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, Cisco is perfect. But NetApp is more reasonable.

The tool's pricing is fair.

The product's pricing is high and I would rate it a nine out of ten.

Licensing can be interesting with the UCS refresh because of Intersight integration (IMM) and SaaS, connected virtual machine or private virtual machine. I have seen some of the different licensing models, but with the new purchasing, all customers are going to have to buy some sort of Intersight licensing with the new UCS X-Series, "FlexPod". I will explore the licensing, setup costs and options with my customers as we discover, assess, architect and get some estimates going!

The pricing and licensing are quite expensive. However, compared to other solutions, it is okay.

In terms of the cost, the last bill I saw was about $3.5 million from the latest contract. That might have been for a five-year contract. That was with the licensing for the ports for the FIs, along with the tax support and the software assurance with Cisco tech.

It's expensive, but when you want entreprise services and support you pay for what you get.

The NetApp portion was a $5 million investment five years ago. That has served the customer well over five and a half years. They are having to do another upgrade. But, if one could forecast as well as we did five years ago, that is pretty good.

I heard the NVMe stuff is coming around. We don't have that license or that feature yet. So, we probably will try it out and see how much improvement that's over our current setup.

Our licensing costs are about $50,000 per year.

FlexPod is expensive but from my perspective, it is worth the cost. I say this because of the ease of use and performance benefits.

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

The total cost of ownership with this solution is good.

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.

Everything is purchased, so we do not do any leasing with this product.

It has reduced our data center costs. Having everything in a single cabinet versus multiple cabinets can reduce your cost.

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

Our licensing fees are on a yearly basis.

The solution has reduced data center operating costs by about five percent.

We pay approximately $1,400 USD in total for between five-thousand and ten-thousand ports. Apart from FlexPod fees, I have the VMware annual license cost.

We have a lease for approximately $10,000 USD per month.

The FlexPod licensing can adjust to your purse, i.e. there are different levels available for businesses of all sizes.

As a startup, for the amount of budget we have and the amount we spend, we are getting what we expected.

Because of the way they slice things up, you have FlexPod Express, FlexPod Datacenter, and FlexPod Select, which allows you to go small, medium, and large with multiple locations. * If you have ROBO locations, you can go to Express. * If you're looking at a converged infrastructure, you can use FlexPod Datacenter. * You can use FlexPod Select if you need to have that pocketed application which needs top-notch performance.

If you can afford it, I would certainly go for it. I don't think there are very many other options. Now you have HCI, so you could skip the Cisco piece. I'm not an HCI customer but I would assume it would have better, tighter integration than Cisco and NetApp.

Sometimes you may end up spending a little more to get it in the first place, but you gain it back in terms of infrastructure upgrade costs and troubleshooting costs. The solution also lasts a surprisingly long time.

It is cheaper than other products. For example, Dell EMC VxBlock is more expensive.

You get better management and orchestration, but it still costs you money. You won't be spending less money to go to new technology. You're just getting more. You're still spending a lot of money.

The cost is a little high.

It is expensive. My company is small. When you look at the price point, this is a big thing for us to invest in.

Because the solution is now stable, we are saving about $100 million USD a year.

Make sure that you engage as much with whom you are buying from as a partnership, not just as a purchase.

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

We purchased FlexPod though Datalink. Be sure you use a known company to be sure you get the correct licensing and products for your specific needs.

We purchased the solution through CDW. They are a partner and knowledgeable. We are good and comfortable with CDW.

Make sure you understand the technology that you need, and anytime that you are buying any storage make sure you understand storage. Do not just buy storage based on what somebody sells you in terms of IO or throughput. Buy storage based on the solutions you need, the technologies you need, and what will make your life a lot easier down the road.