The initial deployment is straightforward. Looking at the validated designs (CVD), you can create detailed implementation plans from.

Depending on the customer, a lot of the time, the customer wants the compute environment build out first and then attach the NetApp storage and flag the environment "FlexPod" after the fact. For SAP HANA, another example, I would look for the CVD and TDI (Tailed Datacenter Integration) so the customer and I understand what the requirements will be, can build an estimate out, architect the solution, put an accurate order together and build it according to the CVD.

I find the CVD's very important and helpful as they provide good reference for the technology that is being used or considered. If a customer has it in hand ahead of time, they get a better understanding of what it takes to build the solution out. Whether we follow the CVD through, at the end of the day, that depends on the customer.

I joined the company after the initial setup. However, it seems complex from what I've seen. The team who deployed it had a reseller set it up for them, but they changed it afterward. They had a different idea of how they wanted it to operate. They tried to make it work in their model instead of adapting to what FlexPod was designed to be. I think they complicated things.

They only use one cloud provider, and FlexPod is minimally connected. Their newer environments are more connected, but backup to the cloud is the only use case they're using for primary functionality, and it's somewhat limited. There was no challenge in doing it, but the overall use case for that is still somewhat limited.

Currently, we're using the 4.2.1 with M5 servers, B200 M5s. This is my third one, as far as the firmware updates, and driver push-outs.

The initial requirements for getting it up and running are very complex. There's a lot of note keying, and all of that had to come into play. We had to have a good foundation of server networking. It's not something anyone can just throw a user into and say, "Here's a gear," and set it up.

I had the technical background for the basic deployment. 

There is a cookbook related to the design, so all our projects run smoothly. 

FlexPod XCS' setup is complex and I would rate it a six out of ten. The product's deployment took six months to complete. A partner company helps us with the tool's maintenance. 

The initial setup of this solution requires some training. Once you learn it then everything is simple, but in getting to that point, there is a bit of learning curve. The complexity comes from having so many different components.

The need to have skills from several different backgrounds. You need to have experience as a network administrator, a network engineer, a storage administrator, and a virtualization expert. It is a four-technology domain that includes network, compute, storage, and virtualization. Then you have a server administrator, and you have to combine all of these roles into one person. That is where the learning curve comes from.

The initial setup of FlexPod was straightforward.

The initial setup was straightforward and simple.

The initial setup was quite straightforward. We didn't have many issues with it. Of course, 10 years ago when we were starting with it, it was quite a fresh thing. There were not many documents available or validated designers like we have now, but we didn't have any major issues implementing it.

The way that we do the initial setup, there are a lot of volumes. There are multiple copies of the same database. 

Let me speak specifically about our recent migration, where the customer actually has four copies of their production workload. In this specific environment, it is complex. Could my customer do it by themselves? No. We helped with that implementation. Their scripts are written in just to help automate the process. This enabled the migration to go very smoothly.

We did not use WWT for the initial setup, and we did have problems. A lot of it had to do with the gentleman who worked on the program left. From our perspective, it was a lot of trial and error. It took a couple deployments to get a rhythm to it. After that, since the first two to three deployments, it's been very smooth. With the same team, we know what we're doing. We have the same project leader.

The initial setup of this solution is straightforward and easy.

The initial setup was somewhat complex, but once you do it thirty, forty, or fifty times, you kind of know your standards.

The setup was fairly complex because of the sheer number of servers, more than 30,000 servers.

Once deployed, it is set up and forget it. We do not have a dedicated FTE to manage this solution all day long. That's a good thing.

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.

I must say, initial setup is the only challenge for a new FlexPod deployment team but once you have set it up, it is very easy to manage and scale.

The initial setup was very straightforward, but you have to know the integration document for the Cisco validated design. It is a must to know. Basically, the guy who performs the implementation should know it like the bible. It is actually the bible for those guys, and for the people who are using it. Those validated designs make our engineer lives, much easier.

It was straightforward because I have done it multiple times before. I've had to do it probably four times now. Now, I just know what I need to do versus the first time I had to it. We worked with a reseller and basically read all the documentation the first time.

The process for deployment is rack and stack, then upgrade to the latest firmware. We go through all our templates and gather what we're currently using compared to what the latest version of UCS offers. We make any updates, as necessary,  then reconfigure, redeploy, and away we go.

The initial setup was pretty much straightforward.

Because our VAR helped us with a lot of it, from our perspective it was very simple.

Setup was pretty easy. This was our first venture into UCS at all. It was a steep learning curve figuring it out. We are using Central to manage six different domains, so getting that hierarchy put together upfront so we could do global templating across all those domains was a little rough, mostly from a conceptual standpoint. It deploys easily now that we have got it out.

We have been a NetApp shop forever, so that part was a piece of cake.

The initial setup was straightforward. It's all built at the factory and it came put together as a rack. Everything was straightforward. 

The initial setup was was very well coordinated between NetApp and us. It was very smooth and very painless. 

The initial setup of this solution is fairly complex. We have a complex environment.

This solution has reduced deployment time. 

The initial setup of this solution was straightforward. Granted, the reseller did most of the work.

