FlexPod XCS Reviews

Our FlexPod solution is designed to isolate a sensitive data environment. We're able to use the technology to silo it away from the rest of our hosting environment.

1. Being able to have completely compatible hardware top to bottom and storage compute networking. This way, we're not spending time researching what works with what. 
2. The single call to support for any issue. We like to use the phrase, "One throat to choke."

Make it easier to refresh hardware. We got to the point where we couldn't fix vulnerabilities without refreshing the hardware, then that became a little too expensive for us to do.

We would like FlexPod to have in its roadmap: Keeping the hardware refreshed. It should be a little less expensive, not having all of the pieces go end of life at the same time.

The stability is great. We've had it for six or seven years, and it's still working.

It is absolutely resilient. It has built-in redundancy and multipathing. If there is an issue with one part, it doesn't fail automatically.

It's flexible. You can scale up or out. Our environment has never needed it, but the option has always been there.

The tech support has been great. Being able to have one call, whether it is to Cisco or NetApp. If there was ever an issue, they can hand the ticket over without us having to do it ourselves.

When it was bought, it was through a reseller (CDW). We go through them for a lot of stuff, and they are great. They are in touch with all of the vendors. We can go to them, then they can reach out and put us in touch with the vendors. They're a fantastic middleman.

The investment has been great. We put our money into it and it has given us something that we have been able to rely on for years.

We have been able to save time on new service deployments. When it was originally setup, it probably saved us several hours.

FlexPod is worth consideration. It's not necessarily something that you have to buy as a pod. You can buy the pieces individually, then get it classified. Anybody who is looking to consolidate physical into a virtual environment, it's great for that or any type of private hosting environment. It works really well.

The validate designs and overall versatility are some of the reasons that we decided to go with FlexPod. It's all been prevalidated, and we know it will work, which is valuable for us.

This solution is innovative when it comes to compute storage and networking. It comes back to the compatibility. Everything working from top to bottom has been great. Also, knowing the technology has been validated makes everything more streamlined.

I'm part of the managed services team, and our current FlexPod is a private cloud. However, FlexPod gives you the opportunity to keep it private, but at the same time, you have the ability to go hybrid, making it public. So, it's very versatile.

Despite our FlexPod being six to seven years old, it still works to this day. We do face some vulnerability issues that can only be fixed with a hardware refresh. Unfortunately, we went a different direction away from FlexPod. Everything had been great up until we had to do the tech refresh.

Our primary use case for FlexPod is providing cloud services.

FlexPod impacted us by making things easier to deploy. The solution is a private, hybrid, and multi-cloud environment. That's very important to us. We're doing a lot of hybrid cloud. 

The solution's infrastructure enables us to run mission-critical workloads. I do work for the Department of Homeland Security. We have a lot of critical applications. 

The validated designs and overall versatility in terms of integrating our technology and capabilities are pretty good.

The solution brings us a scale of broad application support that helps us meet the needs of diverse workloads.

The most valuable feature is the automation.

FlexPod's ability to manage from edge to core to cloud for supporting modern data and compute requirements is very good.

We have found the solution to be innovative when it comes to computing scores and networking because of the ease of deployment.

It has increased staff productivity and has simplified our support experience. It streamlines our IT admin. 

FlexPod is very stable and resilient. 

FlexPod is very scalable.

The solution's technical support is knowledgeable.

We came in and the solution had already been installed.

The initial setup of FlexPod was straightforward.

We haven't seen ROI yet. 

We have found the solution to be resilient in the way that everything is regarded. The solution reduces the time required to deploy a new application. 

There's a lot of different ways to deploy. Look into FlexPod because it makes things easier, especially for operations, i.e. to fix things and get things back up and running.

On a scale from one to ten, I would rate this product a nine out of ten.

We use it for our internal cloud infrastructure.

I currently host 2500 VMs for our engineering group and a couple hundred production VMs for corporate. It allowed us to scale out as our business grew without any issues.

It takes all of the homework out of building the solution. The prearchitected design simplifies your deployment, gets you a quicker time to market, and a single point of support. If there is ever any type of issue, you call one number. Whether the issue is in networking, storage, or the hypervisor layer, you get rapid resolution to any problems that you might encounter.

