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reviewer1223397 - PeerSpot reviewer
Solutions Architect at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
Real User
Enables us to quickly provision all of our hosts and all the resources that we need for the environment
Pros and Cons
  • "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."
  • "I think it is sufficient for now, but in the next generation, I'd just like to see bigger, faster, and better."

What is our primary use case?

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.

How has it helped my organization?

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.

What is most valuable?

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.

What needs improvement?

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.

Buyer's Guide
FlexPod XCS
July 2025
Learn what your peers think about FlexPod XCS. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: July 2025.
861,524 professionals have used our research since 2012.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

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.

How are customer service and support?

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.

How was the initial setup?

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

What about the implementation team?

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

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

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.

What other advice do I have?

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.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Partner.
PeerSpot user
reviewer1223379 - PeerSpot reviewer
Systems Engineer at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Improved application performance and is 100% stable
Pros and Cons
  • "Things got a lot faster. We can pull and test in DEV systems much more rapidly and are clearing up a lot of DBA time. In the past, every time we tested it, we needed to be refreshed. In the past, it would take a day of our DBA's time, and now it's just point, click, and ten minutes later it's done."
  • "Not a ten because it could always be cheaper, it could always be faster."

How has it helped my organization?

Things got a lot faster. We can pull and test in DEV systems much more rapidly and are clearing up a lot of DBA time. In the past, every time we tested it, we needed to be refreshed. In the past, it would take a day of our DBA's time, and now it's just point, click, and ten minutes later it's done.

FlexPod has improved our application's performance. It is now ten times as fast. 

Unplanned downtime incidents have decreased. We've had two and a half years with zero downtime. 

What is most valuable?

The most valuable features are the reliability and tools such as SnapCenter and SnapManager. We use them a lot. They make life easier.

On the surface, validated designs for enterprise apps are not that important but it's knowing that they work, and if they don't work, I can get support for them. We did have some pretty nasty bugs early on, around four years ago, but we haven't had problems.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is 100% stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I don't have any problems with scalability. 

How are customer service and technical support?

Support is able to fix our problems but we don't use them much. 

I haven't had many problems, so FlexPod's unified support hasn't been that important. But if I did have a lot of problems, it would be important. I'd rather just not have problems, so that's a good thing.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

It worked for me at my last company so we went with FlexPod. It's what I know. It's what I trust, it's comfortable, and it's worked well for me in the past.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

It was more expensive than others but the reliability in the tools has saved us money in that regard, so it's worth it.

What other advice do I have?

It is more complex than just basic storage systems. That's intimidating to some people but it works well for me because I've learned it, I know it, I've been using it for ten years and it's not a big deal to me. But it is intimidating to some people and if you push past that, and just learn it, it is worth it. Especially for the additional tools and the environment it allows you to utilize.

I would rate it a nine out of ten. Not a ten because it could always be cheaper, it could always be faster.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
FlexPod XCS
July 2025
Learn what your peers think about FlexPod XCS. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: July 2025.
861,524 professionals have used our research since 2012.
reviewer1223475 - PeerSpot reviewer
Pre-Sales Specialist at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Improves application performance for our customers and has decreased unplanned downtime incidents
Pros and Cons
  • "FlexPod's unified support for the entire stack is very important. Before, the customers would log a ticket by Cisco and a ticket by NetApp. It's better when vendors can parter and look for a solution together."
  • "You must build each block separately, that's a disadvantage sometimes."

What is our primary use case?

Our customers use this solution. It's a validated design and there's one solution for compute and storage. The validated design is an advantage when you take all of the separate parts.

How has it helped my organization?

The flexibility between Cisco and NetApp is valuable. When there are new parts of new devices like the new AFF 400, then the speed is not fast enough to implement what the customer asks for, but the design is not validated. It's faster to validate the design for new equipment.