Once you have a plan, it's around 80 percent planning and 20 percent execution. As long as you follow the CVDs and understand what information is going into them, collecting all the information upfront. 

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

The initial setup for FlexPod is not straightforward, but it's relative, meaning you need the talent to set it up. It has a two-layer setup and configuration. One is the infrastructure layer, and the second is the provisioning of the application layer.

For example, simply setting up the box is not enough. You need to set it up and configure the box for it to be an environment. That environment could be for testing, development, or production, and you want a controlled mechanism to do that. Even if the physical entity is ready, you still have to fire up some virtual machines. For example, if you have clients with VMware hypervisors and others, you need a tool to do that, such as a VMware tool if you're working with VMware products.

This is not necessarily a Cisco issue, so I'm not saying that the process for setting up FlexPod is too complicated. Cisco is trying to provide you with a tiny cloud data center in a box, and it's converging all the infrastructure into a single box, which means you must make that box work for you by firing up VMs, and then loading the proper application on top of that, whether you built it or you bought it. There's a lot of complexity on that level that Cisco can work on or can partner to optimize, so it's less painful for the end user or customer.

I mainly did the network part of the deployment. My inclusion tests were quite straightforward.

In technology, I'm afraid there's really not much that's straightforward.

I was involved in the initial setup and it was a bit complex. It was complex at first because I mean it was a new system and stuff and there were some parts that we had not managed before that we had to learn. Using the UCL software was new to us. We can easily manipulate the fabric interconnects. You don't have to get the networking people every time you need to do something. They just have to touch the 9k or the 5k or whatever you running.

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.

The initial setup was straightforward. It would have been set up the same way if it wasn't called FlexPod. We're using Cisco Nexus, which is Cisco UCS, NetApp storage, and VMware are all things we would have done anyway.

The setup of FlexPod is straightforward because all of the components are there.

The product is actually easy to set up. It's self-learning. It's methodical. At the same time, you have to go through all the minutia of the networking layer, the storage layer, the compute layer to focus on the foundation. Then prepare it for application download and then application build on either databases or the application itself based on the OS that it resides on. The model is quite simple.

It was straightforward. There is a lot certification on the workload, so we don't have to worry about it.

Take a look at FlexPod and do a PoC. Compare it to other products and you will see the huge savings.

It provides all the network information needed, such as how to create pools and set up servers. It is pretty easy.

When we install, it is an innovative, because we have all of the products in one box and one frame. This reduces all the cabling and all IPs needed as they are already there.

At first, it seems a little complex. As you get going, you realize it is quite straightforward. The documentation alone that NetApp provides can guide anybody through the process. You can hire external vendors to assist you with it, but if you have some knowledgeable people, and they read the documentation, in a few short days, you will be up and operational.

The setup is pretty straightforward. The biggest thing I would say to you if you were looking at doing one is, really look at your VAR. Find one that has done it before and that will help you to make sure you don't have any major pitfalls.

We did a head swap upgrade about a week ago, which mostly went well for VMware systems. Everything inside the FlexPlod upgraded fine. We had an AIX system with an issue during the upgrade, but that is not my area.

I thought it was very straightforward, we accomplished it in about a day and a half. We were up and running and everything was on it.

I was involved in the initial setup at one point. I was involved in verifying our infrastructure and there were no problems. The network assessment was clean. NetApps came in, they got plugged into the network, and everybody was happy. We closed down the project successfully, and nobody had to follow up. This means that it is running well.

The initial setup is straightforward. It is all interface-based, so point and click. 

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.

It was very straightforward. Each solution is a little bit different: Everything from the E-Series being the simplest to MetroCuster being the most complicated, but they have all been relatively straightforward to setup. We have been using NetApp services for most startups, so this has been a big benefit, especially with technology that we did not necessarily understand right off the bat. 

The solution is very easy to implement. 

This is my understanding, since I don't deploy it. The initial setup is very straightforward compared to its competitors. Compared to an HPE solution, it is exponentially easier to set up. I know that as a fact.

This solution is easy to deploy. This solution reduces application deployment time because we have integrated automation with it. The simple integration makes it easy. We have an eighty percent reduction in time.

The initial setup was straightforward. We followed the validated design and we had external partners come in and help us build it, and then we were up and running. I wouldn't say it was complex.

The initial setup is straightforward.

I was involved in the installation. FlexPod, or any converged or hyper-converged infrastructure, requires a lot of planning. Once you have your planning done properly, you can just work with networking and other teams. If you have a good coordination with the teams, it's pretty easy to set-up.

Initial setup was complex. We were making a pretty big forklift in our environment by putting that in. The design took quite a while, but I'm glad that we did take the time to do that design because it allowed us to have an environment that suited us very well for three-plus years now.

The initial setup was straightforward.

The initial setup was straightforward. Just follow the validation plan.

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

Parts of the initial setup were complex, especially on the networking side. The other two components were pretty straightforward.

The initial setup is very straightforward.

The initial setup of this solution was complex because we were doing it for the first time. We have some very experienced Cisco engineers on staff, which was key to implementing Cisco UCS because it was familiar to them.

