FlexPod Reviews

What is most valuable?

I work at a state agency. With FlexPod, I can contact to NetApp. I can contact our rep and I can get the building materials from him which includes all of my switching… more»

How has it helped my organization?

We have been using FlexPod for seven to eight years now. It has evolved a lot over time, primarily in ease of connectivity. It has been built around all the same… more»

What needs improvement?

There are a few nuances. There is always something which bug you. It always seems like we run into the bugs. It is usually just a simple code update or something like… more»

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Make sure you understand the technology that you need, and anytime that you are buying any storage make sure you understand storage. Do not just buy storage based on what… more»

If you previously used a different solution, which one did you use and why did you switch?

Environments that I worked with have always been hodgepodge. We are not huge right, but HBMSUs were even older than when EVAs were popular, but those were limited to block… more»

What other advice do I have?

We purchased through CDW. They were knowledgeable about the solution. They won the bid. It was very simple with us. We sent it out for a bid and they came back with the… more»

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

It is not so much that we need to invest in FlexPod. I work pretty closely with all of our vendors, and a lot of times, we look and we evaluate. We evaluate all the… more»

What is most valuable?

Certification from both manufacturers states that this is a tried and true converged product. That's what we are most happy about. One of the biggest things that my engineers have the pains with is to… more»

How has it helped my organization?

At the end of the day, AI is not AI without the application that we write into it. With collaboration between Microsoft — utilizing it to build in a manner that is compatible to the FlexPod… more»

What needs improvement?

If we look at data center solutions, any of those solutions are only as good as the people that put it together. If there's a way for us to take a hyperconverged technology or converged technology —… more»

If you previously used a different solution, which one did you use and why did you switch?

We hated taking racks down or putting them up just to deploy a simple solution. If we need an application and had to put another rack up, it means using a lot of resources. Instead, we could launch a… more»

What other advice do I have?

I would probably give this solution a seven-and-a-half or an eight out of ten. It isn't higher because I know that if I were to look at a very dynamic data-center solution, there are organizations who… more»

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We considered VMware, Citrix, going full cloud, sharing with a cloud, handing it off to a managed service provider, building it ourselves, rack and stack — pretty much everything was on the table… more»

What is most valuable?

The most valuable features in a data center, or parts of it, are footprint and power consumption. The flash side is the first time that Moore's Law breaks. It gets… more»

How has it helped my organization?

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. On the UCS side for server… more»

What needs improvement?

We have had a bit of struggle on the support side. I am not looking into the next iterations of it yet, because we are still standing up some parts of what we have now. I… more»

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Make sure that you engage as much with whom you are buying from as a partnership, not just as a purchase.

If you previously used a different solution, which one did you use and why did you switch?

We previously worked with physical servers. We had a lot of HPE c7000 class. We started with RLX, which was pre-HPE. HPE bought them. We have played with the P class and C… more»

What other advice do I have?

The hardware has been rock solid so far. It has gone up easy. It runs well. We have not had issues with it. Pay attention to what you need upfront as you are building it… more»

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We did a PoC with four different vendors to test out combinations of a hardware build. Storage was kind of a given as we have been a NetApp shop forever. We have gone… more»

What is most valuable?

For me, it really goes back to the protocols; the fact that it can run the entire stack in terms of protocols. The integration for most of our customers is VMware; the full-stack integration. They're into the VMware environment. Also, the… more»

How has it helped my organization?

For most of our customer base, the benefit is the cooperative support model. While we tend to offer ourselves to our clients as a first call for support - because we are familiar with the environment - when they choose to call NetApp or… more»

What needs improvement?

In terms of a future release, I don't know that there is anything that I would specifically ask for. I'm happy with it and I like to see how they continue to evolve it. As the industry as a whole is moving more toward the simplification of… more»

If you previously used a different solution, which one did you use and why did you switch?

When I was a customer we still had NetApp, but it was all 7-Mode and then we were running HPE c7000 chassis. When we switched over we went to UCS Nexus and had upgraded to CDOT with brand new clusters at the time. With my current… more»

What other advice do I have?

In terms of maintaining the same level of guidance, had we been working with one vendor as opposed to two vendors at the same time, they both have their own individual best practices and there are a lot of best practices out there. There… more»

What is most valuable?

This sounds dumb, but it just works. I don't want to have to deal with support, and I don't need to because, again, it has just worked.

How has it helped my organization?

It allows me to focus on other things. Backing up databases. More efficient. Everybody's short staffed. We're short staffed and so it's allowed me to take on other stuff, and it just sits there and… more»

What needs improvement?

Upgrades are always scary because you just don't know. Nobody has six or seven different systems sitting around that you can test on before you go into production data. My complaints are all… more»

If you previously used a different solution, which one did you use and why did you switch?

