Help Desk

Web and Video Conferencing

Customer Support

Chatbot

Flowchart

Innovation Management

Development

Attendance Tracking

Education

Barcode

Business Intelligence (BI)

Collaboration

Corporate Performance Management (CPM)

Digital Rights Management (DRM)

Streaming Analytics

Enterprise

Accounting

Crypto Accounting

FinTech

Finance and Accounting

Applicant Tracking

Corporate Learning Management

HR Management

Payroll

Recruitment Marketing

Talent Intelligence

Talent Management

Video Interview

Workforce Analytics

Workforce Management

Human Resources

Archiving

Cloud Storage

Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM)

Disk Cloning

Fraud Detection

Identity Verification

Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS)

Network Performance Monitoring

Office Migration and Repair

SIP Trunking

Virtual Data Room

Web Scraping

Zero Trust Security Solutions

Information Technology

A/B Testing

Ad Serving & Retargeting

All-in-One Marketing

Blogging

Contact Center

Content Management

Email Marketing

Enterprise Marketing Management

Event Management

Identity Resolution

Marketing Automation

Personalization Engines

Sales and Marketing Automation

Social Media Management

Survey & Forms Building

Video Editing

Web Analytics

Wholesale Marketplace

Marketing

Job Site Management

Project Management

Professional Services

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

Revenue Operations

Sales

API Security

Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms

File Integrity Monitoring

Security

Automotive

Catering

Construction Takeoff and Estimating

Interior Design

Law Practice Management

Moving Software

Nonprofit CRM

Real Estate Property Management

Retail Analytics

Retail Management

Roofing

Vertical-Specific

root

Overview

Pricing

ProductDemos

Features

ProductDetails

Comparisons

ReviewsAndRatings

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medium

Nutanix in San Jose, California offers their software-defined Enterprise Cloud as a hyper-converged infrastructure solution. The Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure solution combines the Nutanix Acropolis virtualization solution, Nutanix AHV hypervisor (though Acropolis works with other hypervisors), Prism cluster manager, Nutanix Calm and Nutanix Flow server management, and is available on the Nutanix NX series of server hardware appliances, as well as third-party OEM appliances.

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure

Hyper-Converged Infrastructure

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure Nutanix Enterprise Cloud Nutanix NX Series nutanix aos

Nutanix

Cisco HyperFlex Systems is a hyper-converged infrastructure product, based on technology acquired with SpringPath (acquired September 2017). Cisco's modern HCI solution is Cisco Compute Hyperconverged with Nutanix.

Cisco HyperFlex (discontinued)

Cisco

small

Pure Storage in Mountain View, California offers all-flash array data storage promising affordability, high availability, and consistent performance.

Pure Storage FlashArray

Enterprise Flash Array Storage

Flash Array Performance

Flash Array Integration

Data Compression

Non-Intrusive Upgrades

Simplicity

Power Savings

Pure Storage

The VxBlock 1000 is a converged infrastructure solution that integrates Dell storage and data protection into a turnkey converged system supporting all high-value, mission-critical workloads—from the core data center to the cloud. It helps users modernize and simplify their IT infrastructure at scale, so users can focus on innovation and gain more value from data.

The VxBlock replaces the former Vblock from VCE, acquired by EMC in 2014. The Vblock used a Cisco Nexus virtual switch, while VxBlock uses VMware's vSphere Distributed Switch.

Dell VxBlock System 1000

Converged Infrastructure

Dell Technologies

Oracle Exadata is an enterprise database platform that runs Oracle Database workloads of any scale and criticality with high performance, availability, and security. Exadata’s scale-out design employs optimizations that let transaction processing, analytics, machine learning, and mixed workloads run faster. Consolidating diverse Oracle Database workloads on Exadata platforms in enterprise data centers, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), and multicloud environments helps organizations increase operational efficiency.

Quarter Rack

Database Server

Oracle Exadata

Data Warehouse

Oracle

NVIDIA and NetApp collaborate to deliver ONTAP AI, a converged infrastructure stack that incorporates
NVIDIA DGX A100, a 5-petaflop AI system, and NVIDIA Mellanox high-performance Ethernet switches to unify AI workloads, simplify deployment, and accelerate return on investment.

NetApp ONTAP AI

NetApp

HPE ConvergedSystem 500 for SAP HANA is a converged infrastructure solution.

HPE ConvergedSystem 500 for SAP HANA

HP ConvergedSystem 500 for SAP HANA HPE ConvergedSystem 500 for SAP HANA

Hewlett Packard Enterprise

The Dell VxRail is a VMWare-based hyper-converged infrastructure appliance.

Dell VxRail

IBM's PureSystems is a converged infrastructure option.

IBM PureSystems

FlexPod is a converged infrastructure option developed by NetApp and Cisco. FlexPod is available in streamlined and simplified Express version, and the FlexPod Datacenter edition for enterprise private clouds, VDI, scale-out infrastructure, or software defined data centers.

FlexPod

Converged Infrastructure platforms and appliances provide an efficiency-boosting approach to data center infrastructure for delivering virtualization or deploying a private cloud, achieved by combining data center components into an appliance form factor that can be centrally managed and that is easier to scale.

NetApp AR FlexPod Demo

Short FlexPod Registration Demo

DC vlog #7: live demo inloggen in het virtuele FlexPod Datacenter

FlexPod Docker Demo

Likelihood to Recommend

Cisco + NetApp

FlexPod: Built to Fly

FlexPod is built to fly, with all the performance, agility and value today’s enterprise needs to keep up with the challenges of tomorrow. Prepare for takeoff with FlexPod, from Cisco and NetApp. Learn more at http://www.flexpod.com.