The initial setup of this solution is fairly straightforward. Obviously, you need to know what storage systems are being used, etc, but in general, it is straightforward.

The initial setup of FlexPod is straightforward. This solution reduces our application deployment time by approximately five percent.

Depends on who you are talking to whether the initial setup is straightforward or complex. Setting up a NetApp is one thing, setting up a Cisco UCS environment is another thing. We did not buy it as a FlexPod. We bought all the ingredients individually, then registered it as a FlexPod because it is licensed as such. 

We had subject-matter experts doing their roles. In the end, they realized it was a FlexPod and it should be registered as one. 

For the initial setup, I worked with a reseller. They had two awesome engineers, one from the UCS side and one from the NetApp side. They worked hand-in-hand with me and the people at MacLean-Fogg to make sure we got everything done right. That is the real key with the FlexPod. If you get all your definitions and all your profiles set up correctly in the UCS manager, then adding a blade is very simple. You put in the blade, you turn it on, you apply that profile to the new blade and you're up and running.

The big thing with a FlexPod is, you've got to get it right at the beginning and then everything from that point on is very simple.

I was involved in the original spec'ing, scoping, and architecture of the solution. But the integration and implementation was up to some other folks on the team.

This solution is super easy and straightforward to set up. It is almost "set and forget", and everything works really well. It actually took longer than it should have, simply because I stopped the engineer and had him walk me through every single step so that I understood what he was doing and why he was doing it.

Without my interruption, he could have spun it up himself in a couple of hours. However, it was important for me to understand how the system was deployed and why things were set up the way that they were so that I was able to support it going forward.

I was not involved with the initial setup, but I can say that the work we have done with revamping the solution has been straightforward and simple.

The initial installation was straightforward.

There are, basically, validated guidelines on how to deploy all of the FlexPods, so they have all been pretty straightforward.

This solution does reduce deployment time, although I don’t know the exact percentage in terms of time savings. I can say that as far as “go to market”, it’s generally faster

The initial setup was more complex for us because we were using Hyper-V. We had to blend a few CVDs, but with the expertise that they had, there weren't any issues.

From a setup perspective, I come at it from two different angles. 

1. As a customer, I was involved very early on in some of those stages. At that point in time, it looked complex to me, especially earlier on in my career. 
2. Now, I have quite a few years of industry experience under my belt and working with both of these products. I would not say it is overly complex. Both NetApp and Cisco have gone to great lengths to simplify the process and IT, as a whole. There is a continued evolution of it, and you are going to continue to see the product get better.

It is very straightforward. 

If we had never done it before, someone else has been the design guide, someone else has been the deployment guide, and it is step-by-step. If you have never deployed NetApp or Cisco before, you can follow these guides. If you have, they are just an augmentation of what you already know, and just a bunch of best practices, so you can get it up and running in a much quicker fashion.

The initial setup is pretty straightforward. We do leverage a reseller to size it. Our partners are RoundTower and WWT. They configure the sizing, then they install the basic hardware. Afterwards, they will ship it to us. 

We configure the hypervisor and storage network, then we ship it to branch office.

I have a lot of experience with setup. I'm somebody who loves to dive into CLI on the NetApp side. I love to build the entire thing from scratch and not really use any of the setup tools that are out there. There is definitely a little bit of a learning curve for FlexPod still, especially as you're building out from scratch. But, at the same time, they have both done a great job at working to simplify that deployment process and make it more straightforward.

I was involved in the initial setup. As with most pieces of technology, you can make it as complex as you want. However, they give you the tools and the resources to be able to make it complex without it taking a ton of man hours.

Uneventful. It is more complex than setting up a laptop, so it took more time, but at the same time we did implement it in what most of our partners felt was record time, so that was good.

I was responsible for the initial setup and it was a breeze. Everything came shipped, plugged-in, and ready to go.

I was involved in setting up one of our FlexPods. It was pretty straightforward. The most complex part was probably the fiber channel setup. If I would do it again, maybe I would look into more of an NFS-type setup; make that a little bit easier. Otherwise, you had the FlexPod, and as far as from the Cisco side and everything, it was pretty straightforward.

It is complex. I would recommend to anyone considering a FlexPod to get a partner who has done it before because with FlexPod there's a lot of work up front, but if you get it right up front, everything beyond there is smooth sailing.

I mentioned earlier that we added additional chassis and blades. Because we had done the work ahead of time, set up the templates and profiles for the blades, it was very simple to just insert the blade, power it on, apply that profile, and it's up and ready to go.

The setup is very straightforward since all our installations are based on CVDs. So, it is very easy to install.

The initial setup was very straightforward.

I did not really notice anything complex or anything you couldn't figure out for yourself or by picking up a phone or looking up the documents. They were able to produce the system within 24 hours from the time the boxes arrived at the data center.

The initial setup was straightforward. We sat down with Cisco and NetApp, as well as World Wide, and said, "This is what we want to see." And they built the FlexPod based upon our requirements. After that initial work, everything came in quite easily.

