Cisco, NetApp Upgrade FlexPod Portfolio

Ashok Shenoy,
Regional Manager, Cloud and Datacentre Sales,
Cisco India & SAARC

Cisco Systems and one of its storage partners NetApp have recently made an update to their co-developed FlexPod data center system which combines the Cisco Unified Computing System, Cisco Nexus data center switches, and NetApp storage components, managed by Cisco UCS Director with a single console for bare-metal and virtualized workloads.

The highlight of the update is the introduction of FlexPod Select for dedicated data-intensive workloads. The FlexPod portfolio now includes FlexPod Datacenter (formerly FlexPod) for core enterprise data centers and service providers, FlexPod Express (formerly ExpressPod) for medium-sized businesses and branch offices, and FlexPod Select for data intensive workloads.

FlexPod supports the growing need to tie storage, networks, applications, and analytics (such as big data) into a more automated, responsive system that increases efficiency and lowers operational expense. The new offerings build on the joint vision and strategy of Cisco and NetApp to unify branch offices, core data centers, service providers, and dedicated application infrastructures.

 Milind Tasgaonkar
Head Alliances – India,
NetApp Marketing & Services Pvt. Ltd 

“As the datacenter is set to undergo a massive transformation, there has always been constant innovation in our joint FlexPod platform to address the business needs of our mutual customers, “ says Ashok Shenoy, Regional Manager, Cloud and Datacentre Sales, Cisco India & SAARC. “ the broadening of portfolio means broader flexibility across the unified data center for an open, scalable, multicloud infrastructure.”  This will help the customers simplify their data center infrastructure deployments and transform IT from a cost center to an asset for innovation and success.

FlexPod Select is the first family in the FlexPod portfolio to address targeted workloads, such as high-performance applications. Initially, the new category will target data-intensive requirements of Hadoop based big data applications in financial services, government, retail manufacturing, and other markets. Organizations will be able to deploy FlexPod Select easily and to scale seamlessly as application requirements grow. 

As more businesses are set to incorporate powerful data management tools such as Hadoop into their environments, customers will need solutions that go a long way in simplifying infrastructure deployment and management, deliver budget efficiency, reduce risk, and increase IT agility to create enterprise-class environments. 

Milind Tasgaonkar, Head Alliances – India, NetApp Marketing & Services Pvt. Ltd says, “We are looking to drive FlexPod further by tailoring the platform to address today’s data-intensive environments.”