FlexPod XCS Reviews

Our organization relies on it as the backbone of our infrastructure, which we use to provide services to multiple clients in a multi-client environment.

While I don't have exact figures, there are definite savings in terms of capacity, particularly when using an all-flash storage solution. We may be achieving around a twenty to thirty percent reduction in capacity usage. The familiarity with the architecture has improved troubleshooting, as we now know precisely where to focus our efforts, particularly when dealing with performance-related issues.

Managing the system is straightforward, and we find it easy to handle overall infrastructure upgrades. The main advantage is consolidating everything into a single rack, which helps optimize power consumption, especially in CRM.

Perhaps having a unified interface for managing the entire company could lead to improved efficiency and performance.

I have been using it for eight years.

Once it's installed, it remains stable. Hardware failures are infrequent, aside from the occasional need to replace components.

It is scalable, allowing us to expand our workload capacity.

I'm quite impressed with the support provided by NetApp. They are incredibly responsive, and you can expect immediate assistance. I would rate them a nine out of ten.

Positive

We used NetApp in combination with HP products at my previous company. This combination worked well, but FlexPod offers more in terms of operational simplicity, making it easier to manage and operate.

The initial setup was straightforward.

Regarding the architecture, the connectivity involving switches, servers, and other components is quite straightforward

Overall, I would rate it nine out of ten.

Our primary use case was for unified support, so our customers could ask us a question or receive support for any type of products. It could be for UCS, network, or storage.

Our customers use it for virtual machines and with VMware with tool sites, e.g., VMware solutions for DR.

FlexPod provides one solution for who to call when there is an issue.

ONTAP is the core of FlexPod, so its most valuable features are: FlexClone, Snapshot, and SnapCenter.

FlexPod is innovative when it comes to its product's validate design and functionalities. Plus, you have NetApp and Cisco, the best brands together in one product.

I would like them to scale more to rack unit servers instead of blade servers.

Since we implemented Flexpod, we have had two issues with it, and they were with VMware: 

1. We lost connectivity between VMware and the storage. 
2. We lost vCenter once. 

Neither has anything to do with Flexpod at all.

The solution is resilient because its intrinsic. For every product on the solution, we have Fabric Interconnects for the Cisco UCS, where you can move the profiles on the blades. It holds up well.

FlexPod is better than HCI because you can scale wherever you want. You can scale the compute. You can also scale network and storage apart.

FlexPod's tech support is very good.

We were previously using Dell EMC servers and storage. We were also using HPE networking. We switched due to the support and the products were getting old, needing better performance.

When migrating from Dell EMC, the performance increased by 200 percent. We now have hybrid which is faster with SSD and SaaS.

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

We used NetApp and our team for the deployment. 

The validate designs are great because they made it easier to the deploy solution. Instead of about one week to install everything, with the validate\ solutions, it took us about two to three days.

We have save time because the implementation is easier and money because we have minimized support issues.

Because the solution is now stable, we are saving about $100 million USD a year.

We were considering Dell EMC solutions and a mix of products, such as NetApp plus Dell EMC servers and Extreme Networks switches. 

The FlexClone played a big part of us going with FlexPod along with the migration of the profile onto Cisco.

Go with FlexPod as a solution. You shouldn't have any concerns.

For our implementation, our customers are just private cloud. They are not going to public or hybrid now, but customers know that they able to do it.

We use FlexPod with VMware vCloud. It is great. We use the plugins in VMware and all the validate solutions, which is awesome.

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.

It's pretty much our infrastructure.

We can scale it out quickly, if needed.

We have also seen an improvement in our application performance. Our VM and database environments are able to go as fast as we need them to now.

• Scalability
• Flexibility
• Overall time saved.
• The compatibility of all the products together.

The validate designs and the overall versatility allows us to do what we need to do, so it's definitely a very flexible solution. If we have an issue, we can get all three vendors on the phone at the same time because of the collaboration between all three parties.

We would like to have faster components.

We have no downtime. It's resilient because there is very little downtime, if any.

We can scale it as needed. So, it's definitely a very flexible solution to scale out.

Once we get to the right people, we get the issues fixed. Sometimes, it can take awhile for support cases to get to the right people, especially if it's not a P1 case. P1 cases are usually quicker.

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

We used a consultant, but did the deployment ourselves.

We can just swap in new equipment or hardware as we need, which has probably saved us several weeks.

We looked at Dell EMC and Brocade, but the knowledge was all there for NetApp and Cisco. VMware was always in-house.

We have been on FlexPod for a while now. It was the way the industry was going, so we followed.

It is definitely worth looking into, especially if you have lower-end components that do the exact same thing.