Setup is complex. They don't follow the norms. You expect certain things to be a certain way but once you start deploying you go, "Ah-ha." I found three or four "ah-ha" moments or "gotchas." It wasn't very straightforward. I had to do some digging to find out the right way to deploy it.

We were early adopters, and there was some complexity involved. That is why a good integrator partner is important. We are a little bit ahead of the curve, and the market has matured since then. 

After the first FlexPod, the second and third got easier and easier for us to deploy. We are now self-sustaining in the configuration portion of managing it, and also in the ongoing operations.

The FlexPod initial setup is straightforward if you know what you are doing in the data centers. There are simpler things. For FlexPod, you still need IT staff to set it up (that is what we do). We help build it out for the client. It is not a one button thing, and there are some things like that. It is more of an enterprise architecture. It is absolutely straightforward for us to set it up, certify it, and validate it, but there is a lot more to getting applications on it and tying them into the operations.

Setup is very straightforward. We understand the customer requirements. We take those and translate them into the configuration scripts. We can set it up very quickly and reliably and get them into production a lot faster than most traditional solutions.

I was not involved in the initial setup.

Although I was not involved in the initial setup, I saw when we were moving from physical to virtual that it was pretty smooth. The initial challenge was the configuration within the data center. But I don't think it was a technical challenge.

We do deployments all the time. I was involved in the last one. We deployed FlexPod for one of our locations. The documentation and validation for it was very simple and easy to use, as compared to some other products that I've deployed.

I think it was easier, in addition to experiencing it before, because of the way the instructions come in, the support, the setup of how you actually physically assemble and connect the components, and the ease of management definitely put it ahead of other solutions.

It is a complex deployment, but we have done it a lot of times so it's not that hard. We have it all scripted. We have a ton of automation in the deployment process.

For healthcare, it is almost always on private cloud. That is still very much the standard. It's mostly Azure and some AWS, a little bit of GCP, and some others. One of the big EMR providers has its own hybrid cloud that is purpose-built.

The most recent one I did was a big EMR. It's a moderately sized NetApp AF series and a bunch of Cisco UCS with NDS storage. It is a reference flash tag straight out of the CBD with 150 nodes.

The setup of this solution is lengthy and complex, but we have been speaking with people about how to make it more efficient.

The complexity has a lot to do with when you're initially setting the equipment up. There's a lot of values that you have to plug into their various screens, and then you also have to do a reboot to pick up whether it's going to be a storage node or a compute node. Then, they're looking to fix status too, and you have to do a reboot after that, so you lose forty-five minutes and if you have a large install, that's a long time to build the environment.

The setup is generally pretty easy and faster than most other systems.

The initial setup was straightforward.

The initial setup is not complex. It is user-friendly since it is a single solution with all the components delivered in one package.

There is a workbook, so we just use it with our client. It helps us know what they need for implementation. The workbook categorizes all the different information they need, so they know what to expect during the installation. This make the setup clear and concise. They can review the workbook and have plenty of time to fill it out. 

The initial setup was complex at the time our deployment where there was a lot of moving parts. My understanding is that they have since tried to implement more streamlining. 

The initial setup was complex. UCS is not the easiest thing to configure from the ground up. The networking pieces can get confusing, especially when you are talking about virtual segmentation. It is not as easy as other things now on the market, such as hyperconverged.

From all of the feedback that I have received, it is an easy, straightforward system to set up and maintain.

I wasn't involved personally in the initial setup but my staff was. It was very simple. We got on with NetApp, we got the Cisco guys together, we got our VM guys together. NetApp really took the lead and just pushed us through. So it was a very simple setup.

With a CVD being provided for this solution, setup and configuration is pretty straightforward.

It's very, very easy to manage and to build.

Initial setup was straightforward. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, we have a virtualized platform like Oracle VM. We don't have a straightforward FlexPod validated design for that, but we could use the compatibility matrix and with support from NetApp and Cisco, we could build a platform.

I was not involved in the initial setup. Another couple of guys on the team did it. We did the initial setup with Firefly, who was our vendor, and provided week-long training. We each got to set up several of the blades, but Firefly did the initial UCS setup. I've done other UCS implementations since then from scratch, though.

I love the setup. I think it's very simple. I'm biased; I'm a CCIE Data Center. I like it enough that I have put a lot of time into it. I took a client from all physical to all virtual in a four-day weekend, with all-new switches, new SAN, new UCS, and in four days I already had, I think, their first 10 or 15 servers moved from physical to virtual on UCS setups.

The initial setup was straightforward. Complexity was added more from a customer perspective, where you need that custom setup for what they require. With the bundle, we did get to go to training for FlexPod's deployment and that sort of area. That also helped us a lot to understand the nuts and bolts and detail of what it is as well, which helped a lot with that knowledge.

The setup of this solution is a little bit complex at first. After you understand the major components, it gets easier.

The upgrade was straightforward. There wasn't anything special involved. What we found out is that since no one is using templates properly that we could have done things even faster if we had used the templates. Since then, we use them all across all the sites.

