FlexPod XCS vs Vblock [EOL] comparison

NetApp and Dell Technologies are both solutions in the Converged Infrastructure category. Additionally, 96% of NetApp users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 84% of Dell Technologies users who would recommend it.

FlexPod XCS

Read 295 FlexPod XCS reviews

1,666 Views
583 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

Vblock [EOL]

Read 24 Vblock [EOL] reviews

84% willing to recommend

FlexPod XCS

Vblock [EOL]

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between FlexPod XCS and Vblock [EOL] based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

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Converged Infrastructure

July 2025

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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

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

295

Ranking in other categories

Converged Infrastructure (5th)

Vblock [EOL]

Average Rating

8.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Featured Reviews

John Kevin

Deputy IT Manager at MBBank

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.

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Tahir Shahid

Chief Consultant and Architect at Tahir Professional Services

Centrally-managed and stable, but the initial setup could be made simpler and technical support can be improved

There is a different platform and there are different interfaces for different parts of the product. Although there are some centralized components, you still manage each component using its own set of tools. There is definitely room for improvement in this regard. I would like to have a catalogue like menu where you simply define your end computing needs and the rest would be taken care of internally. The initial setup could be unified to make it simpler.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The flexibility and data deduplication have been the biggest practical applications."

"FlexPod has improved our company as far as ease of management, stability, and redundancy."

"Performance-wise, it is actually doing quite well. The end users are very happy with it."

"Validate designs are a good. They work in the background to combine all the infrastructure and storage. They create automation which can create volumes and attach VMs directly to massive CIFS."

"It's a kind of one-stop shop as far as support goes."

"It is easy to deploy, works well, the reps are good, and the support is great."

"The solution can be innovative when it comes to cloud computing storage and networking."

"The data is available, compressed, and deduped."

More FlexPod XCS pros

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

"The most valuable features are reliability and high availability."

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

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

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

"We have seen measurable increases in our system performance. Those increases have been directly measurable in application performance and the delivery of critical business information to our users."

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

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

More Vblock [EOL] pros

Cons

"The upgrade process needs to be improved and it would be nice to manage everything from a single pane of glass."

"Since 2018 or 2019, maybe due to COVID and the chipsets, my DIMMs are dying left and right."

"The upgrades should be improved. We would like to have the ability to do unified upgrades of the whole infrastructure from beginning to end."

"I would like to see more cloud-centric modules that are specific to applications and more software-based solutions. That's all that is missing."

"There could be room for improvement in terms of offering more flexibility in CBD options."

"The solution has not reduced our data center costs."

"Not a ten because it could always be cheaper, it could always be faster."

"The continued simplification will be a continued battle and evolution for both Cisco and NetApp, especially on the FlexPod product."

More FlexPod XCS cons

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

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

"Improve the patching process and timeliness of updates/releases."

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

"RCM upgrades were not scripted, and you needed to roll on your own. We were led to believe this would be otherwise."

"While most public clouds are deployed on Linux, there is current no certified Vblock working on KVM hypervisors."

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

"It needs more customer/client involvement in back-end management."

More Vblock [EOL] cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

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

"We have reduced our manpower with the solution."

"The total cost of ownership with this solution is good."

"Pricing and licensing is very affordable from a FlexPod perspective."

"We fear high availability so we can't buy from different providers."

"We have seen an 80 percent improvement in application performance."

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

More FlexPod XCS pricing and cost advice

"It is not cheap."

"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."

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

"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."

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

"The paid support for Vblock is expensive."

"Strive for a consolidated ELA."

"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."

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Comparison Review

it_user244362

Managing Consultant with 51-200 employees

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…

Read full review

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

20%

Educational Organization

13%

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

No data available

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.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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VMware vSAN vs FlexPod XCS

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Dell VxBlock System vs Vblock [EOL]

Compared 100% of the time

More Vblock [EOL] Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

FlexPod XCS

July 2025

Download FlexPod XCS product report

Buyer's Guide

Vblock [EOL]

June 2025

Download Vblock [EOL] product report

Also Known As

No data available

VCE Vblock

Overview

FlexPod XCS is the secure platform your applications need from edge to cloud. Easily manage your suite of cloud-native, edge, and enterprise apps. Integrate advanced cloud services without compromising performance, security, reliability, or scale.

NetApp

VCE Vblock Systems is an all-in-one virtualization platform that integrates the leading storage, network, and compute technologies from the likes of EMC, VMware and Cisco. VCE Vblock allows organizations to easily and securely deploy cloud computing and virtualization in their environments, supporting these multiple technologies and providing flexibility and agility for changing business needs.

Dell Technologies

Sample Customers

University of Sao Paulo, WD-40, The Commonwell Mutual Insurance Group

Xerox, ACS, and Columbia Sportswear.

Buyer's Guide

Converged Infrastructure

July 2025

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