FlexPod XCS Reviews

I would say that the interoperability matrix tool (IMT) is the most valuable feature as it helps us define versions and components we use in our configurations.

This allows us to know what versions everything needs to be at, and we have one pane of glass to view that at.

I think a little bit about some of the other models, especially in the hyper-converged space where you add storage and compute at the same time, but on the converged side of things you add each as needed and not both.

Mixed – we’ve had a couple different issues with upgrading. Upgrading one vendor without the other has been difficult, e.g. to upgrade Cisco you need to upgrade NetApp etc.

I would say medium – it’s hard to move between one FlexPod to another, you fill one up its hard to move off of it.

Historically it’s been bad, but recently it got better. Previously, opening a FlexPod case was difficult you had to go from one vendor to another, now its better and they are using FlexPod back channels more, but it was difficult.

I would say setup was complex – most of the people who set up the first FlexPod have left and the upgrades have been modular and there are independent teams with that and that issue goes back to the scalability because were adding storage and compute at different times.

I think it depends on how you are organized. If you have hardware and storage in the same leadership chain its great. I think one of the reasons that we have pain, is that it doesn’t fit our business organization very well because we have two separate managers and therefore, there is stepping on toes.

I think that the most valuable features are the integration of the components and the support model.

I think the integrated support where, if I call NetApp support and it’s a problem with UCS, the fact that I have a one-stop shop will provide a cohesive support structure for me, and that’s huge.

And it’s not very costly. We acquired the parts of the FlexPod individually.

I’m sure there is room for improvement, there always is, but I’m hard-pressed to tell you what could be improved.

It's rock solid.

We haven’t had the need to grow it, but based on how scalable I know the three vendors are, I don’t see any issues.

It’s been excellent – they are very responsive. Traditionally, when you have multiple vendors, before FlexPod, everyone does a lot of finger pointing, and the fact that all these companies work together is invaluable. This makes my life as a customer much easier.

We did it piecemeal, but it was very easy.

I would say, what are you waiting for?

Converged Infrastructure and tight integration with Cisco.

The solution has allowed us to reduce the overall operational overhead – once you deploy the system, you run everything as policy based so everything is very simple. You now have network, hardware, and storage in one place.

The vision is not clear with NetApp as to how they want FlexPod to be, as they want it to be for everything but it's not. It needs a specific vision and agenda, what purpose is this solution for, etc.

I would say that the stability is semi-enterprise ready, but not fully from our use case. It has its own limitations, it’s supposed to be extremely flexible because of the architecture, but there are a lot of challenges in terms of supporting multiple hypervisors. But there are no tight integrations, and this leads to stability issues. If workload analysis is not done beforehand, then you may encounter problems.

It should be able to be full scale architecture, you cannot limit it to between eight and 14 nodes (approximately), and it’s a scale up architecture not a scale out.

6/10 due to mostly skill-set issues. There are not many experts in the converged infrastructure space, and it has taken us a long time.

It was complicated. You need to have professionals engaged, as it's not plug-n-play. It requires professional services help to get it up and running, and even then there is a huge learning curve.

The infrastructure should be de-coupled from the workload, there should not be any dependency. It should be abstracted, do not look to FlexPod as the solution, but as one of many solutions. You need to understand your environment and what you need.

The most valuable features of the solution are the ease of support and industry leading technology – in storage, servers and networking, as well as virtualization.

• Ease of troubleshooting is good
• Ease of further deployment or expansion

In the config advisor tool, it could be more specific in pointing out or letting you know what to fix when it confronts issues.

It’s extremely stable.

It’s extremely scalable, which is excellent. Either adding storage to the existing cluster, or more nodes, and then the same thing on the Cisco side – more blades or chassis – all of it is extremely easy.

It's very responsive, good customer support.

It's been efficient for the customers to call the NetApp support line and then they can help assist in opening cases with the other vendors.

The setup is fairly straightforward. We have used all three vendors for a long time.

The most valuable feature of the solution is the pre-design. I don’t have to think – it’s a proven and pre-certified architecture that just works.

From my perspective there is not much to improve on and NetApp has gone through great strides to make it a great product with great top-notch support.

I’ve been dealing with them for three to four years and its just sound equipment.

It's rock solid.

It’s extremely scalable. We’ve gone through growth cycles, especially with clustered on tap, and it’s a very easy process.

I think support is fantastic, without a doubt. Anytime I have an issue via email or phone its squared away.

It’s pretty straightforward, there are tons of deployment guides out there which for the most part are spot on.

I think that the most valuable feature is the pre-validated design, the reference configuration, as all the integrations have been done, and you don’t need to go through a teething phase.

I think that the time to deploy is quicker. Support is more straightforward with less finger pointing between the vendors so the time to resolution if you do have a problem should be quicker.

The thing that stops up from jumping in more is that we are resource constrained, I have to piecemeal what we have, and I can’t stop using something because it’s old. I can’t just say “here is a reference architecture” create a clean environment, I have to use my legacy components. We can get a lot of the benefits, but the FlexPod needs you to do it all at once.

Ir's very good, no outages to report so far. You can mess anything up but nothing that is the fault of the product.

It’s not a concern, it can scale to larger than my organization would ever need. We're not a huge organization.

All of the vendors involved are pretty good – Cisco, VMware and NetApp, and we have good support from them all.

That’s the selling feature – configuration is essentially done for you. It’s good. Less of a puzzle and more of a procedure.

That’s the selling feature, the configuration is essentially done for you. It’s good, and less of a puzzle, and more of a procedure.

Ease of cabling is the most valuable feature of the solution. Service profiles are also easy to use.

I would say that the cabling helps me, and it simplifies the environment for me and it is very fast.

There is nothing I can think of at this time.

We have been using it about a year and a half.

It's very stable, no issues with it so far.

Awesome – adding a chassis is very easy.

I haven’t had to use them yet which is actually a good sign.

Straightforward because the documentation was great.

I would say that flexibility is the most important factor we look at, and also, for us, the worldwide availability is very important.

I would say that it gives us more flexibility than an entire VM or bare metal solution. Its sole purpose where it mixes everything together allows compatibility to the SnapDrive manager.

Nothing I have seen can be improved, but I think we're still early in the usage.

We designed it about a year ago and have had it about six months.

It seems great so far.

So far we have not had to expand it, but are expanding shortly so we will find out.

I haven’t had to use them so far, but my colleagues who have used support have been happy so far.

It was straightforward.

Our vendor did it for us.

I would say that it seems to be the way to go in our environment. We're looking into it for new aspects as well but well see.