When you open the box, they give you a very nice diagram. Which was my initial guide through setting up any NetApp SAN. It worked itself out pretty well. I knew a decent bit of the network side as well, so I might have had an unfair advantage. I connected everything up like in the diagram and went through the documentation online, then had most of the SAN set up by the time that we had engaged with our engineer to actually set up the SAN.

So, the initial setup was pretty straightforward.

I was involved in the initial setup. At the time, it seemed complex, because we had never done it before, but as I look back on it, it was pretty straightforward.

Not complex.

Upgrades, the same, not complex. With ONTAP, you just have to pick your order, find out how you can upgrade them and do your UCS, do your Nexus switches, do your storage. Not difficult.

The initial setup was fairly straightforward. As long as you follow the diagram, it's not too hard to set up at all. It wasn't too complex.

Deployment was not overly complex, it takes time but not overly complex. For our use, and the Oracle database, it’s more complex on the Oracle side of things (E-business suite).

It was very simple and straightforward. I had it racked within half a day and connected.

I wasn't part of the initial setup. However, I have been part of the expansion and it's very simple.

The deployment time has been reduced, although I cannot say by how much.

While I wouldn't change a thing, it was not easy coming from our old environment. You have local and different servers and have to pull everything together. It took us a year and a half to deploy the first FlexPod and have it be total functionally. After that, the process was simple. Nowadays, things are easier to deploy.

We followed the validated design. Although on paper it looks quite complex, we followed the validated design and working closely with NEC, who has set up other data centers similar to ours. It was easy.

It has saved our engineers time. The initial setup to get the service profile set up took some time, but now each new blade that is put in is up and running in ten minutes. The previous service that we had would have taken about half a day to a day.

This is a little bit out of my environment. They give us what they need on-premise from a telecom's perspective. Then, our virtualization teams and the NetApp teams go in and deploy it. I can't speak on the granular issues.

I was involved in the initial setup from the network side of FlexPod and NetApp. I was not involved in the configuration of NetApp itself. In terms of the network side, as long all the information is provided completely, which has happened so far, I have not had any problem setting it up on our network infrastructure.

If you use the design document, everything is pretty straightforward. The racking and stacking are pretty easy, in regards to the physical stuff. Cisco and ONTAP are pretty simple to configure if you follow the proper design.

You just need to do a couple of clicks for your UCS. The same goes for Nexus. It depends upon the configuration, but it is pretty easy to deploy. Once that is done, it is just how you want to use your storage, which is the only contribution that you need to do because everything else is taken care of. 

The initial setup was quite straightforward. As with anything nowadays, the workflows are just so good that it's easy to configure one thing and just move on to the other.

The initial setup was complex. We are implementing ACI as well, application centric infrastructure and this is complex to the network. We are pushing a virtualization layer on to the network which is really complex.

The setup is complex, but not unreasonable. There is a lot to learn. There is a lot to do to make sure that all of the versioning is compatible. I know NetApp offers some tools if you're not familiar with it or you haven't done it before. I'm not sure that I've seen everything or know all the places to look for that information. So, it can be a little anxiety provoking in that sense.

The initial setup of this solution is straightforward and very easy.

There is a thirty-five to forty percent reduction in the time required for deployment.

The initial setup was straightforward. We got all the requirements, then gave them to the consultants who came back telling us what is a requirement and what is a design. We discussed it, and this made the rollout pretty simple. Other than finding out what bits and pieces we needed, the instillation and execution administration was pretty straightforward.

There are a lot of components to it, but setting up FlexPod is what we do every day, so it is easy enough for us to go through and do. We've got some intellectual property that we have built around it, but it becomes second nature.

I came in after it was already setup. I do firmware upgrades and some things like that. It is not complex.

Initial setup was very good. The RESTful API is easy to set up.

Initial setup was extremely difficult. It takes a lot of time to do the initial setup, at least with the version we had. It looks like there are newer tools that are out to make it a little bit better and faster for the initial setup, but when we first did it, it was extremely difficult.

It took us a few days to get it up and running. That was where the down points were. It took so long to get it set up, where some of the older technologies that we had used set up a little bit faster, but they weren't as flexible or stable with what we were trying to accomplish.

After our initial reviews and design with our VAR, initial setup actually worked out very well. We already had Cisco UCS in place. Racking the NetApp array, we had that done in probably two hours, and then it was powered up and provisioning within 3-4 hours; in less than a day, we had it up and going, which was really nice.

From the outside, initial setup looked very, very complex but with FlexPod and everything being together in one unit, it actually makes it very easy, very simple to implement. I think that it was a little complex but it went very smoothly in the implementation and installation.

Initial setup was very straightforward.

It was already in place when I got there. From the inside-out, it can be complex because its biggest problem is that if you stray from centralized virtual desktops, it can be difficult to work with.

I rate the initial setup an eight out of ten.

The initial setup is a little complex.

I built the current FlexPod and it was pretty straightforward.

We had another FlexPod that was built by somebody else. It's easy to build and we are in the process of migrating all of the workloads over. We're always refreshed.

The initial setup of this solution is complex. There are too many levels of architecture design, with lots of different layers of pointing connections. It takes a really well-trained skill set to get it up and running.