• Dynamic elasticity
• Scalability
• Reliability
• Uptime

I would like to see drag and drop connectivity to Azure and Amazon.

The stability is flawless.

The solution is resilient. It has been running for five years without a problem.

The scalability is very good. I wish it was a more cost-effective, but you get what you pay for.

Technical support used to be excellent, but now, it is just okay. The last two calls that I have made to NetApp support have been handled too casually. People are too lax, not quite as professional as I would have liked. Basically saying, "I don't know, dude." When I call tech support, I want a professional

We had multiple siloed solutions with various hypervisors and storage platforms. These solutions couldn't scale, so I consolidated all of them into a single platform solution, which is more scalable.

The initial setup was straightforward. InterVision laid down the framework, then handed me an environment where I could go into a vSphere and deploy VMs from day one.

We used InterVision, who is a VAR, for the deployment. They were excellent.

We have seen ROI.

We saved a few weeks of time for new service deployments.

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

I evaluated Dell EMC, HPE, and NetApp Cisco. I chose this solution because I knew it and there was no learning curve.

It's reliable and scalable. I can sleep well at night and not have to get woken up at three in the morning because something went bump. The solution works. You can't go wrong with the platform.

The validate designs and overall versatility are excellent. The people who did them, they did a good job. They were very thorough. The whole entire environment was well thought out, so it could scale up or out. Every component was selected properly. All the configurations for the environment are detailed, so you don't have to do any homework. You just plug it in and run it.

We use FlexPod for Managed Private Cloud, and it is excellent. I haven't had any problems with it at all since I've deployed it, and I have continued to scale it out. I don't see it going anywhere.

Hybrid cloud is where it is at, and I don't believe everybody can go into public cloud or multi-cloud entirely. I am looking forward to connecting hybrid cloud to my FlexPod environment.

We use it for its resilience and redundancy. Storage-wise, we use it for its deduplication. The primary use is to keep storage for 24-hours and have no issues.

Our footprint is lower than it used to be.

• Replication
• Deduplication
• Inline dedupe
• Scalability
• Compression, which saves us a lot of data.

We would like to have more monitoring and reporting, because today some of the reporting, and if you purchase it separately is expensive. We use OnCommand Unified Manager today, which is great, but we are looking for more of that.

It is very stable and resilient with no downtime. If I needed any storage or shelf tomorrow, I would just add it to our cluster and there would be no downtime. This is one of the best things about FlexPod.

For example, if we have to add more storage, there is no downtime. If we upgrade any firmware, we do it without any downtime. Also, with a test environment, we can be up and running in a couple of minutes.

We can scale in a matter of hours.

I am happy with FlexPod's tech support. If we need support on it, we go to one place and get everything that we need in one shot.

The overall versatility and validate designs are great. We previously used a different platform, but we gained a lot of utilization with FlexPod.

The initial setup is straightforward. You just follow the steps. As long as you're not missing steps, especially as it is integrated with OnCommand System Manager or command line, the process is straightforward.

We use a NetApp reseller, who has great technical experts if we have any issues.

We have saved time and money for new service deployments. Without FlexPod, it probably takes about ten hours. With FlexPod, within two hours, we are up and running. So, we have seen about an 80 percent time decrease.

We are mostly a NetApp environment, so we did not consider another vendor. If there was an issue with NetApp, we would have left a long time ago.

Try it. Nowadays, they will give you access online to check it out and see how it works.

It is innovative because it integrates with different platforms.

We have seen an 80 percent increase in application performance.

FlexPod for Managed Private Cloud gives us what we need. We don't have any issues with it.

We are planning to eventually go to the cloud. So, the multi-cloud capability being there in the future is exciting.

Our primary use case for this solution is for custom applications. 

FlexPod has improved my organization in the way that it has given us much greater flexibility for getting our apps rolled out.

It simplified infrastructure from edge to core to cloud. We aren't doing anything to the cloud but within the infrastructure, it's much simpler because anytime we roll out dedicated applications, we are essentially deploying dedicated FlexPods for each application.