FlexPod's unified support for the entire stack is very important. Before, the customers would log a ticket by Cisco and a ticket by NetApp. It's better when vendors can partner and look for a solution together. 

It improves application performance for our customers. Before FlexPod, you could make a design and that design was not strong enough for some applications and now there is a good validated design. The validated design gives space for the applications to run or not. Performance has been improved by 50%. Before we had to make separate designs, now, we are more confident that a design is good to work for the type of application. 

It has decreased unplanned downtime incidents. 

What is most valuable?

It's easier to sell to a customer because it is a validated design but sometimes the customer wants another feature and then it's a problem. You must build each block separately, that's a disadvantage sometimes.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability is good. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It's very scalable. 

How are customer service and technical support?

Sometimes we reach out to the NetApp support from the NetApp part or the Cisco part but the engineers by us are also certified to install FlexPod. We have had good experiences with them. They speak the same language as us which is an advantage. 

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

Our customers choose this solution because of the validated design and for the one-stop solution where it's one contract. It's one building block which is an advantage for the customer instead of buying separate items.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Our customers also look at Dell EMC. 

What other advice do I have?

I would rate it a nine out of ten.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Partner.
PeerSpot user
reviewer1223511 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Storage Engineer at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
A sophisticated networking storage solution that has a flexible configuration and setup
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable feature of the solution is the flexibility in configuration and the setup."
  • "Updates are not frequent enough."

What is our primary use case?

We use on-prem for our unified network communications solution, which is basically a Call Center. We have a Cisco call center running Cisco software on FlexPod. That is our primary and only use case right now for it. We use HP as a computer hardware solution for the enterprise. We'll probably expand our use of FlexPod and we use it for everything else including the entire production environment.

The components we are currently using are Cisco Blade Server Chassis. The blades are M4, Fabric Interconnect 6248, I believe. The very first version. They are very old. We'll probably be upgrading in a few years, or maybe next year. We have MDS switches, 9148 — they are pretty old too. We will have to upgrade them. And then we have NetApp FAS8040 disks.

How has it helped my organization?

This is a solution that's designed by Cisco and NetApp together. We have our reference designs, so we pretty much can skip the part where we need the implementation delivery. We can work directly with the vendor like NetApp, and tell them "We need this, and here is your validated design." But that's what helps right there.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature of the solution is the flexibility in configuration and the setup. We have not had any major issues so far.

What needs improvement?

I would like to see the FlexPod infrastructure get updated more often. Things like the firmware, the software packages, and the compatibility matrix have to update more often and seem to lag in development. We are kind of dragging on this. Because we were not performing all those updates more often, we are kind of delayed a few years.

For example, we are using the FlexPod for the Call Center and Call Center has specific versions of their software. Cisco has recommended that we use NetApp version 91 as the final version for the Call Center software. We can not go beyond 91 and 91 is a two-year-old OS. There have 96 out already and will probably be presenting 97 in a few days. So we are literally lagging behind by years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We had a problem with the stability at one point. We found it through Cisco tech support while they were helping us to troubleshoot this solution. We found a drop in the Fibre Channel frames. This drop occurred on the HBAs (Hot Bus Adapter) of the NetApp controller. But we had to troubleshoot every step of the way to figure it out. Because basically what was happening was that the Call Center virtual machines were crashing.

However, the hardware stability is very good. We have no hardware issues on the server site.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability of the solution is brilliant and works great. With the fabric interconnects, you can scale it horizontally. I don't know the actual stats, but I believe with the newer fabric interconnects, you can scale indefinitely pretty much.

How are customer service and technical support?

We did not purchase this product with the support contract, but I would like to try it. So our next purchase would be for sure including that part number for the FlexPod support.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

When we went to invest in a new solution we were looking for ease of implementation, peace of mind, future reference, and stateless design. That is the ability to take out any hardware piece, replace it with a new one, reboot and — boom — ready to go.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was very straightforward, but you have to know the integration document for the Cisco validated design. It is a must to know. Basically, the guy who performs the implementation should know it like the bible. It is actually the bible for those guys, and for the people who are using it. Those validated designs make our engineer lives, much easier.

