Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] vs NetApp HCI [EOL] comparison

"Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series is simple to use, user-friendly and has been best for our purposes."

"Offers very good data protection and provides system uptime availability effectively."

"The possibility to share the workload is one of its most valuable features. We have many applications which have need of workloads only a few times in a month, so we share HyperFlex with them."

"We haven't had any downtime; it is absolutely stable."

"This kind of solution adds a lot of value because it helps the IT department to align with the business' view."

"Most of our users are Cisco customers, so it fits in within the suites we use. Primarily for me, as a solution architect, it's the technology and architecture that is the most valuable. I know from my technical colleagues that it's easy to use and for the customer, the up-time is the most valuable asset. It's running, has low failure, and so on which is why we use it."

"The product is easy to manage and flexible for upgrading without major changes."

"Overall, the solution is pretty good."

"NetApp HCI's ability to scale on demand is a differentiator in the marketplace."

"The stability is fantastic; in my mind, it's one of the best storage products and the software around it has got to be the best across all different storage environments."

"The scalability is great, because it can scale independently."

"HCI definitely improved how flexible we scale, and our entrance into the cloud. The features are very rich, in terms of both avenues. It's helped us flexibly move and shift our workloads around, back and forth."

"We're trying to move to a much more API-driven management of all of our products, and NetApp's product is, from all the SDS providers we have seen, the most fully-baked API out there."

"This is a strong product and it works very well, and the processes around it continue to grow and mature."

"The most valuable feature is the convergence."

"Scalability was another thing I was looking at. The solution, by its very nature, is designed to be expandable and flexible, so you don't have to buy performance you don't need today, but you're also not stuck with something you can't expand."

"One aspect that really needs to be looked at, is to fix the bugs issue."

"Sometimes when there are multiple technologies involved in a support case, this is when there is a bit of a lag."

"If we compare it with VMware, the VMware product is basically very open, and it can be easily integrated with any platform. VMware product is also available on the cloud and is not an appliance-based product, whereas Cisco HyperFlex is an appliance-based product. Companies that want to use HCI as a platform or as a service would prefer something without an appliance. A SaaS-based product is better for a customer who is using the cloud and has multiple resources, workflows, and devices on the cloud and wants to go for a hyper-converged solution. This is where improvement is needed. In addition to an appliance-based product, Cisco should provide a SaaS-based product. Its price should be lower. Cisco needs to work on the pricing model for this product. Its price is a big road blocker when competing against Nutanix and VMware, which are its main competitors."

"The main issue is cost-wise. Cisco costs more than its competitors."

"We need to be able to scale out and not just up. When you want to scale up or scale out, you are quite limited."

"If we could have just a single pane of glass, where everything can be managed through that one app, rather than have multiple apps, it would be great."

"Does not support the stretch cluster, and the interface is not good."

"I would like the pricing to be cheaper."

"I'm not a fan of how they don't log you out properly from some of their web tools for management."

"My biggest pain point is the installation part. I would like to see the appliance itself remove the entire switch that goes behind it and figure out how to do all the cluster interconnects within the box itself."

"I would like to have more variety, like GPU cards."

"If you want to have a really dense data center then it's hard to have a big chunk of cabling going through everything."

"HCI has not enabled us to consolidate workloads or break down silos and has not increased application performance. It has also not resulted in more efficient use of compute resources."

"There are some legacy applications which still cannot be migrated. That is why we have to keep two environments: legacy and the new one. We would like to see more compatibility to move stuff."

"It would be nice to have better access to tutorials and a test environment for simulations."

"I would like to see a better upgrade process, like the one that ONTAP has."

"Here in Brazil... it is very expensive. It's very hard for almost all companies to buy even the small version of this solution."

"There is no additional licensing cost other than the cost for each part."

"Cisco is quite expensive, but not in the initial first buy."

"We have a yearly license."

"For customers in the private sector, this product can have a very high return on investment."

"If you don't look at the costs of the systems, the scalability is quite good."

"It is relatively expensive, but it can easily return value by freeing up other resources."

"Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series is expensive. It's a standard license, and we pay for it yearly. I think we pay about 700."

"Its price is comparable to the competitors in the market."

"There are the overall infrastructure costs. Even though the initial costing was higher, we calculated for year-to-year for five years. That brought us into a position where we decided, we have to go for HCI rather than having distributor systems."

"You still have to pay for the licensing for VMware and Red Hat licenses separately. It's not all inclusive at this point."

"The price of the solution is okay but could improve."

"This solution saved our organization time (35 percent) and money. We have a hefty group of developers, and if you multiply that by 30 to 35 percent, that is quite a bit of money."

"Its price is aligned with the market. In addition to the standard licensing fees, there is an integrator cost."

"The licensing fees are renewed annually."

"Licenses run on a yearly basis, and there aren't any additional fees other than the standard licensing fee."