The most valuable features of the solution are the ease of support and industry leading technology – in storage, servers and networking, as well as virtualization.

• Ease of troubleshooting is good
• Ease of further deployment or expansion

In the config advisor tool, it could be more specific in pointing out or letting you know what to fix when it confronts issues.

It’s extremely stable.

It’s extremely scalable, which is excellent. Either adding storage to the existing cluster, or more nodes, and then the same thing on the Cisco side – more blades or chassis – all of it is extremely easy.

It's very responsive, good customer support.

It's been efficient for the customers to call the NetApp support line and then they can help assist in opening cases with the other vendors.

The setup is fairly straightforward. We have used all three vendors for a long time.