FlexPod XCS Reviews

I would say the service profiles of UCS for the compute aspect, cluster Data ONTAP, and NDO.

I would say that we have about 700 VMs and I think 30 HyperV’s, so we can stand up a cluster much easier, and it ensures consistency between our clusters.

I think that the orchestration and automation could be better. I think there are tools out there for it, we just don’t have them deployed. It’s an area that I think our organization could do better at.

The stability of the solution has been very good; it's very stable.

I would say that its very scalable, as it meets and exceeds our needs.

I’m more on the storage side and NetApp is excellent. Cisco, whom I dealt with in my last job, I found them to be quite good.

I would say the setup was fairly straightforward but I’ve been working with FlexPod for about five years so my perspective may be a bit skewed.

I would say that you should at least consider it. Although it does require some cross-team collaboration, how you work together and combine things depends on your political and cultural relationships within your team. It can be a cross-domain kind of experience.

I think the validated design and architectures, and being able to call one of the parties for support and they can fix your problem is great.

We are installing our first NetApp component, and we are doing FlexPod certification as well. I think VDI will improve and the new storage system we are currently installing will help that as well.

I think that at this point I don’t know yet – it all sounds good.

We have been using the components (VMware, Cisco and IBM) since 2001.

I think it’s very stable.

Scalability is even better – you can expand it very easily with the clusters.

I would say that I don’t have much experience yet, but I look forward to being able to call one place instead of moving from vendor to vendor when there is an issue.

It's pretty straightforward.

We're using a vendor team.

I’d say its worth looking into – the community using it is a great resource.

Peer reviews are very important, as you're not getting a sales pitch, but real information.

The most valuable feature is the fact that it’s a complete package, that’s the biggest advantage, and it can be rolled out pretty quickly. The last company I was at, we rolled it out in 90 days, and that was a pretty big environment.

The Citrix portion of it for one, as your desktop is available anywhere on any platform, and with any OS. You can really use it anywhere, even on an iPhone in a movie theater if you need to, although I don’t recommend it.

Very stable, it's highly available with only .9999 downtime, not .99999, which is an uptime designator.

We have found it to be very scalable, and that it affords you a lot of options.

We had a partner work with us and so it was really good. The only drawback is that you have three to four technologies, and you need someone to sort out which problem is whose responsibility. Our project manager took that on as a deliverable, and ran incident management for the solution.

Initial setup was very straightforward.

The cost is an issue – it is not a cheap solution and the other piece of it, is that for EMC users (like my current company) it may not be relevant. We had 80% EMC usage so it wasn’t relevant for us. We could have used the FlexPod EMC but I think cost was the main issue there.

Peer reviews are very important in our research.

The most valuable feature has been the single stream of support. We no longer have to go between vendors to see where the problem lies, so we avoid finger pointing, etc.

Also, we like the streamlined integration for our data centers. As we deploy new sites, or refresh hardware, we know what specifications we are installing ahead of time.

I think that new developments in what each vendor offers that makes the overall system easier to configure and manage could be better. Customers could be more aware of what to plan for in the future to be able to scale and grow. It depends what the technologies and protocols are in the environment.

It's been very stable, we have not had many outages, and if we have, there has been a misconfiguration during setup. However, once it's fully deployed, it's been smooth.

The scalability has been great, whether it's VMware, or if you need more blades, or storage that needs to grow is also easy to expand. We went through a storage expansion, but we built the network portion a bit bigger so it was ready for the expansion. We had physical ports available, it's things like that.

The support has been good. We’ve had issues that once we got to the bottom of the specific issue there were struggles with the individual vendors, but overall once they analyze the problem, we are pointed in the right direction.

The initial setup was a learning curve, but once we got the hang of it, it wasn't too bad.

It’s not perfect, nothing is, but it’s very good. I would say that it’s definitely worth the investment just for the ease of implementation and the pre-qualified support packages that are included. You know that the architecture and the implementation/environment will be supported by all vendors involved.

I would say that the most valuable feature is the single-vendor support model. NetApp and Cisco are partnering in the support so you don’t have the finger pointing.

Also, the fact that the hardware and software is pre-qualified to work together and supported by each vendor is good.

I think that it could be improved in terms of the reporting, but really that is pretty good as well, so I cannot think of anything that can be improved.

We have zero stability problems.

The scalability on paper is great. We know that it's scalable, but we have not scaled since we bought it.

Technical support is excellent.

The setup was complex, but mostly because of our environment. It wasn’t difficult but it was complex.

I would say that it’s a great solution for customers who want to guarantee out-of-the-box compatibility and performance.

I think the most valuable features are the architecture and the support from Cisco and NetApp. The fact that everything is certified together means we don’t have to do much.

At this point, it's doing everything we’ve asked.

We’re still implementing it.

It seems to be very stable. We’re kind of early on, just started the integration, but so far so good as it's more stable than our old platform, IBM.

We’re a fairly small shop so it will scale beyond what we need for it.

The solution is verified so there is less explaining that needs to be done. Depends on what the issue is, but they will be more versed to handle those questions.

Our old platform was IBM.

The initial setup seems like it will be kind of complex because we have the UCS in place, and are adding a NetApp cluster. It would have been simpler if we were doing a full refresh instead of piecemeal.

It's worth evaluating. Having the certified architecture certainly helps when it comes to design and testing.

The most valuable feature is the flexibility because it scales to meet your needs. You don’t have to buy, like with other converged solutions where you have to buy hardware and storage at the same time, here you buy what you need.

It’s very stable, especially now. In its infancy UCS had its problems, but now it's rock solid. The nexus code has been rock solid. NetApp is bullet proof. Everything has to be configured correctly.

If you have FlexPod support, you have the support because you have Cisco and NetApp working on the same case to get the problem solved. Sometimes, vendors will pass off problems to one another, here they work hand in hand.

Configuration can be daunting the first time you look at it, but once you’ve done it a few times it's less so. There are a lot of little setting you have to make sure you configure, and every time it is a little different.

Licensing for fabric interconnects could be better. If you want to enable more ports, you have to buy licenses which can be costly, and you have to go back to Cisco and start the process again. It’s not a cheap product.

I work with the support side. Having the support structure, having the availability of one line and, having two vendors for that one call is a huge advantage over other solutions.

Scalability is, to me, the most valuable feature, as it's easily scalable out or up. If we need hardware we buy it, and if we need more storage we can buy that separately. The profile/policy-driven profiles and initial config can take a while, but once it's done deploying, a new server is done very rapidly.

The UCS firmware code upgrade can totally stall- it’s a brick. Cisco support has been able to help us, but this can be better. They've destroyed equipment and I have lost a few days of deployment.

It’s an expensive product for sure. It’s a Ferrari price for a Ferrari. Not perfect but a very good solution.

It’s super stable, especially after the v2.2 release, which has been awesome in terms of bug fixes and feature sets. It’s very reliable.

Outward scalability is incredible. I did a customer site to help expand their development (a university in New York) and I helped them scale. They started with a large deployment, and now they have expanded out within a short time. They are experiencing awesome scalability from the NetApp model.

Technical support is amazing, that’s the reason people buy it. Otherwise you have to buy separate contracts. Cisco and NetApp work so well together, and it's unheard of for hardware vendors to do that.

You have to do due diligence to configure the settings correctly.

Don’t let the price point scare you away because what you’re gaining is not only scalability, but a product that is easily manageable.

You have the functionality that UCS brings, and that NetApp bring, in terms of their replication and backup products. It's got great potential. Don’t set it up by yourself, pay the professionals, as if it's deployed incorrectly, it can create giant headaches.