FlexPod XCS vs Vblock [EOL] comparison

"The most valuable feature of this solution is the stability."

"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."

"The initial setup is straightforward. It is all interface-based, so point and click."

"The most valuable feature of this solution is the automation point because it's a lot less staff to have to manage it."

"We found FlexPod to be innovative when it comes to compute, storage, and networking. We've taken advantage of their storage optimizations to obtain better use out of the space. We upgraded to All Flash FAS (AFF), which has provided a huge performance increase that we haven't barely scratched the surface of. We have plenty of overhead, so that's always nice when taking on tasks which might have otherwise taxed a smaller system."

"Our footprint is lower than it used to be."

"The benefit is the speed, it's the performance. That's what it comes down to is the performance of the solution."

"The biggest lesson that I have learned from this solution is the ease of actually setting it up and learning it."

"​It has improved system performance, batch times for off-hours processing, and reliability with production applications.​"

"The component integration means I don't have to worry about technology mismatches."

"The most valuable feature is that it is centrally managed, as it is quite easy for our customers to manage everything, end-to-end."

"The high redundancy of components has minimized frequent service degradation/failure."

"It's an integrated box Mac solution, so it's a plug and play. The deployment and build is pre-made and ready to deploy. It makes it easy to apply."

"Capability for scale and growth within a single rack brings strong possibilities for capacity planning."

"Finding a fully bundled, deployed, and configured solution with a short delivery time and unique support is really attractive."

"UCS Manager worked well for net/blade management and has allowed fairly easy use of dedicated bare-metal blades."

"They could improve their technical support team. They need to have a specific phone number for you to call in for the FlexPod solution. Some of the partner support knows if it is for FlexPod, they will get you to the right department."

"FlexPod XCS needs to improve its pricing."

"I would like to see a more centralized support model."

"The solution could be improved by including automation for user updates."

"They need to improve the user interface to make it easier to work in this environment. The older version is poor."

"Some of the define features could use improvement."

"Possibly the UCS could get a bit better. Other than that, overall I don't necessarily have any sorts of constraints or issues with it. It's done the job that it's been bought to do."

"We don't see the much DR capability within the FlexPod so for that, we have to maintain our own DR capability with DSRM."

"Tighter alignment could simplify and speed up the configuration and delivery process.​"

"The integration with other vendors' products needs to be looked at. It's not as flexible as we would like it to be."

"The implementation and support could be better."

"OEM services requires too much planning and low availability of certified engineers."

"Troublesome relationships with VCE at the beginning of our use came undone quickly after we went live."

"In the next release, I would like to see a smaller footprint in the data center and have improvements to disk performance."

"With respect to the technical support, there is room for improvement."

"The user control could be more advanced. They should work to improve this in future releases."

"You get better management and orchestration, but it still costs you money."

"The pricing is not cheaper, but stability is more important for us now. We focus on business gains, not static numbers."

"We have saved 50 percent on new service deployments."

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

"The solution has saved our customers' organization in terms of CapEx. E.g., with the cloud availability, it's turned into sort of a hybrid CapEx/OpEx model."

"If your company really needs to be up 100% of the time, and you need to do a private data center, I don't know if I could realistically actually recommend another blueprint."

"The footprint in the data center is quite large, especially when you scale out. Maybe find some hardware in the future, where if a new blade comes out, then Cisco can say, "Look, we'll buy those blades back off you, and we'll give you this blade for X amount of money." A buyback scheme would be good for hardware, and even NetApp as well. Something like a buyback scheme for blades and stuff moving forward would be good, because I know that they're going to put more power into them. E.g., replacing four blades might equal one blade, which would be awesome, but we are still going to have those four blades around. Maybe having something where it will give you this much money for these blades so we can upgrade. That would be perfect."

"We have seen a five to ten percent savings on new service deployments."

"It is not cheap."

"The paid support for Vblock is expensive."

"Vblock is priced at a premium because people don't want the headache of managing and deploying different products."

"Strive for a consolidated ELA."

"Related to tech support: I believe it is too expensive."

"I think the pricing is on the higher end of the spectrum. There could be some adjustments that could be made there. Regarding licensing, watch compatibility with external products that you run on Vblock. It has got to be properly architected, otherwise, you will run into licensing issues."

"I would not say the pricing is not good value. It is still on the expensive side, near the top-end of cost compared to what's available now. Also, the licensing has to be improved. There has to be a clear definition of the licensing from the initial set-up so the customer knows what they are paying for, without being hit later on with extra licensing. The licensing definitions should be clearer and, perhaps, have one set of licenses rather than multiple licenses."

"Vblock appears from the first while to be very expensive. There are more items you cannot see in the BOQ: customer service, support, delivery short time, and highly experienced VCE engineers."