What about the implementation team?

We did involve a reseller. I can't mention them by name but they are a very well-known company. The process was great. They set up everything, and they are still helping us with the architecture and the new features, and so on so forth. As a matter of fact, they would be helping us updating firmware on the fabric interconnects in the next few months.

What was our ROI?

Our return on investment is that the solution has made us more efficient. It is a ready-to-go solution. It's like you can start using it almost within a week of the delivery.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Our company makes purchases like CapEx (capital expenditure). So we do not have to maintain the license.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Because I don't have experience with the Cloud integrations, that did end up affecting choices initially. For now, we are going to be staying with NetApp but we are also looking at other products like Pure Storage and Nimble.

What other advice do I have?

The solutions that validate the designs for major enterprise apps is a nice thing to have because there are many components. For a single person or even for an entire IT department, it will be impossible to correlate software versions, hardware versions, firmware versions, and everything else. It's a huge matrix.

The vendor has to provide the compatibility matrix, obviously and has to provide the complete vertical to give those numbers, per each component, for all software, and for the firmware. The customer can't figure it out by themselves. So, and that's the reason for the FlexPod, so they can buy and integrate everything together.

We are not on the Cloud yet at all. I would say we'll be looking into it when it's time because I understand this is inevitable. So we understand the push on us into this territory, and I know it is all about the Cloud now. A few years ago it was completely different. Now, it is all Data Fabric Cloud, Azure, and Usenet.

The product has decreased the unplanned downtime incidents in our organization. Even the incident I mentioned about the crashing virtual machines was identified and solved in one day.

On a scale of one to ten where ten is the best, I would rate FlexPod as a ten. I love it all. I could give it an eleven. 

My advice to people considering the solution is simple: read the Cisco validated design, remember it, and use it. It is a must to have and must to know, and must to use.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
reviewer1223496 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr Systems Engineer at a government with 501-1,000 employees
Real User
Reliable, easy to manage and has decreased the footprint in our data centers
Pros and Cons
  • "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."
  • "Something that we struggle with because we're a relatively small scale organization and the administrative effort is spread across so many different pieces of infrastructure, it would be nice to have a set of tools that enables us to get a little bit more information out of our system."

What is our primary use case?

Our primary use case is for all of our data storage and so primarily VMware virtualization. We run over 95% of all of our computers running on VMware.

How has it helped my organization?

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.

Our data center costs have been lowered. We are in a bit of a unique position where we have a different group that actually pays for the costs of the data center, so we don't see a specific benefit. It's been cost savings in terms of a far smaller footprint in two data centers and then also the associated fewer networking costs as we're just consuming fewer and fewer ports as we've gone to the FlexPod model.

Unplanned downtime incidents have absolutely decreased in my organization. We went from having somewhere around three to five outages every year to us not having had any outages in the past four or five years. That's been very, very beneficial for us.

What is most valuable?

We've always appreciated the value of the NetApp because it's been incredibly reliable. It's at a decent price point. We are a local government entity and so we have funding issues that probably some commercial entities don't have, but we've been able to buy cost-effective solutions. We feel that this has scaled in terms of technology improvements over the years, but ultimately we're a small team that manages all the systems and we're split in a thousand different directions and so storage management's a very small part of my day or week. The reliability and the relative ease of use, are the real things that keep on bringing us back to NetApp. It's been the reliability and ease of management.

In terms of the importance of FlexPod's validated designs for major enterprise apps, we are a big consumer of SAP, so it's important that we have all products that fit into the SAP hardware compatibility list. 

It simplifies the infrastructure from edge to core. It's been an easy configuration for us. We have separate teams that manage all pieces of the infrastructure and I think that it helps the collaboration be a little bit easier.