I was involved in the refresh, and it was relatively straightforward. We had an existing UCS infrastructure that we were replacing, which was being moved over to a secondary sight where it was a new UCS stand up.

Setup is easy. They have already preconfigured things. Things are prelabeled, have colors, and they plugin. That is one of the reasons that you buy FlexPod, because of the ease, proven reliability and performance. 

I was involved in the initial setup and it was fairly straightforward. There's enough diagrams and the validated architecture document basically had it all there for me.

It was a little complex but it was because before I started deploying FlexPods I was just in a systems-type realm. But once I completed my initial configuration of one and understood the importance of having HA - once I understood that - I figured out, "Well, cabling, it makes sense." Whatever happens on the A side happens on the B side, and it just started kind of flowing together.

So not too terribly bad. Plus NetApp has real great resources. You can go to their page, you can pull up FlexPod, you can find all the cabling in there for whatever model you have, supported and unsupported, they were really good about that; that was awesome.

It was new to me. I'm more of a traditional storage guy, replication, backup, recovery guy. But, it was very easy to understand, as we were installing it.

All was upgradable. If you needed to reboot any component, either one of the switchblades or a VM in the chassis, you could just move it over, without any disruption, unless it was CIFS, and then do the upgrade.

Where I previously worked, I built about three or four different pods in different configurations converting an EMC FlexPod to a NetApp FlexPod, then to an EMC FlexPod.

The initial setup was straightforward if you do your planning correct. It's pretty easy as far as plug and play goes.

The setup was pretty simple. It works well, it's not too hard to get everything connected, and you can use the most efficient and best practices.

The initial setup went very well. We provided the information about configurations that we would have liked to have seen. At the end of the day, after four or five meetings, we provided that information. FlexPod then showed up in a crate, ready to be powered on in the data center and start to switch data.

It is complex to set up.

Very straightforward and easy.

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

For the initial customer or engineer, installing for the first time, this product sometimes is challenging to set up. For more senior customers who have automated scripts, it's much easier. Deployment takes a few hours, perhaps around half a day.

The initial setup was very straightforward.

The initial setup was straightforward because we did not do it, Cisco did it.

The installation was straightforward.

For the initial setup, you have to follow the guide, step-by-step and version-specific for the installation. If you follow the guide step-by-step it is fairly simple, not that complex. 

We deploy for customers firsthand, usually within one week. Our last deployment of FlexPod took one to two months. It depends on the requirements.

My colleagues mentioned that it was very easy. 

There is a lot to do, but the process is very well-documented. The nature of the infrastructure allows us to basically go through and work with a series of templates that we can stamp out very quickly. For the vast majority of the deployments that we do for customers, I have an information gathering sheet that I email them a couple weeks before deployment, and just from the information that we collect, we can get the configuration 98 percent of the way done.

I wouldn't say it is more complex. It is different, because there are a lot more components than if you were just going to buy a traditional compute only or storage only solution. So, there is an added complexity given the size of the deployment and the number of components. However, it is not difficult from a deployment perspective by any stretch. If you were deploying those components individually, it would be the same amount of effort.

The setup is really straightforward. What I heard was you plug it in, you bring it up, and it's easy to install.

The setup was pretty straightforward. We obviously engaged a reseller to help us with it. But putting the different components together is pretty straightforward.

I was involved in the initial setup for the storage piece and it was complex. As far as the design, FlexPod is a complex piece of equipment. You just can't read a book and be ready to get it operational. You have to go through professional services that have some experience with it.

I was involved in the initial setup. For the second one setup, for the one we have now, it was pretty easy. We tied into some of the existing hardware, i.e., the Nexus. Most of it was pretty easy. It had a slightly different OS, but it was relatively straightforward.

We had vendors do it. I was kind of there peripherally with my team, but I was not overly involved.

The process was great. Our vendors really knew what they were doing, so even though it was our first FlexPod, they helped us power right through it.

I was not involved in the initial setup, but I've been involved in setting up 10-12 of the 18 FlexPods that we have. Setting them up is very, very easy. There are validated design documents out there; it's very well documented. We've found that there is really no ambiguity at all in the setup and configuration; deployment.

Initial setup was straightforward; it took a day.

We've got a good team I guess and some good PS partners. We sat down, we went through the design so we knew what we were getting. The equipment showed up, they implemented it and because it's a validated design and everything's already there, it's just, power it up and go. Then we just move our workload on to it and off we went. We had no issues.

Initial setup was very easy. We looked at the validated design. We tweaked it a little bit to fit our environment specifically. We deployed from there. It was a day or so at best, more because we have our own little processes we have to go through.

Initial setup was quite straightforward. I guess our first FlexPod implementation was with one of our data centers. It was a sizable deployment but quite straightforward.

Initial setup is complex as it’s a complex solution, but it’s a validated design so it all comes ready to assemble.

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.

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

I'm not involved much in setup, but we architected it and we had CDW and engineers help us who did the physical installation.

It was pretty straightforward. I was the main engineer during the initial setup.

