We performed a comparison between FlexPod XCS and VMware vSAN based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, NetApp, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and others in Converged Infrastructure."It took a server room where we had 280 servers and another with 180 and condensed them from 15 racks down to three racks. It's helping us in the data center with all our environmentals... In addition, we're getting the ability of VMware, which is virtualization, so now we have redundancy on all of our boxes, instead of them being physical."
"For the management side of our UCS, it is a single pane of glass for multiple people, whether it is data center, sysadmin, or server deployment."
"Not a perfect ten because it could use better integration on the network side between UCS and the switching layerKnowing that everything works, having a single place to be able to find out compatibility and things like that are the biggest benefits of this solution. The fact that LACP is not supported on UCS blades isn't so great. It would be nice if it was."
"The advantage is being able to consolidate everything into a relatively small chassis."
"The solution suits converged infrastructures, where the customer gets a complete system with Cisco servers, NetApp Storage, and Cisco switches."
"FlexPod gives us the opportunity to deploy a product which is fully built and racked with minimal touch installation when it arrives onsite, so we can do all the configuration remotely."
"The most valuable features of this solution are the integration and ease of use."
"This solution has helped to make more things consistent within our organization."
"It is easy to use. It is easy to implement for us, and it is also easy to maintain for the customers. It is not necessary to buy some extra devices and talk with other vendors."
"Very easy to implement in any existing environment."
"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"Storage is expandable with no extra cost."
"Since the storage space is local to the hosts, it reduces the overall response time and improves the performance."
"The valuable features are its scalability and the standardization - one size fits all. It's also intuitive and easy to use because one size fits all. Obviously, it scales out, but it's the same solution at every physical location I manage."
"VMware vSAN is an easy to use and easy to manage storage solution. Deploying and upgrading are easy. Technical support is very good."
"it's easy to scale, it's easy to predict IOP needs, and you can design for low latency using all-flash... Also, for setting up new clusters for VDI quickly, it's nice. You don't have to wait on an order for a storage vendor to ship you a system and help you configure it, you do it all yourself. And the sizing guides are pretty straightforward."
"The graphical interface could be made easier to use and more intuitive."
"We would like something like a FlexPod Express; we want a smaller version for small offices."
"It would be very helpful if the upgrades for Cisco, VMware, and NetApp could be bundled together and performed at the same time."
"I would like to see drag and drop connectivity to Azure and Amazon."
"Unified management would be really nice, having one a single pane of glass to manage everything do with the solution."
"Hardware stability needs improvement. We replaced a lot of RAM this past year. We had to replace the complete blade once after extensive troubleshooting. Any given time, we have approximately one blade down within the entire infrastructure, unfortunately."
"I would like them to integrate the NVIDIA GRID into the system, so we could easily deploy certain solutions with the FlexPod."
"There is a history of issues with hardware availability. For example, we'll buy an array or a filer with a particular configuration and particular size of drive, sizing it appropriately. Then, as we grow, they're like, "Oh, you can always get more." Then when you go to get more, that model or type of disk is no longer available. It becomes this big process to try to figure out what we need to get, how it'll work, and how that'll integrate into the system. That could be simpler. They could do a bit more to guarantee the availability of parts. Obviously, not being the largest storage vendor, I know they can't sometimes control what the hardware vendors do. However, a bit more transparency and communication about this would be helpful."
"I would rate the stability a seven out of ten."
"Improvements are also needed as per the customer's requirements."
"The UI falls short compared to other solutions. It needs some development to make it more user-friendly."
"Lacks an integrated backup solution."
"I would like to see better integration between the cloud and our VMware virtual environment. We only have one virtual environment, which is VMware vSAN. Right now, there is little interoperability with the cloud solution at the moment."
"They can improve the manageability of the solution to make it more simple. It is not that complicated, but it will be good if they can make it more simple."
"As a software-based product, it requires a lot of system resources."
"Licensing costs are a little too high for smaller sized companies."
FlexPod XCS is ranked 2nd in Converged Infrastructure with 295 reviews while VMware vSAN is ranked 2nd in HCI with 227 reviews. FlexPod XCS is rated 8.6, while VMware vSAN is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of FlexPod XCS writes "Integrates everything so you are using fewer tools". On the other hand, the top reviewer of VMware vSAN writes "Very stable, easy to set up, and easy to use". FlexPod XCS is most compared with Dell PowerFlex, Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI), VxRail, Oracle Exadata and HPE ConvergedSystem, whereas VMware vSAN is most compared with VxRail, Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct, HPE SimpliVity, Red Hat Ceph Storage and Dell PowerFlex.
We monitor all Converged Infrastructure reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.