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FlexPod XCS vs Oracle Private Cloud Appliance comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 2, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

FlexPod XCS
Ranking in Converged Infrastructure
5th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
295
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Oracle Private Cloud Appliance
Ranking in Converged Infrastructure
4th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Converged Infrastructure category, the mindshare of FlexPod XCS is 9.2%, down from 9.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Oracle Private Cloud Appliance is 15.2%, up from 10.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Converged Infrastructure
 

Featured Reviews

John Kevin - PeerSpot reviewer
Enforces standardized setup procedures following Certified Validated Design (CVD) guidelines and offers greater flexibility and control over the system compared to traditional systems
The GUI setup follows the right setup, meaning we have to follow the CVDi.e. Certified Validated Design. Everything is clear, because you can build CI yourself, but without rules, it can be messy. With FlexPod, there are rules to follow, making it more standardized. This helps with troubleshooting and compatibility assessments, simplifying troubleshooting significantly. We also use FlexPod pre-validated architectures to validate the design. It is very, very important to us because we had a bad case in 2015 where separate items integrated poorly due to no version or firmware compatibility certification. Troubleshooting became a nightmare. So, standards are crucial for us, and everything entering production should be verified or at least documented for certification.
Mir Gulzar Ahmed - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers comprehensive support and performance but initial deployment requires expertise
Oracle Private Cloud Appliance ( /products/oracle-private-cloud-appliance-reviews ) is a complete solution that includes built-in hypervisor management and Appliance Manager, and integrates with Oracle Cloud ( /products/oracle-cloud-infrastructure-oci-reviews ) Infrastructure. It simplifies the management of virtual machines, networking, compute, and storage, allowing me to create multiple virtual machines easily without logging into the storage system. It offers free licensing of Oracle Linux ( /products/oracle-linux-reviews ) and Solaris, and provides high-performance capabilities through extreme performance storage options. Additionally, the product ensures comprehensive customer support.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"It simplifies everything. It gives you a single place to go if you need support or if you need to expand."
"The ease of expansion is the most valuable feature."
"Integrated support: It is all under one support contract."
"FlexPod is easy to setup, maintain and has great stability."
"UCS Profiles enable recovering a physical server in less than 15 minutes."
"I live by the Validated Designs. I do exactly what those designs say and I haven't had a problem as a result. For example, they used to do the FCoE. They figured out there was a problem and they went over to the NFS. I moved over and I agreed with them. It worked better."
"The benefit is the speed, it's the performance. That's what it comes down to is the performance of the solution."
"FlexPod impacted us by making things easier to deploy. The solution is a private, hybrid, and multi-cloud environment. That's very important to us. We're doing a lot of hybrid cloud."
"Oracle Private Cloud Appliance is a complete solution that includes built-in hypervisor management and Appliance Manager, and integrates with Oracle Cloud Infrastructure."
"It has helped us to reduce Oracle licensing costs for database and applications."
"You will find the high availability and License Team with Oracle very valuable."
"The most valuable features include distinct storage within the Oracle PCA."
"It is scalable as the box can be increased by one compute node, if required."
"Supports connection to most of network topology, such as VLAN and network segmentation."
 

Cons

"It would be helpful to have more flexibility for adding other components."
"A progress bar would...be pretty cool."
"The biggest problem we have seen is, we were using the vStorage which comes with the NetApp environment, a kind of fiber connect. We were missing fibre channel connectivity and we got lots of I/O errors."
"Automatic tiering would be good to have."
"There is a history of issues with hardware availability. For example, we'll buy an array or a filer with a particular configuration and particular size of drive, sizing it appropriately. Then, as we grow, they're like, "Oh, you can always get more." Then when you go to get more, that model or type of disk is no longer available. It becomes this big process to try to figure out what we need to get, how it'll work, and how that'll integrate into the system. That could be simpler. They could do a bit more to guarantee the availability of parts. Obviously, not being the largest storage vendor, I know they can't sometimes control what the hardware vendors do. However, a bit more transparency and communication about this would be helpful."
"Maybe in the future, they could include the HCI solution into the mix."
"Perhaps the automation interface could be improved."
"The initial setup for FlexPod is complex."
"In comparison to competitors like VMware, there's a perceived need for Oracle to enhance OVM, making it more flexible and user-friendly."
"The deployment process of Oracle Private Cloud Appliance is complicated and requires significant knowledge for initial configuration."
"Patching processing takes a long time. Only one compute node is patched at a time."
"The initial setup was very complex."
"OVM Manager Interface is using HTML5. It should be reconverted to be a Java interface."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have seen an 80 percent improvement in application performance."
"Because the solution is now stable, we are saving about $100 million USD a year."
"Make sure you are buying for performance, not just capacity."
"Pricing and licensing is very affordable from a FlexPod perspective."
"Pricing is always tough. We need to get to a point where the customer's happy. Then, as partners, we are also happy."
"I have saved time on new service deployments. I've done deployments in under a week, and if it's a cloud-based deployment, it's even faster."
"It seems very cost effective once it's in place, and it's easy to expand and easy to add capacity without a lot of extra money."
"It is expensive. My company is small. When you look at the price point, this is a big thing for us to invest in."
"If you have many Oracle products, such as databases, middleware, and apps, it will help you reduce Oracle app licences and support costs."
"It is more expensive than the normal solution or the hyper-converged system."
"It is relatively cost-effective."
"No licenses for the shipped software or firmware."
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Comparison Review

it_user244362 - PeerSpot reviewer
Aug 30, 2015
Nutanix vs. VMware EVO:RAIL vs. FlexPod
Originally posted at www.storagegaga.com/dont-get-too-drunk-on-hyper-converged/ I hate the fact that I am bursting the big bubble brewing about Hyper Convergence (HC). I urge all to look past the hot air and hype frenzy that are going on, because in the end, the HC platforms have to be aligned…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
20%
Educational Organization
12%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Computer Software Company
26%
Government
14%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about FlexPod?
The system is designed for easy scaling. Because we define everything clearly. So when we plug the system in, we apply the profile, and it scales easily.
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, C...
What needs improvement with FlexPod?
FlexPod should focus more on automation. Integrating an automation tool with FlexPod would enable customers to leverage automation capabilities. More automation would be helpful. Currently, we cont...
What do you like most about Oracle Private Cloud Appliance?
The most valuable features include distinct storage within the Oracle PCA.
What needs improvement with Oracle Private Cloud Appliance?
The deployment process of Oracle Private Cloud Appliance is complicated and requires significant knowledge for initial configuration. Streamlining and simplifying the deployment process would make ...
What is your primary use case for Oracle Private Cloud Appliance?
I use Oracle Private Cloud Appliance ( /products/oracle-private-cloud-appliance-reviews ) as a complete solution for hypervisor management. It includes a built-in hypervisor, Appliance Manager, and...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

University of Sao Paulo, WD-40, The Commonwell Mutual Insurance Group
Agnitum Information Technologies, Mediacloud, Xait AS, Atos Global Managed Services, CaixaBI, ICA AB, BT Spain, Secure-24, Xait
Find out what your peers are saying about FlexPod XCS vs. Oracle Private Cloud Appliance and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
860,592 professionals have used our research since 2012.