I coordinated the initial setup, but I wasn't necessarily hands-on. But it was pretty straightforward.

For design and initial setup, it was very simple.

I was not involved directly in the initial setup. The other guy that I work with was part of the PoC that we did, and then I got a little bit involved later on. He's actually part of the finishing off of it. But the ongoing support and operational part of it, I'm part of that.

They had to jump through a lot of hoops to get things but I think part of it was our own... What we needed to do was listen to the experts a little more to say, "Okay, we have to do it this way versus trying to push our own infrastructure on it." So that's what hurt us. But in the end, really good.

It was a paradigm shift because every stack has its own set of unique ways of doing things and getting used to that and getting into that mindset took a little bit of effort but once you get it, it's clear sailing.

Upgrades are not complex.

I was involved in the initial setup. It's pretty straightforward.

I was involved with the initial setup as the network engineer at the time. That went very smoothly. The most surprising thing was when I connected Cisco Prime and had it search for a new sister device, it pulled in that app, or the UCS part of it, the fabric, and the connects, automatically.

I was involved in the initial discussions, evaluation, and purchase decision. My IT team was actually the hands-on team that did the setup of the FlexPod. Once we got it installed, got a little bit of knowledge transfer, they really enjoyed it. The solution brought everything together. It made it a lot easier to deliver services, because compute stores and networks weren't these discrete components they had to work on separately.

I was involved in the initial selection process, purchasing, setup, and the whole thing. The setup was very simplistic, which is one of the reasons we went for it. We try to strive for simplicity in our shop because of our staffing situation and because we are non-profit organization. So reliability, efficiency, all those things really come into play. We're a 7/24/365 facility, so things just have to work.

I was involved in the initial setup. I was the network engineer at the time. That went very smoothly. The most surprising thing, was when I connected Cisco Prime and I had it search for a new Cisco device, it pulled in that app, the UCS part, the fabric, and the connects, automatically.

Determining the architecture was complex, because you need to make sure that you know what your requirements are. Then, once you've designed it, initial setup was straightforward.

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 initial setup of each component is very simple, and usually taking only a few minutes for each. Once each part is setup, it then becomes more complex to integrate them together. Typically, a good FlexPod setup, following the validated designs, can take four to five days to build, then another couple days to verify.

The initial setup is fairly straightforward. Once you get the understanding of how the system works, it is fairly easy to set it up. 

The initial setup of this solution is straightforward. You simply follow the documentation.

The initial setup was straightforward.

I was involved in the Initial design and configuration. It was as straightforward as it gets.

The initial setup was very straightforward. They provided a lot of documentation. They provided a lot of drawings as to how to cable it properly, along with a lot of tools, making sure it was set up properly.

The initial setup was very straightforward.

It's fairly straightforward. It's listed out for you, so you just follow the bouncing ball around, essentially.

I was involved in the initial setup. It is straightforward if you understand the technology and how it works. If you are new to the technology, you will require some training for your people and your team.

I was involved in the initial setup. It was pretty complex.

There is a steep learning curve on the Cisco side to set up profiles.

I was involved in the initial setup. It was straightforward.

I was involved in the initial setup and it was straightforward.

It was set up before I got there. I remember how to put in the seven node cluster plus the transition that we are doing now. The setup was simple. It came with a single start-up script. They sent us an Excel sheet ahead of time to fill everything out that we needed. We ran through the script, it asked us for everything, we were together, and it was quick.

My engineers worked with one of our strategic partners to help implement the solution. It has been, from a design standpoint, much easier to get set up and running, and much faster than doing it outside of FlexPod.

We haven’t had any technical issues with getting it set up or with running it; none at all. I'm very happy.

With the initial set up, there was a really steep learning curve to start with. Once you got past that, it was really easy. That learning curve had to do with making sure that due diligence had been completed, the right training had been completed and understanding what the solution was going to be, end to end.

Initially complex, but that had to do with our environment.

The initial setup was straightforward, but the migration has taken some time.

The initial setup for FlexPod is complex.

It was straightforward because I was working with an experienced partner. I have more than six years of experience, so when I work with a partner that has experience, it makes it easier.

The initial setup was straightforward. 

The setup is not complex but there are a lot of moving pieces. There are a lot of components to go through and touch and configure the very first time, but once you get a couple under your belt it's very easy to go through and stamp it out from there. If you follow the standardized templates and the design guides, it takes a lot of the work out of it.

I was involved in the initial setup. It was pretty straightforward. Since then, we've swapped our controllers, and all that has been pretty straightforward. We have not had any problems with it being too complex.

We worked with CDW consulting to do the setup and the configuration. It went pretty smoothly.

We bought a few chassis because we have different locations, different data centers. For the first location, we got help from NetApp and Cisco. For the next few locations, we mostly did it by ourselves.

I'm involved in most processes from scoping the solution and design through implementation and sometimes support.

Setup for Flexpod is pretty much cut and dry. Our methodology leverages the configuration worksheets that Cisco and NetApp have put together. We have those pre-filled and vetted by the client before we arrive on site. When we get on site it's a very procedural-based implementation. The unknowns are generally limited to a handful of items and we can work through those pretty quickly. The setup is very simple, and very scripted.