I was hired to migrate a datacenter from an infrastructure that sucked to a new location on a better infrastructure, and so I put out the RFP for that and was involved in the purchasing decision… more»

What other advice do I have?

The way the model is now, where, at least with NetApp, effectively you have a partner actually doing the implementation, not an actual NetApp employee - which is fine - I'm looking for good partner… more»

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We did look at Vblock for about ten seconds til we got the price, and frankly we knew they weren't going to work anyway. Not just the price, but it didn't fit us. But that was the only other… more»

What is most valuable?

From the integration standpoint, it is a lot easier to integrate than a lot of people initially felt. Being able to leverage either block or file capabilities of the storage is something that has been beneficial. Most customers had to look… more»

How has it helped my organization?

It has helped my organization in terms of ease of deployment. The approach of utilizing NFS and some of the key features that have been put in for VDI help us limit boot storm and other similar issues. I see is a lot of those things that… more»

What needs improvement?

I usually give everything a nine, because there's potentially something better out there that I haven't come across yet. Nine says there isn't anything better, and I hesitate to give anybody top marks across the board on anything. In terms… more»

If you previously used a different solution, which one did you use and why did you switch?

We’ve worked with IBM, HPE, and Pure Storage. The only storage vendor that isn't an actual partner with Key Information is EMC. I've been doing storage since Viber channel was invented and I've implemented Versa stacks and FlexPods. I don't… more»

What other advice do I have?

Selecting this solution really depends on the architects. The first thing I ask is why they think they need to upgrade and what it is that is driving it. A lot of times, unfortunately, a lot of upgrades aren't really upgrades. They are just… more»

What is most valuable?

The most valuable features are the CVDs, and the support behind it from both companies.

How has it helped my organization?

We don't have to worry about support or the resiliency of the solution. Our previous converged platform was Dell EMC. There were single points of failure that were designed into the system, not the… more»

What needs improvement?

One of the things that I've wanted would be availability of a health status, similar to Active IQ from my converged platform, on an app. I have dashboards so I can see the health of the system when… more»

If you previously used a different solution, which one did you use and why did you switch?

In our past converged platforms, we didn't have vendor support that would work together. That's actually what led us to abandon our Dell EMC solution in favor of FlexPod. Also, there were engineering… more»

What other advice do I have?

Take your time. It's no small undertaking to implement a converged platform or to shift to a different one. Typically, when you make the decision on a converged platform, you're making that decision… more»

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We did look at the Dell EMC PowerEdge FX converged platform, VRTX. At the time, we were a major Dell EMC consumer. Since our switch to the UCS, we haven't bought a single Dell EMC product. We went… more»

What is most valuable?

In regards to DR and backup: * Performance * Stability * Capability.

How has it helped my organization?

We haven't experienced any data loss while on NetApp. The stability of it has probably been the biggest benefit. Because of FlexPod's performance and flexibility, our company is doing much better than… more»

What needs improvement?

Validate designs are hard. They don't validate all of the available options. We don't generally end up in a validated configuration. We did on our initial install when they first rolled out the… more»

If you previously used a different solution, which one did you use and why did you switch?

We were using HPE G-Series Servers. We needed a lot more space and performance, since I'm not sure that we had good performance metrics at the time that we moved solutions. However, we were looking to… more»

What other advice do I have?

We have saved time with Snapshots, SnapMirrors, and backup and DR capabilities versus other platforms that we have looked at in the past. However, for new deployments, we have not saved, because we… more»

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We probably looked at Dell EMC. We were on HPE SAN for quite awhile. I don't know if we looked at anybody else. One of the deciders for us in looking at NetApp was, even years ago, they just seemed to… more»

What is most valuable?

I think the most valuable features include it being scalable. We got the product and we have a small environment, but it was able to be scalable to when we started to grow. So I think that was one of the bigger features. Also, that everything is seamless. And what I mean by that is that you have the components of a Cisco, and you have the components of NetApp; and we have a networking team that is… more»

What needs improvement?

That's pretty tricky, because for what we have and for what we use it for, it's actually pretty perfect, to be quite honest. Even when we brought the finished product to our customer, there were really no complaints. They were happy with just having HA, "Hey, if something goes down, we don't lose services." That was their biggest concern. Outside of that they really don't have any complaints at… more»

What other advice do I have?

The most important criteria when looking at vendors, to me, is honesty about a product. We talked to NetApp folks and they were really good as far as getting us all the information. It wasn't just that I said I need a solution and they gave me a quote for the biggest solution that I needed to get. They asked, how many people do you have, what kind of expansion do you see yourself going into five… more»