FlexPod XCS Reviews

The initial reason why we got it is because it's a one-stop shop for your compute, and the networking aspect of it. We wanted a sort of one-throat-to-choke approach; if we ever had any problems, we would get the teams onboard instead of finger-pointing back and forth. That's probably the biggest draw of FlexPod for us.

It simplifies the whole stack, and allows us to worry about other IT problems and not have to struggle with stack issues, basically.

We used to have HP C-series and kind of a hodgepodge network. We had, probably, four different vendors. Because of that, we were having a lot of problems with networking and the blades. Once we got FlexPod, all that stuff went away. It was nice.

The user interface isn't as friendly as I would like it to be. I would like to see UCS ditch Java and go with HTML5, just to make that a little simpler. Other than that, NetApp is making good changes. The tools have gotten dramatically better over the past two years, which has helped a lot. Cisco – I generally don't do too much of the networking stuff – but it's still kind of best to use the command line, so I guess they could improve the command line interface.

If there could be an integration between Cisco and NetApp, the single pane of glass works well if you can get it all to actually work and get the data that you need easily and quickly. That could definitely help.

I have not encountered any stability or scalability issues. This thing has been running great. We actually really like it. It works well for us, we run about 400 VMs off of it, split between two data centers but it's a good performer.

NetApp’s technical support is probably one of the best, in my experience. I've dealt with, probably, Microsoft being the lowest, because they suck, or sometimes, if you’re in Unix land, you have to just find your own solutions. I think NetApp’s good. They're right up there with Cisco, as far as support goes; very good experience overall.

We knew we needed to invest in a new solution because we were at capacity on our blades and we needed to move to something else. Cisco UCS at the time was just kind of up and coming. I think we really made the right decision, because their one-profile approach of propagating all the configuration data down to the blades was really nice.

I was involved in the initial setup and we had a consultant too. I was just getting into it so, for me, it was kind of complex but looking back on it, it really wasn't that bad.

We looked at HP and we looked at Dell, but we ended up going with Cisco and I'm really happy with it.

We've already had businesses come to us and say, "What do you use?" We just tell them about the whole FlexPod idea and what kind of benefits it brings: the scalability, the one-throat-to-choke kind of support. We've had a couple of companies take our advice and they were happy with it too.

In terms of homework to do before implementation, you have to look at your workloads and see how you're going to use it. In our experience, we have thrown everything but the kitchen sink at it and it actually performs really well. We've had very little problems, very little problems.

When I look at working with a vendor, I like one that takes an approach of making decisions in your interest. You can usually sort out pretty quickly whether they're there to just push gear or raw services, or if they're actually there to be a partner to help you succeed in the landscape. You can shake that out usually within a few meetings to see how they're really going to be. I’ve found that in NetApp.

NetApp’s scalability and high fault tolerance are features that we, in our organization, like about deploying NetApp’s NAS solutions.

We designed and installed NetApps FAS8040 dual controllers with FAS4246 and FAS2246 Storage Disk to provide NAS for the Cisco UCS 5100 system and has provided our client the ability to easily provision virtual machines and storage to those virtual machines.

Product price is always a concern.

I've used it for one year.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

10/10

10/10 - NetApp’s service support personnel were excellent in getting us the help we needed.

No previous solution was used.

NetApp’s documentation helped us with the initial setup and configuration. Great documentation always leads to better designs and better operations and maintenance experience.

We worked with a vendor and had a successful implementation.

No other options were looked at.

NetApp’s FAS system is an excellent line of product. In today’s world the need for virtualization is continuingly increasing. Therefore having a storage platform that can be flexible in terms of configuration and scalability it’s important to the successful deployment of virtualization in the datacenter.

It’s basically very scalable and reliable. Also, the total cost of ownership is low. It’s an effective solution for any company, and it fits for our needs.

It's easy to deploy, and efficient. The efficiency in thin provisioning and deduplication has suited all sorts of applications in our business.

Awareness amongst the customers could be better. Also, the customer base, enhanced blogs and discussions are needed, as there's a small user base right now.

Stability is 100% or 99.99999%, 24/7/365.

It's very scalable, and its horizontal scalability is great.

Excellent whenever you call you can speak to either NetApp, Cisco or VMware and they are all great.

Straightforward, very systematic and streamlined. A lot of centralized virtual desktops.

We looked at a lot of vendors, but we selected this because it seems to be a strong business going forward.

We can already see that the most valuable features is that everything is tested and certified to work together.

The package price is also something we like about it.

I don’t think we have enough experience at this point to see the weak points.

We have been using it for three to five months.

We're migrating to it now and so far, compared to HP and our Dell chassis which was an old environment, it has taken care of the performance and reliability issues we were having.