FlexPod's history of innovations has maybe helped us in the context that we've traditionally always been a spinning disc environment where that's the price point that we've typically been able to afford to spend our money. We're starting to deviate away from going with the SaaS layer and SATA layer to more of an SSD layer and SATA because of flash pools, which is a new technology that we were able to leverage on the SSD discs. That is working us into a position where there's less and less demand for us.

The unified support for the entire staff is very important because we've been a NetApp partner at my current company for at least eight years and we have 95% virtualized on VMware and we transitioned away from multiple vendors to a Cisco UCS server stack almost exclusively. We're very dependent on those technologies to keep our business running. We run 911 services for multiple jurisdictions and these old services have to be available 24 hours a day.

It has improved the performance of our application by around 50% because as the models matured in our data center and we went from a lot of local storage to centralized storage. We made a big investment in storage, so we're also putting a lot of confidence in the system to deliver the IO that we need and that's proven to be the case.

What needs improvement?

Something that we struggle with because we're a relatively small scale organization and the administrative effort is spread across so many different pieces of infrastructure, it would be nice to have a set of tools that enables us to get a little bit more information out of our system. Right now we're in the process of looking at OCI. We have free trial licenses for a two year period and we're investing quite a bit of time into writing reports and allowing it to tell us more information about our systems because we don't have a lot of time and we don't have a lot of sexy tools out there to give us information. We're going to go through this exercise with OCI, but at some point, that tool's going to go away and we may not have the funding to keep it on-premises. There are metrics and there's information in the system that a normal consumer like ourselves, a smaller organization, would probably not be privy to that information. It would be nice if some of those reporting capabilities were available just as a part of the ordinary suite of software that people buy.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using FlexPod for the last eight years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We deployed it in conjunction with several VARs. We worked with Peak Resources. They are somebody that we've had a relationship with for quite a while. We are very happy with the engineering staff. We feel like it's a good working relationship and they've served us well.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We are a consumer of Cisco UCS, we constantly adding blades into the infrastructure as needs arise and we're constantly purchasing storage multiple times a year. We know that the solution scales well and is very flexible in that regard. We can add SSD as we need. 

How are customer service and technical support?

The technical support is fantastic. We're in Denver, Colorado and we've got a really good strong team out there associated with NetApp, so we are happy with the partners and we are happy with NetApp themselves. It's all been great. No issues.

What was our ROI?

We feel the ROI is good. It's really helped us get rid of a few hundred physical servers that were unreliable and had inconsistent performance. Now we have a platform that is consistent and has a lot of native high availability capabilities built into it. Snapshots, RDP, just simple things like that that offer us an immense benefit.

What other advice do I have?

We've been highly supportive of FlexPod and we continue to be highly supportive. We've had a lot of go-arounds with the peers and other state and local government organizations and we've had some people abandon what they've done and go the same route that we've gone. We feel that's a bit of a success story for us because we believe in the product.

I would rate it a solid eight out of ten. Not a ten because there's always budgetary issues. Specifically related to the Cisco side of things, we've seen very, very strong fluctuations in some of the pricing of the hardware and being a local government entity where we don't have the ability to just find money for things out of thin air, which a lot of commercials and the prices seem to do, we have very, very fixed budgets and so that's a frustrating process to go through. But the NetApp pricing's generally been pretty consistent. We generally have a four year replacement cycle. So the money that we allocate for replacements generally is pretty right on cue for what our capacity needs are.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Partner.
PeerSpot user
reviewer1223490 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Manager at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
Consultant
Simplified and saved time overall for all of the configuration and deployment but it is not a complete solution
Pros and Cons
  • "Backup, restore, and ease of deployment are the most valuable features."
  • "I would like to have the installation of the top virtualization on its own rather than doing it through the admin. For example, if FlexPod is configured after the configuration of the host, the ESXi is installed also, but it should be part of it rather than doing it as a separate system."

What is our primary use case?