It is innovative when it comes to compute, storage, and networking, because there are a lot of the storage efficiencies which allow us to keep a smaller footprint.

We are not using FlexPod for Managed Private Cloud. While we don't do cloud yet, we might consider it in the future.

The vendor delivers a fully-configured prebuilt system with a certain baseline on it. We can ship it to five continents. They can roll them into place, plug in two power cords and six network cables, and we are off to the races.

Remotely, we have installed 230 systems globally (no domestic) in the past 22 months.

The product is pretty good for our environment. It is overkill for our environment. In places that we are putting these, it could serve 2000 to 3000 users and it has to serve 50 users for us. It is a sledgehammer system approach, in that we are putting systems which are not necessarily rightsized, but they are redundant because they are going to places which are fairly isolated.

• Integrated support: It is all under one support contract. 
• The convergence is excellent. 
• It is number one in reliability.

It is a stable solution. The downtime that we experience are typically related to power or facility issues in countries which have less than stable power, or it may be related to WAN outages in places that do not have solid telecom services.

It is scalable. We could throw another host server or shelf in there. We have Nexus switches at the top of the stack. If the hardware survives, the product will probably last us ten years.

Generally, tech support has been really good. Where we have issues, the vendor steps in and assists. It has been very good.

The initial setup is very straightforward.

Cisco NetApp products are a pretty die-hard.

Customers use it to consolidate their resources, rather than having a more extravagant and very high-cost center. FlexPod seems to be a simpler, more economical solution and, obviously, it is a lot easier to work on.

Our clients will use it for anything from healthcare (a lot of surgical) to major consumer distribution, universities or higher learning institutions. Large customers, like Digital Realty, who do business with smaller companies, all try to get the same type of solution.

I am from the old school. When FlexPod came out, everybody ran away from it, and went to GDC at Cisco. However, here it is, and it is huge and very convenient. The advantage is being able to consolidate everything into a relatively small chassis.

I like the combination of the brands that they decided to include, in terms of its compatibility, e.g., they integrated UCS into this solution. That is the real advantage: its partnerships.

I look forward to seeing some of the innovations that they come out with for the FlexPod solution. It has been one of those products that I do not criticize it too much. I just look forward to seeing what else is there and the new thing that they are going to come out with. So far, I have been happy with what I have beem seeing.

However, for a lot of our customers, the complexity of FlexPod can be a little overwhelming. When I talk to the customers and they stop speaking technically, they start speaking emotionally, that is when I realize, "We need to get back to talking to them about what FlexPod is." It is a term and a partnership. 

If there is something wrong on the NetApp side. Let us focus on that. I have noticed a lot of customers, they will kick it over the fence. It is FlexPod; it is that mystery animal. The room for improvement is to better present it to those users, so they will not have to be afraid of it. Once they realize, "This is actually a good product." They will turn around on it and stop trying to run away.

It is pretty stable. There are a few tweaks needed. There are a few things that they can always improve on. Altogether, when you are looking at that many different flavors being mixed into the same bowl, it works well. I am happy with that.

It is definitely scalable. This is a great platform that you can build from. If you need to think about scalability in the future, this is the solution because you can stay small and build it out as you go, as you grow, and stay ahead of the market.

In terms of selecting a vendor to work with, collaboration is important because the product is the product. It will sell itself. What supports that? Collaboration. This means being able to work with technical support and engineers to deliver a solution for the customer, who does not care about the challenges that we have to face. 

The customer just wants the product and that is our goal: To be able to deliver something from behind the "green curtain." If they love it, they buy it, then they want to buy more of it. We have to plan for it and integrate it with our future endeavors. That is what we are all here for.

I have not paid attention to ROI. 

As far as the real value, it is a simplistic consolidation where I can actually talk to somebody on the phone, and say, "You should not have to leave the room or go to another floor. This should be laid out like this." 

It is very convenient, and that is a good value right there.

Usually, I will find some type of "phoned-in designs". Something they want to call their "FlexPod." There are a lot of imitators out there. There are a lot of guys who will buy some NetApp and Cisco products, etc. Then, they will say, "Let us put this all together." However, FlexPod has something good here. That is why it caught my eye.

Do not be afraid of it. Roll your sleeves up, and get into it, as it is not that hard. Speak the language, and if you don't, call somebody.

The most valuable features are the service profiles and the temporary profiles that are available if you lose one of your servers. You can move the service template from one server to another. That's an advantage, as you can set it and there's not a lot you have to do. It minimizes the time you spend on administration. It is easy to use and to get support. There's a 1-800 number to get support from Cisco and they are helpful. 

