FlexPod XCS Reviews

• The simplicity
• It's really scalable
• The integration with Cisco and NetApp is perfect

Since the customer had Cisco, he was really into Cisco, all the gear was Cisco, the network, the security, etc. It was easier to show UCS and Nexus and then to attach a NetApp storage. I can say that since we have a lot of Cisco clients, Flexpod is really valuable, because they are used to Cisco and it's easier to position NetApp.

I know about NetApp, not Cisco. So I don't know what's going on in the next release. But for NetApp, I expect with 9.3 coming out, a lot of features, more improvement of the data usage.

The memory, that you can enable flash to even increase your performance. So this will SCM.

Stability is really nice. The support of both NetApp and Cisco, the unified support, is really good.

The scalability is really good because it's not a silo. You can expand both storage-wise or network-wise or even servers, and if we pick another convergent infrastructure, it's difficult or they are locked. So you can scale either way, either vertically or horizontally.

When we are positioning against a cheaper solution it's really difficult to sell NetApp to our small customers, so it's really difficult to position. The customer has to see a lot of value. Once we have medium and bigger customers, it's really easy to position and it's perfect.

Valuable features include scalability, flexibility, speed, and security.

It has helped us in terms of less overhead and less downtime. It simplifies the administration.

Perhaps a unified management for all of the elements within the infrastructure, like a console. I would like to see something that is open-source that can be used to manage or compute networking storage in a single panel.

I'm sure that something like that exists right now, so that would be a plus. Something that consolidated the deployment of firmware or software, in other words, more of an orchestration tool and that would take care of it all.

It has been consistently stable.

It is very scalable.

When looking for a solution, I look for brand recognition. In this case, Cisco and NetApp both have very good reputations. We look for value, total cost of ownership, and return on investment.

I was involved in the initial setup. It was very easy to deploy.

We’ve worked with Wedlock and third-party integrations.

Give it a try and work with your partner or reseller to see if there is a demo available to try out the product. A lot of partners have that capability. Let people log in and try it. You should try out a solution before you buy.

We are running mostly virtualizations. We use it for VMware, Hyper-V, and XenServer. On top of that, we use it for some Microsoft, Linux, Oracle SQL, and web development.

It's just a nice simple solution. There is a single number to call for support. If you call and say that you have a FlexPod, they will usually include the VMware or UCS pieces for you. You don't have to call Cisco or VMware directly. You can just call your FlexPod help center, and if they know it's a FlexPod, they'll help you with NetApp questions. They will also help you with VMware and Cisco UCS questions.

I would like to see a single upgrade download, so you could download an upgrade that would upgrade the NetApps that would have all the parts. Right now, you have to go and download the VMware upgrade pieces from the Cisco website. You have to download the Cisco stuff from their site, and then download the NetApp stuff from their website. It would be helpful if they had a single download area for the versions that work together. I can't think of anything else to improve. They support all the protocols: SCOE and NFS.

There are no issues at all with stability. Everything is redundant. The Cisco UCS platform is rock solid. The switches are rock solid. You have Nexus switches that are redundant in power and in usability. The NetApps are all rock solid because they have dual controllers. You are running cluster modes so you have lift migration and you have storage failover. There's really no downtime because everything is virtualized and everything is redundant.

Scalability is great. All three parts are real scalable. If you want to add more things to your VMware, you just add the ESXi host. To add to more to the UCS, you just add more blades. To add more to the NetApp, you just put more controllers or shelves under the cluster. The scalability is the same with all three products.

Technical support is awesome. We own a FlexPod, and so do my customers. They've seen a lot of stuff. They've worked with all three vendors. You don't have to call the other vendors, and they usually will bring in resources as needed.

We look at reports out there, and see who is up and to the right. I think that Pure Storage was leading the charge on SSD for a while, but the all-flash FAS has really been awesome.

The ability to do better deduplication is what the differentiation is right now. Who is doing the best deduplication and who is doing the best compression? Right now, the all-flash FAS with 9.2 is pretty awesome on deduplication and compression.

Go look for somebody who is doing it and has been doing it for a while. The FlexPods have been shown to be reliable. They work with two of the best vendors. Cicso: For the compute and for the networking, you can't get better. VMware: For the virtualization. They just work great together. There are other converge solutions out there like EMC, but I think that these are the three agnostic ones. EMC obviously owns a piece of VMware, so it's hard to know what parts they want to play. Maybe Pure Storage is the other agnostic, but I believe that NetApp, right now, is doing the best converged FlexPod design in the FlexPod space.

There was a lot of documentation around it, in terms of what works with what. Customers know that if they upgrade their NetApp to version 9, they know what versions of UCS they need to upgrade to and what versions of VMware will work with that.

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 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 guaranteed compatibility is our most valuable feature.

I would say we’ve seen a speed increase – faster backup times as a result of using the Cisco UCS. We can now do HP failover better, and we can also have bigger clusters.

I would say that since I haven’t seen SnapManager, I don’t know yet.

The integration with VMware could be a bit smoother.

It’s been rock solid so far. We’ve been using FlexPod for almost a year.

We started out with one chassis and have now increased because the first one worked out so well. Even though we bought a brand new NetApp head, we were able to use our old disc shelves, which helped us.

It’s been really good so far – we haven’t had any calls to say this or that isn't working since our installation. We have had calls to grow things and change things, but that’s been pretty easy.

It was pretty straightforward – we got it done in like a week.

If you’re looking for a mixture of companies and you’ve played the point-the-finger blame-game – it removes all that. FlexPod helps to minimize that kind of blame-the-other-vendors. When you have an issue, it gets resolved faster.

Standardization, so there's no question about how something is or how something should be set up.

Variety is the spice of life, but in what we do, variety kills you. We were an HP shop and we used different SAN vendors, but since going with Flexpod, we only deal with NetApp and Cisco.

Drives out variation. It’s easy to have someone at NetApp and Cisco to come in the door and know what they’re doing.

There’s a lot of talk about security, but very little action. I’d like to see something from NetApp/Cisco that’s beyond simple encryption so that data is not useable or visible when breach occurs.

No issues other than human error.

Very scalable, and we’ve been very pleased. We had a hard time planning for the future because of projects that we get. But, it scales very well and we can plan with it, impressively so. We often do things in emergency situations, which means adding storage or additional shelves, and we can do that with FlexPod.

It's very, very good.

Very smooth and quick setup. We got it and knew exactly what to do with it. So complex, but we knew what to do, and still, very smooth.

We’ve looked at everything and did footwork, so just go with Flexpod to save yourself time and effort.

• Management of solution
• Integration between technologies
• Single support for all technologies involved

It's easy to deploy and easy to scale when you need. It’s a proven architecture that works with tools for virtualization or private cloud environment. When you need to scale you just buy another rack or hardware to put in data center and can manage centrally. You don’t need to do much configuration to get it working.

The price, but nothing from a technical perspective.

It's got very good stability. Its UCS platform is outstanding because it combines with Cisco network with good hardware.

You just add racks as needed.

I haven't had to use it.

They need to make the platform a little cheaper in Brazil.

Make sure you have infrastructure, as it needs to have a good datacenter infrastructure otherwise you won’t use 100% of solution.