The solution's IT support has been key for it because we're able to size appropriately depending on the application and the flexibility to grow out each FlexPod depending on the application requirements.

It has also enabled our staff to be more efficient. Previous to this, the infrastructure was all outsourced and so when we were bringing everything insourcing, it enabled us to essentially start fresh. We were moving off of the legacy block storage from a specific vendor and this allowed much easier siloing of our applications so that we didn't have resource contention between the applications.

The application performance has also been improved. I don't have exact metrics but we're moving from legacy hardware to essentially new hardware, so there's a big jump in the actual overall hardware quality that we've been doing.

Unplanned downtime incidents have decreased. We haven't had any unplanned outages that I'm aware of since we went to the FlexPod model.

The ease of expansion is the most valuable feature. 

The solution's validated designs for major enterprise apps are very important.

In terms of what needs improvement, nothing jumps out at me. It is meeting our requirements and so I'm pretty happy with the way it is right now.

It would be helpful if they sold a pre-boxed option so that you can buy a rack and everything's already there, everything's connected.

FlexPod seems very stable so far. We haven't had any unplanned outages so far.

I am very impressed with scalability because, given the applications that we're running on it, it's much easier to ensure that the resources are dedicated for each application and we can scale each application's own pod as we need to.

We went from an outsourcing model to an insourcing model. It was a good time to make a conversion from legacy, just standard blocks, a lot of physical servers and convert over to a virtual environment and have everything integrated into a nice little box.

The initial setup was very straightforward. We've got all our reference documentation and we had everything planned out. Our VAR did do a good job of saying, here are the components that we're using and here's how everything goes together.

We used a VAR for some of it and then just for the purchasing. After the first couple of rollouts, we just use them for the purchasing piece and we started doing all our own integration. 

They were a bit slow. They were taking two to three weeks to roll out a pod and we were doing it in a couple of days.

We have not seen ROI yet. 

FlexPod was pretty much the way they wanted to go from the start.

I would rate it a solid eight out of ten. It's not perfect. Everything's already plugged in when you get it out of the box. Obviously there is a bit more configuration involved than a VCE where everything comes in and you're buying a box, essentially. But that's a pretty minor knock on it.

It is a really solid solution. The pod flexibility along with the containerization of each pod is very nice.

Our primary use for this product is for virtual desktop infrastructure and for virtual server storage.

Since going to all Flash, employees are much happier working remotely in our VDI (Virtual Desktop Infrastructure).

The most valuable asset of the product is the use of all-flash storage, low latency I/O (quicker Input / Output).

No really good opportunities for product improvement come to mind. For our organization, it does what we need it to do.

The product is very stable. I don't think it's failed once since I have worked with it within the organization.

We have a pretty stable workload, so we have not had to consider the scalability of the solution.

We did an upgrade during my time but that was just moving to a newer version of the same product.

The initial installation was straightforward.

We implemented through Paramount.

Return on investment is not always tangible. The workload for individuals is faster and our employees are happier for being able to accomplish their responsibilities in less time.

Before this solution, the organization used some Synology products that were more appropriate for small businesses. The organization had many remote sites and it was not centralized. We also considered VMware vSAN as a solution.

On a scale of one to ten, I rate this product as an eight. That is mostly because the cost is comparatively high for what it does.

Storage I/O is pretty important for enhancing user experience and utility.

We have a FlexPod in our lab. I have implemented or deployed FlexPod for many customers.

Most of the use case that I have seen is to either adjust on size or if the customer is modernizing their current infrastructure and does not want to go the traditional route, wanting to have some type of convergence. The customer is usually be more comfortable with a flexible solution because there's a lot of choice and scale.

Depending on the customer needs, I've delivered extremely large and complex to very simple solutions. The most attractive thing for customers is how good the consolidation is. Sometimes, if they had a previous infrastructure of five or six racks, we can then bring them down to a rack or even half a rack. This is mind-blowing to them as their performance is increased tenfold and their infrastructure has shrunk. The power consumption shrinks and the management is simple.

We are a smaller operation in terms of our infrastructure needs. FlexPod provides very small footprint. We can have it in our offices without bothering with extra cooling, as it is a small unit.

