FlexPod Reviews
Aaron Hibbard
Real User
Senior Systems Engineer at a transportation company with 501-1,000 employees
Featured Review
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... 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... 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... 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... more»Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Environments that I worked with have always been hodgepodge. We are not huge right, but HBMSUs were even older than... 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... more»NetworkE4c44
Real User
IT Manager at a engineering company with 501-1,000 employees
Dec 22 2016
What is most valuable?
Flexibility and performance are the most valuable features. We are a financial company. Performance is very important for us, when it comes to processing data on SQL databases.... more»What needs improvement?
There is room for improvement in the GUI for the NetApp side. There's a lot that they could do on the CLI side. However, for a lot of novice admin users for NetApp, where you want... more»Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I think the team that I joined had a different vendor. They migrated from that vendor to FlexPod because we're scaling out our business. The business is doing well, so we have a... more»What other advice do I have?
Because it's a scalable appliance, most IT people tend to aim to get the biggest thing because you might as well. You want to cover your back as well, and all of that. But... more»
Joel Sprague
Consultant
Principal Architect at JWS Consult
Oct 31 2016
What is most valuable?
We really like the flexibility. I love that – it doesn't happen a whole lot, but – anytime we have a blade die or even just bad RAM, I grab that... more»How has it helped my organization?
We actually run one of several private clouds within our company and it is all on FlexPod. We run it as a profit center. We're able to give all... more»What needs improvement?
I haven't really come across a whole lot of areas for improvement. There are features I'd like to see in our deployment that are already... more»Which other solutions did I evaluate?
With our particular case, our previous company had spun us off without any IT staff, so we were using third-party IT and we were trying to bring... more»What other advice do I have?
Definitely take advantage of all the training you can, particularly the UCS portion of the setup. It's very much a one time setup if you do it... more»
Find out what your peers are saying about FlexPod, Dell EMC, IBM and others in Converged Infrastructure.
295,143 professionals have used our research since 2012.
DataCente1bb
Real User
Data Center Manager at a consultancy with 5,001-10,000 employees
Jun 18 2018
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... 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,... 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... 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.Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We previously worked with physical servers. We had a lot of HPE c7000 class. We started with RLX, which was pre-HPE.... 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... more»Darin Zook
Consultant
Service Delivery Architect at Premiercomm
Jun 17 2018
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... 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... 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... more»Which other solutions did I evaluate?
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... 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... more»Phillip Hice
Consultant
Architect at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Jul 26 2017
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... 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... 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... more»Which other solutions did I evaluate?
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... 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... more»Matt Banks
Real User
Senior Engineer at Energysolutions
Oct 15 2017
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... 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... more»Which other solutions did I evaluate?
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... 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... more»
Lynne Proksch
Real User
Network Services System Administrator II at a retailer with 1,001-5,000 employees
Dec 04 2016
What is most valuable?
We're using the mirroring capability of the FlexPod. We're having the two heads in separate data centers that are approximately one mile apart with dark fiber. We really like the... more»How has it helped my organization?
The high availability feature is what we were really looking for, because we have a campus center, where we have two data centers on campus. So, it just made sense. It was the best... more»Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We were previously using something I would not really call a "SAN", definitely not an enterprise-level one. We got to the point where we kind of handcuffed ourselves by not being... more»What other advice do I have?
The idea of the FlexPod: We've all probably experienced the difficulties of working without that type of reference architecture and that acknowledgement of the support. You waste a... more»Steven Brown
Real User
IT Systems Engineer, III at a pharma/biotech company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Nov 28 2016
What is most valuable?
Obviously, the most valuable feature is the fact that it's one SKU. Basically, if we have an issue with any one of our features – whether it's... more»How has it helped my organization?
FlexPod has just simplified it, really. As I’ve mentioned, they all work together. We’ve had it verified that it works together. We know we... more»What needs improvement?
My one little pet peeve with all of them is that it's still multiple interfaces. I went to a UCC seminar and they said something like, "Use UCC... more»Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I've actually been working with NetApps for 15 years now, way before FlexPods; the 800 series, way back when; had a StoreVault for a little... more»What other advice do I have?
Go with it. Seriously. There are a lot of solutions out there. Converged infrastructure's trying to push its way in. We've looked at it. Maybe... more»Articles
User Assessments By Topic About FlexPod
Find out what your peers are saying about FlexPod, Dell EMC, IBM and others in Converged Infrastructure.
295,143 professionals have used our research since 2012.
FlexPod Questions
FlexPod Projects By Members
FlexPod Consultants
What is FlexPod?
The FlexPod platform, developed by NetApp and Cisco, is a flexible, converged infrastructure solution that delivers prevalidated storage, networking, and server technologies. It’s designed to increase IT responsiveness to business demands while reducing your overall cost of computing. Think maximum uptime, minimal risk
FlexPod customers
University of Sao Paulo, WD-40, The Commonwell Mutual Insurance GroupFlexPod White Papers
Converged Infrastructure- Buyer's Guide and Reviews
FlexPod Videos
Screen Shots
BUYER'S GUIDE
Not sure which Converged Infrastructure solution is right for you?Download our free Converged Infrastructure Report and find out what your peers are saying about FlexPod, Dell EMC, IBM, and more!
Sign in to see all reviews and comparisons. It's free!
By clicking Sign in with LinkedIn™ you agree to let IT Central Station use your LinkedIn profile
and email address in accordance with our Privacy Policy and agree to the Terms of Service.
- Unlimited access to 21000+ reviews from real users
- Your own page to promote your professional skills
- Networking events and peer-to-peer consultations
Already a member? Sign in.
By registering, you agree to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.
- Unlimited access to 21000+ reviews from real users
- Your own page to promote your professional skills
- Networking events and peer-to-peer consultations
Already a member? Sign In.