My admin team doesn't have to spend a lot of time trying to provision servers. Provisioning servers used to take hours, and now it takes up to five minutes. 

In addition to that, it helps us with the automation. We use other tools that comply with FlexPod, such as Cisco UCS Director, to help us with workflow automation. That saves us a lot of time and money. My engineers can focus on running new stuff or trying to work on what matters most. They can work on applications more, rather than troubleshooting.

I would to see a little bit more in the FlexPod interface.

This solution is very stable. We haven't had any issues with it so far. It’s been running in our environment for the last three years without a single problem. The upgrade is easy, and there are a lot of tools available when you're planning to do an upgrade. Tools are available by the vendors to tell you which version you need to use for the different FlexPod components.

From the name "FlexPod", you know that it's very flexible. You can scale up or scale out if you need more computes, if you have blade servers, or if you need more storage. You just add additional shelves and then you have extra storage. If you need more virtualization, you just add more licenses, and you can accommodate more VMware ESX.

Before I got to this company, I worked at another company where we had one FlexPod device. We decided to deploy another FlexPod device. After I left that company, I went to another company and adopted the VCE solution. I got exposed to both of them and I was able to judge which solution was going to be best and meet the company’s needs. 

That company had an aged infrastructure that was obsolete. We had to do an infrastructure face lift. It was easy for me, as I was exposed to both VCE and FlexPod.

It made more sense to go with FlexPod. I already had expertise on how to use it, NetApp storage, and VMware. I didn't have to spend a lot of time training my team how to deploy a solution when we already had prior experience on how to use it.

In addition to that, the cost was good compared to other products.

Like VCE, OpenStack was a determining factor because it was going to take us a lot of time to deploy it. Rather than spending three months to deploy OpenStack, it was going to take us a year to get the solution up and running. 

The other solution we looked was Hitachi VSP. At the time, VSP was new on the market and didn't have a validated design by Cisco, EMC, or any of the other vendors. It wasn't adopted widely in the market. I did not feel comfortable going with that. FlexPod was more adopted and in use.

If you are looking into a new storage solution, look at the return on investment, what your requirements are, what types of workloads you need to use, and pick the best storage solution for you.

Our primary use case for this solution is virtualization with Hyper-V.

We are using Cisco UCS and NetApp together in our FlexPod solution.

The validated designs for major enterprise applications are very important for our organization because we are part of the local government, and this solution is a critical platform for a broad array of applications and services that we provide to the public.

The history of innovations, in particular, the inclusion of all-flash, has had a positive effect on our database performance.

We are using the solution's tiering to AWS as a backup target for all of our data. It is essentially our DR and it is being sent out to AWS using SnapMirror.

In terms of making our staff more efficient, we have had a mixed experience. It isn't necessarily FlexPod, per se. Rather, we chose the wrong hypervisor. Hyper-V is not well supported. NetApp and Cisco don't know as much about running Hyper-V as they do VMware on top of the platform. It was really our choice of hypervisor that is the negative point.

We have been able to reduce our data center costs since implementing this solution. Three or four years ago, we were able to shrink our data center by fifty percent. This was a co-location leased space that we were able to reduce.

Our capital expenditures have been reduced, I would say, although I do not have exact figures.

The most valuable feature of this solution is the integration between NetApp and Cisco products. 

From the Cisco side, the most valuable features of this solution are the data center density, the deployment, and the management of the servers and the networking.

Hyper-V is not as well supported by NetApp and Cisco as VMware is, which is something that should be improved.

Across the board, this solution is very stable. We're very happy. It is very resilient and fault-tolerant. Downtime would usually be due to human error.

On both the storage and the compute side, this solution is very scalable.

The solution's unified support for the entire stack is significant. In my experience, I've had situations where we built an architecture that did not have that model. It was difficult because as a customer, we ended up coordinating the support of the multiple vendors.

Our experience with them has been positive. We do have a technical account manager on the Cisco side, and the coordinated support is available if necessary.

Prior to this solution, we were using a multi-vendor storage solution that included HP Blade servers with equipment from EMC. We switched to Cisco, which was a strategic management decision.

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.

We had a reseller assist us with the deployment, eight years ago. Because this was new for us, NetApp was involved to make sure that it was successful.

We did not evaluate other options before choosing FlexPod.

There have been some improvements on the Cisco UCS side since we began using this solution. In the earlier days, it was more difficult to upgrade, and there was pain involved during the process. That has gotten a lot better over time.

My advice to anybody who is researching this type of product is to consider their requirements. If their need is for a dense data center that is scalable, then this would be the choice because it scales easier than any other product I'm aware of.

This is a good solution, but our experience hasn't been perfect.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.