I wasn't involved. I just joined, like a year back. So I wasn't involved when this was procured and all.

I am involved in an upgrade right now. The process is not very complex. Actually, NetApp is helping us, so I wouldn't say they're very complex. They're non-disruptive. That's something which matters to our customer. No down-time so that's what we like about it.

I think I could, maybe, do the upgrade without NetApp's help.

The initial setup was great. We had a partner do the installation and just everything went very smoothly.

I was involved in the initial setup. I do all the architecting, I do the set up and configurations for some of our customers. In my previous company, we sold 194 FlexPods to the Department of Veterans Affairs. We architected that entire solution and we helped with the deployment process. We've been very involved in that.

I was involved in the initial setup and we had a consultant too. I was just getting into it so, for me, it was kind of complex but looking back on it, it really wasn't that bad.

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.

My initial setup was a partner, I didn’t know there were walk-through guides, but once I found those it was immensely better. It was cumbersome, but then eventually the installs were much simpler.

Installing FlexPod isn't complex if you follow the implementation guide that the vendor provides. We partner with major vendors like Cisco, NetApp, and VMware, so we have extensive implementation support to help us with migrating the solution. Our first deployment took about nine weeks. Implementation requires only two or three engineers, and we use a third-party provider for the security part. In total, it's a maximum of five people. 

The initial setup of FlexPod was complex in the way that we had to manage the data.

It was very straightforward, as long as you follow the documentation. It is a well-architected solution so I didn't really run into issues. I set it up and it works.

I wasn't involved in the initial setup but I'm involved in the upgrading process. It's okay. I haven't worked with it in the past. I'm trying to get in with it, it's a little confusing and different from what I was doing before. But, so far, it's been okay, just minor bumps in the road.

I was involved in the initial setup. I found it to be very easy.

The initial setup predates me.

Initial setup was pretty straight forward. At first, it can be sort of daunting, with all of the components that are brought together, but once you actually start developing the service profiles and the servers, that's pretty much all it is. You've basically got a chassis that serves servers. Once you have the grand scheme of the design, the configurations after that were pretty simple.

I was involved in the setup. It was pretty simple actually. We had a form we filled out with all the information, and it was just taking one step after another. It was just a matter of populating the information.

I was involved in the initial setup of FlexPod. When we first set it up, we did receive the help of a NetApp partner. We had an initial issue in which Cisco could not identify the NetApp filer. Cisco and NetApp took almost two months to get this resolved. The setup was very problematic.

I didn't set it up, but I oversaw the initial setup of it by a third-party company. It seemed pretty straightforward.

For the customer, upgrades are very straightforward; nothing to worry about. You just click a few things; it's easy. The upgrades are not that much of an issue.

Initial setup seemed a little complex, and I think a lot of that came from the UCS side of the FlexPod. Obviously, it is very powerful; it’s very customizable. Once we got through all of that, once we get past that, it doesn't require a lot of messing with it or hand holding.

The UCS side was complex with the levels of all of the settings that needed to be applied in setting up your port groups, and similar items.

We did it piecemeal, but it was very easy.

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.

The setup is pretty straightforward. 

My recommendation: If you are not familiar with the technology, you probably should engage some type of professional services to set it up.

We used it for the remote setup, not the physical setup.

We upgrade it normally during downtime.

I was not involved in the initial setup.

Initial setup was straightforward.

I was as consultant for the initial implementation. The team was happy with the implementation.

It’s very complex if you’re new to it, but once you’ve done it its pretty easy.

It was straightforward.

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.

I was involved in the networking side of the initial setup. It was pretty straightforward.

I was involved in some of the initial setup and design. It was very straightforward and very easy.

NetApp’s documentation helped us with the initial setup and configuration. Great documentation always leads to better designs and better operations and maintenance experience.

Straightforward, very systematic and streamlined. A lot of centralized virtual desktops.

It's deployed by NetApp or Cisco, so a lot of FlexPods are done through a partner so there is a single point of contact for the customers.

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

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

It's pretty straightforward.

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

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.

Not around for initial setup, it would have been complex four years ago, but now it's straightforward

I think the setup is straightforward, with the designs that I've seen in terms of the physical topology. "This link needs to go to this link. You've got to configure it in this way." The validated designs do a good job in terms of the layer 1 and all of the configuration.

The initial setup was straightforward.

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.

Pretty straightforward. We used professional services for the first configuration, and for expansions we did it ourselves with no problems.

I was not involved in the initial setup, but sometimes I am involved with upgrades which are challenging. This is because there is a lot of documentation that has to be reviewed before you go through an upgrade. It is not as straightforward as some other solutions. However, the product is very stable and it does what it needs to do.

We have been involved in the initial setup many times for many customers, from day one.

Straightforward because the documentation was great.

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

I wasn't involved in it.

It was overly complicated, but that was our own doing. It's not necessarily the fault of the product.

It's complex because we didn’t buy FlexPod out-of-box, we put it together ourselves and went through lots of changes in our environment, so it's complex because of our own doing.