Once you have FlexPod installed and customers start using it, they love it. They realize that they can now wrap API around it and can deploy something which would've taken them a couple of days or a week in a few minutes to an hour. When IT people see these metrics, they are very happy.

It's just a single pane of glass. Everybody loves that from the first time they see it.

Our customers see the value of multi-cloud environments and the unlimited amount of growth that they provide.

From the customer standpoint, FlexPod is easier to buy, provision, and have it deployed. 

It is innovative in the sense of how all the different pieces are brought together, then it feels like it's a single fabric. It is actual fabric, which is innovative too.

All the cabling can be scary when you first see it. It looks complex.

We want always more speed, capacity, fluidity, and growth that we can easily integrate.

It's extremely stable. This goes to show how much work and attention to detail is in these products from NetApp and Cisco.

The solution is resilient. It is very simple for patching or anything because FlexPod is a solution made to fit all the different companies in the big picture. Upgrades trickle down to all different parts of the product. This avoids patching problems at the part level.

It's amazingly scalable. It just works. It can expand to large MetroClusters and keep expanding.

Technical support is very simple. You have one number to call. The support team will do whatever needs to be done, then your case is resolved.

We've worked with Cisco for a long time. So, we ended up deploying most of our solutions with them, which were similar, even before there was FlexPod.

The initial setup is complex because it has to be done in a certain way.

We do the deployment for our customers. We also do the implementation for other resellers.

I have saved time on new service deployments. I've done deployments in under a week, and if it's a cloud-based deployment, it's even faster.

Sometimes you may end up spending a little more to get it in the first place, but you gain it back in terms of infrastructure upgrade costs and troubleshooting costs. The solution also lasts a surprisingly long time.

We weren't considering anyone else because our customers were happy with Cisco's previous solutions.

Consider all your business needs. Go through the process and data mine before deciding on a solution.

I like the validate designs. The versatility may seem restricting, but you need to be creative of it. You need to find ways to create and get it in. The flexibility is there, but you may have to think a little out of the box for it.

Everyone has done private cloud. I see a lot of customers moving towards the hybrid model. Where you could do it in different ways. I've seen people have an infrastructure and service provider, then they realize quickly that it is not the solution for them and want to move back. However, it is not that easy. You have to pay going in and going out, as there is time and effort involved, as well as additional work. However, with FlexPod, it doesn't matter which cloud solution that you pick. You can move any which way. I am just starting a multi-cloud project that does this now. The flexibility of it is amazing.

We don't use FlexPod for Managed Private Cloud as we are very small.

When I get involved in FlexPod project delivery, my life has been easy.

Our solution includes 7K switches, an 8060 as our filer, and Cisco 1610 as our interconnect switches.

We are not on the cloud yet, but we are currently exploring all of our options.

We use our FlexPod for all of our work, including our company applications.

This solution has been helpful to our organization in many ways including provisioning storage, provisioning applications, and maintaining applications.

The validated designs for major enterprise applications are very important for us. They help with time availability, architecture, and security. From an application uptime perspective, it's important.

This solution has helped to simplify our infrastructure. All of these individual components integrate well with each other, and from a customer standpoint, I don't really have to worry about compatibility and other things on my end.

The unified support for the entire stack is something that is important to us.

This solution has decreased our unplanned downtime.

The best thing about this solution is the tight integration with VMware, Cisco, and NetApp from both a hardware and software perspective. The integration of the products works seamlessly.  If you have a mismatch in versions then FlexPod can help you with that, otherwise, you may have problems.

I would like to see more storage-related features.

This solution has not reduced our capital expenditures.

The stability of this solution is good. We have not had any downtime, nor issues in terms of application performance.

Scalability is good because we can add blades to our system.

The support for this solution has been good. The support team maintains applications on all of these products. Their training is good and the support is good.

We purchased this solution to increase our capacity.

The initial setup of this solution is straightforward and easy.

We had consultants from EBT assist us with this solution, and our experience with them was good.

My advice for anybody who is researching this type of solution is to consider their requirements. If they're looking for an on-premises solution, with everything integrated, then I would recommend FlexPod.

This solution is good, but it is not perfect.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.