The scalability seems to be a valuable feature to me; it's easy to roll out, as we just order another pod they install it.

I'm only involved with the storage aspect so we work with NetApp, whose service is excellent.

I'm not involved much in setup, but we architected it and we had CDW and engineers help us who did the physical installation.

It all depends on your specific needs and what you're looking for, which depends on your environment.

Having VMware, Cisco and NetApp on the call when there is an issue is very valuable to us.

When we had a VMware issue that NetApp was saying was a VMware issue and vice versa – getting them all on the conference call at the same time was priceless.

A single place to initiate support to get them all at once – being able to call one place would be great instead of having to initiate with each vendor first and then ultimately finding out you need everyone on the phone. So, a specific FlexPod support instead of having to go through NetApp, Cisco and VMware separately would be something they can improve on.

Extremely stable – everybody has outages, but we've been satisfied with stability.

For our needs, it meets them.

Getting everyone on the phone together, they have all been responsive and helpful.

Initially complex, but that had to do with our environment.

We have had two FlexPods for five years now. We're currently purchasing a third one. We have never had any problems with them in that time. We are using it for hosting COREmanager and Unity Connection. So far, so good. Its performance is great.

We purchased them when we changed from physical to virtual. We really didn't have a choice but to go virtual. So, I would not be able to tell you how it improved things because it was a different environment entirely. But it definitely streamlines things.

For me, the most valuable feature is the stability. It's one less worry.

The new one that we are purchasing is going to have solid state drives. So, obviously, more speed is always a good thing.

We have had no stability issues at all. We had a power failure in our data center. They went down. As soon as we restored the power they came up and everything was good.

For us, we were looking strictly at three different data centers. So as far as scalability is concerned, we didn't build one on top of another one. We went for stability more than scalability.

It has never gone down. I think we had one drive go down once, and we opened a tech case. They sent us a new drive.

We were using physical servers, Cisco physical servers. We switched because it was mandatory for updating COREmanager to 8.x, it was mandatory to go VMware.

For us, the most important criteria in a vendor is that they need to pick up when we call.

I coordinated the initial setup, but I wasn't necessarily hands-on. But it was pretty straightforward.

We had other vendors, but we had NetApp in the house as part of our storage, we also had Cisco in the house. It made sense to combine those two and go with FlexPod.

In terms of advice, I can only tell you about FlexPod, I don't have any other solution. I would say definitely go for it.

It is performing well. It is the data center of devices, e.g., when we are using the call locations in San Francisco and Sacramento.

If we go to different vendors, this solution looks good. Though, it is mainly manufactured to a particular size.

As per the implements, we need to bring more devices for this type of situation. It will be helpful for us to get more infrastructure export, etc.

• Its existing space
• Its design

We would like more security features.

Once it is in place, we do not touch it, so it is more stable than other solutions.

Scalability is good. 

Once our current issue is fixed, it will be good. Then, we will not have any issues on it.

Technical support has been good when we have contacted them in the past. They have been helpful. However, we have the technical experts, so we do not use their services often.

We used it for the remote setup, not the physical setup.

We upgrade it normally during downtime.

We do it ourselves when it is straightforward. When it is a complex installation, we bring their technical person onboard. 

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

We are good and comfortable with CDW.

It is a good solution compared to other products. 

Most important criteria when selecting a vendor: It depends on the device - How much it carries, what the security is, etc.

The validated design is a huge bit. It means that it's supportable by both NetApp and Cisco, and that means that we're doing it the industry best-practice way.

The benefit is certainly that it's compartmental. You can build a FlexPod for a small installation, you can build it for a big one. You can build a small one and grow it. It's flexible in that regard. It gives you the design and the structure to be able to expand as you need.

As a point solution, it does absolutely what it should. I'm not sure it needs any more.

Make it cheaper.

About three years.

It's great. Very stable. Nothing to complain about, so that's good.

We've engaged technical support somewhat, mainly during the configuration stage.

As I said, you've got the FlexPod system, gives you access to Cisco and NetApp support, and they'll run it through; so whichever one you're more comfortable with. My networking guys will log stuff with Cisco, and the storage guys will log stuff with NetApp, and they're happy using that support.

FlexPod is more about the way that the pod is build. We've probably used all the individual components before but never put it together. The validated design was the big thing for us.

It's fairly straightforward. It's listed out for you, so you just follow the bouncing ball around, essentially.

We're a data analyst company, looking after property data. I'm not sure this product is uniquely valuable for our industry. It certainly has some value, especially in the mergers and acquisitions space where we need to stand up some infrastructure that matches ours in a newer environment, and be able to have that standard.