Our primary use case is for virtualization, the VMs.

How has it helped my organization?

FlexPod has enabled us to consolidate some of our stuff. 

The validated designs for major enterprise apps are an integral part of our company. We only do validated designs in our thing and then we remove our data center consolidation and move stuff onto that.

It simplifies the infrastructure from edge to core. It simplifies the configuration metrics and saved time. FlexPod simplified and saved time overall for all of the configuration and deployment.

What is most valuable?

Backup, restore, and ease of deployment are the most valuable features.

What needs improvement?

It hasn't changed the application performance in our company but obviously the new hardware gives it the performance increase. Overall nothing more changed.

I would like to have the installation of the top virtualization on its own rather than doing it through the admin. For example, if FlexPod is configured after the configuration of the host, the ESXi is installed also, but it should be part of it rather than doing it as a separate system.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is pretty solid.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It's scalable. 

How are customer service and technical support?

I don't remember having needed to contact their technical support. 

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We knew we needed to invest in a solution like FlexPod because we were growing and we have evaluated different solutions and after that we decided.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was straightforward because we did not do it, Cisco did it.

What about the implementation team?

I deployed through Cisco. We had a positive experience with them.

What was our ROI?

We have seen ROI. 

It actually initially increased our CapEx.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We looked at Red Hat, VMware, HP, Cisco. We chose FlexPod because of the consolidation and reduced footprint.

What other advice do I have?

If configuration, unification, and standardization are the concern and if they are using it with Cisco as a network edge then I think it will be a good solution to go with FlexPod.

I would rate it a seven out of ten. Not a ten because a seven means for me that it is more than a five. A 10 would mean that I don't have to do anything else to improve. Improvements could be ESXi installations at vCenter installation and all of that. I have this to do it. It is a solution, but it has stops at a certain point. It is not a complete solution. 

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
reviewer1223502 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr Storage Engineer at a wholesaler/distributor with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Enables our staff to be more efficient and it simplifies our infrastructure from edge to core
Pros and Cons
  • "Not a perfect ten because it could use better integration on the network side between UCS and the switching layerKnowing that everything works, having a single place to be able to find out compatibility and things like that are the biggest benefits of this solution. The fact that LACP is not supported on UCS blades isn't so great. It would be nice if it was."
  • "Not a perfect ten because it could use better integration on the network side between UCS and the switching layer. The fact that LACP is not supported on UCS blades isn't so great. It would be nice if it was."

What is our primary use case?

We use it for everything except for ERP. We use it for VMware, VDI, SQL, and a mix of Windows and Linux.

How has it helped my organization?

FlexPod has enabled our staff to be more efficient. They spend less time managing multiple tickets with multiple vendors. If we open a ticket with Cisco and the issue needs to have NetApp pulled in or VMware pulled in, our contact is still Cisco and they still have ownership of the case, as opposed to, without FlexPod, the process would be opening a ticket with Cisco. Cisco would need to check something on the NetApp side. Then we would have to engage NetApp, open a NetApp case, coordinate some time to get everybody together on a WebEx, and then they could say that it's a Windows problem. Then we would have to open a ticket with Microsoft and do the whole thing again. The support is nice to have.

It has decreased the unplanned downtime incidents by around 10%.

What is most valuable?

Knowing that everything works, having a single place to be able to find out compatibility and things like that are the biggest benefits of this solution.

FlexPod's validated designs for major enterprise apps are very important in our company. For example, running our SQL clusters, being able to have compatibility information, and validated design information, for everything from SQL versions, OS versions, switching, firmware versions, and UCS and models of whatever hardware we're using, having all of that pre-validated and available is nice.

We do not use their storage into public cloud.

We have found that it simplifies our infrastructure from edge to core. It's just nice to have that single source of pre-validated designs and reference architectures.

The history of innovations has not affected our operations. We've been pretty stable. We haven't really done a whole lot as far as, being on the bleeding edge of anything.