Reviews

TrustRadius is a technology and business research firm based in Austin, Texas. The company is known as a review platform for verified B2B technology and software reviews through a proprietary algorithm and human verification.

TrustRadius

Initial setup

Better documentation

Specific examples

Single point

New server

Current configuration

Pane of glass

Cpu and memory

Firmware upgrades

Backed up

Support teams

High density

New hardware

Home

Converged Infrastructure Platforms

SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor

OpenText Content Manager

OpenText Service Manager

OpenText Solutions Business Manager

Microsoft 365

FlexPod is the backbone of the city. We use it for all departments and services within the city. It gave us a single point of management for our servers and the ability to move or migrate physical server profiles from one server to another. [It gives] us a very consistent and reliable experience.

Product Usage

Pros and Cons

Single Pane of Glass Server Administration.
Ease of firmware upgrades.
Incredible support when you have an issue. The Cisco/NetApp/VMware FlexPod support teams work together and drive your issues down to the root cause.

Things done well

Initial setup and config. You won't do it by yourself without going to a class. No wizards here. Very complex till you get used to it.
iSCSI boot could be easier. Lots of ways to implement it, but no real definitive guide.
Could use better documentation with specific examples. Would be nice if it had an initial setup wizard.

Things done poorly

Scenarios where downtime isn't possible.  Being able to move a physical server config to another physical server within the FlexPod is a god send. Hardware fails, we all know that. It happens, by being able to move a profile from one blade to another, it allows you to quickly and easily restore service while waiting for hardware to arrive onsite to repair/replace the failed component.

Positive ROI, being a city we only have funds for server replacements every 5-7 years and this allows us to spec out our capacity and order a cost effective solution that will last that time period.
CIsco and NetApp and VMware have been very competitive in accommodating our budget.

Return on Investment

Being a Cisco shop already it was a natural fit to go with a solution based on their technology. Then add in VMware which we are were already using - that was two out of the three for the FlexPod. Then factor in NetApp's de-duplication technology and flexibility in configuration and options and it's a match made in heaven. Not to say we haven't had some stumbles and some issues but it works and it works well.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) Service Manager

Alternatives

Microsoft Office 365, SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor

Other Software Used

Senior IT Systems Engineer

FlexPod 2017-04-25 16:27:15

PRTG Network Monitor

Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM)

TrueSight Automation for Servers

Progress WhatsUp Gold

We utilize FlexPod with VMware for both virtual and physical hosts in our data center. Our primary usage is a private cloud offering via the VMware hosts. My team sells back hosting services to other departments within the company, allowing them to get 24/7 support and hosting without having to pay for IT staff out of their own budgets, while ensuring that the support team, being members of the same company, have a vested interest in providing up time and service that an external provider might not have. 

Service profile portability - Utilizing san boot, if we have any issues with a physical blade, it is simple to move that Service profile to a new blade. This is also useful when moving chassis between racks or migrating service profiles to new hardware.
Single point of management - we are able to get all VLANs and VSANs trunked to the FlexPod fabric interconnects and then the server etam can handle mapping whatever VLANs are required to each new server as it is built without having to open a new set of tickets with networking.
Performance - We are able to run a massive virtual load on these blades as we have 256 cores and 6TB in 6RU in our current configuration (and can go up to 352 cores and 12TB with larger processors and DIMMs). This type of CPU and memory density, backed up by 40GB based backplane, allows for high density virtualization.

KVM control of the blades still requires Java. Avocent is using HTML5 now, and it would be nice if the KVM console for these UCS blades could too.
Price - Like any Cisco product, there are cheaper options. They aren't nearly as fully featured, but at times, it would be nice if UCS could be a bit cheaper.

FlexPod is great for mid to large size companies, where the flexibility and depth of a traditional SAN and high performance servers is required.  For smaller companies, it might make more sense to go with a hyper converged solution such as Hyperflex or Nutanix (both of which can still run on Cisco UCS servers, but would not be making use of Netapp storage), to meet the requirements in a smaller footprint.

FlexPod has allowed our team to be extremely quick to resopnd to new VM build requests. The amount of RAM, CPU and backplane offered by B series blades allows us to go with very high VM density. The quick deployment of service profile templates also means that when we have to add new hosts, it is done quicker.
FlexPod and the service profile portability (along with VMware) has allowed for full upgrades and migrations from M1/M2 series hardware to M4 hardware without any downtime or outages to the clients. Blades can be moved into new chassis, or service profiles moved to new generation blades, with no impact to the customers' ability to work.

I have made use of Smartstack, vBlock and Flashstack, as well as other mixes of storage and virtualization hosts, and FlexPod is probably still my favorite.  While something like a Nimble Smartstack or Pure Flashstack is easier to maintain, I love the in depth information and control that a SAN such as Netapp offers us.  There is more knowledge and skill required to manage it, but the maturity of the product helps make up for that.

BladeLogic Automation Suite, PRTG Network Monitor, WhatsUp Gold

Principal Systems Engineer

FlexPod 2017-04-26 08:06:51

Operating Systems	Unspecified
Mobile Application	No

FlexPod

Overview

What is FlexPod?

How Flexible is FlexPod?

FlexPod makes private cloud easy and profitable

Product Demos