Unified support for the entire stack is pretty important. It's nice to have. It makes it a lot easier from our perspective, to be able to make or have a single point of contact, for issues that are kind of gray as far as where the problem lies.

What needs improvement?

It hasn't saved us CapEx.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It's been stable. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It's scaled easily to what we need it for. 

How are customer service and technical support?

Support has been good. There were a few hiccups early on but it's pretty well streamlined now.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was straightforward. It would have been set up the same way if it wasn't called FlexPod. We're using Cisco Nexus, which is Cisco UCS, NetApp storage, and VMware are all things we would have done anyway.

What about the implementation team?

We did the setup ourselves. It was piece by piece and it was built by us and then validated.

What other advice do I have?

If you're a Cisco, NetApp or VMware shop then go for it.

I would rate FlexPod an eight out of ten. Not a perfect ten because it could use better integration on the network side between UCS and the switching layer. The fact that LACP is not supported on UCS blades isn't so great. It would be nice if it was.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Team Lead at Grenke Digital gmbh
Real User
Simplifies infrastructure from edge to core and has high performance that saves us time
Pros and Cons
  • "Our previous solution used to take 24 hours and now we're down to seven hours. It has really good performance."
  • "FlexPod has not decreased the unplanned downtime incidents in our company. There was a problem with the back-end configuration and we had a downtime of three hours."

What is our primary use case?

We're using a FlexPod cluster with Cisco UCS and NetApp AFF. It's a four-node cluster. We use FlexPod for everything in our company. We're a financial company.

How has it helped my organization?

Our previous solution used to take 24 hours and now we're down to seven hours. It has really good performance. 

It simplifies infrastructure from edge to core but not to the cloud. We have five people running operations and they are quite busy. But for the scale of VMs for the customers, we need to have at least two more men to deal with infrastructure.

We just got AFF so we've got all flash on the environment now. This really speeds things up from something like eight milliseconds for I/O latency to under one millisecond which is great.

FlexPod has definitely made our staff more efficient, enabling them to spend time on tasks. We're going more into automation now and we don't have to build all the VMs by hand. We automate this.

It has also improved application performance by around 50%. We're getting back more scale. I'm very happy with the performance of the database now. It has also decreased our data center's costs. We don't use so many racks anymore. We compressed all the stuff and we have a higher compute and more IOPs in the smaller racks.

What is most valuable?

Support of the firmware is the most valuable feature. The solutions' validated designs for major enterprise apps in our organization is very important. It ensures our ERP system runs smoothly on those machines.

We don't use the storage tiering to the public cloud.

What needs improvement?

FlexPod has not decreased the unplanned downtime incidents in our company. There was a problem with the back-end configuration and we had a downtime of three hours. We encounter more downtime on procedural tasks we have to do than on technical tasks.

In the next release, I would like to have a better monitoring option in which I can see the full stack and can then decide which steps to take.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

In terms of the stability, once it's up and running, it runs really smoothly.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Scalability is excellent. 

How are customer service and technical support?

Their technical support is good. It would be better if some P2 cases would be looked at from P1 guys as well, to give more experience to these orders. Last time we had four weeks on a P2 case, which wasn't very good. We have a task force and within three days, we managed to get through the problem. So this could have been resolved actually two weeks before.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We chose NetApp because we've used them before and we trust them.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was complex. We are implementing ACI as well, application centric infrastructure and this is complex to the network. We are pushing a virtualization layer on to the network which is really complex.

What about the implementation team?

We used an integrator who was great.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We looked at Dell EMC and NetApp but Dell EMC was expensive. 

What other advice do I have?

I would rate it an eight out of ten. An eight because it's very reliable but there are some flaws which you need time to tackle them. There are some things that can be better. Better integration would make it a ten. 

I would recommend this solution to someone considering it because of the support it comes with and the high-performance. We can scale it up to a level which we will never reach.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user