Voice of a FlexPod Customer: A Simple Path to a Hybrid Cloud Model

Natalia Eichinger
Natalia Eichinger

FlexPod – A Simple Path to a Hybrid Cloud Model

One of the most consequential IT projects you can undertake today is to digitally transform your approach to data center management. But a digital transformation can be tricky to pull off. Not only do you need to know where your current approach falls short, you also have to understand what it takes to adopt a better one.

So how do you do it? By starting out with a bit of unbiased feedback from your peers. That’s why we launched this new blog series highlighting reviews by verified customers of ours on IT Central Station.

Read on to learn how one customer has been able to better support their clients by leveraging the inherent flexibility of the FlexPod® data center solution from NetApp and Cisco.

About the Reviewer

This review was posted by a principal architect at a tech services company.

What They Gained with FlexPod

As an employee of a tech services provider, this reviewer primarily focuses on helping clients get to where they want to go. Having FlexPod makes that easy to do. Thanks to FlexPod’s multiple deployment options—the fully on-premise, hosted, or hybrid models—they have been able to perfectly tailor their company’s offerings to each client organization’s unique needs.

It can be fully on-premise, it can be hosted, or it can be the hybrid model. For customers, this is the biggest windfall.
  In their work with a large food distribution company, for example, they transitioned the client from traditional server storage and networking to a hybrid setup, combining a local FlexPod infrastructure with cloud automation. The result: an impressive decrease in unplanned downtime incidents.

The reviewer also found the FlexPod validated designs very useful. Essentially network blueprints for common use cases tested by NetApp and Cisco engineers, validated designs help make life easier for IT experts by taking some of the initial legwork out of the design process.  
We rely on the validated design[s], specifically for the customer. When you look at the designs and what you have in mind, the prerequisites have already been done for you.
  In addition to the validated designs and flexibility, the reviewer appreciated FlexPod’s streamlined Cooperative Support service, which unifies support from NetApp, Cisco, VMware, and many other top technology partners.   Finally, they praised the stability of the solution—which they said had “increased exponentially” over time—along with its excellent scalability.  

What the Initial Setup Looked Like

  While not at the company when the initial setup took place, the reviewer compared what they knew of it to their experiences with other solutions and said that the FlexPod setup process is much more straightforward.

Parting Thoughts



For this reviewer, the 3 major benefits of FlexPod are:

  • The on-premises, hosted, and hybrid deployment options
  • The availability of time-saving validated designs
  • Unified support services between NetApp, Cisco, and other tech partners


In the end, they rated FlexPod a near-perfect 9 out of 10.

Want to explore the full review? Head over to IT Central Station.

For more feedback from FlexPod customers, read the rest of the blog series:

Natalia Eichinger

Natalia Eichinger

Natalia is a Senior Product Marketing Manager for Enterprise Storage at NetApp. She is primarily responsible for the planning and execution of the on-premises product portfolio, playing a crucial role in bringing products to market. Before joining NetApp, Natalia worked at Microsoft, where she performed various roles in marketing, engaged with technical audiences, and managed multiple product portfolios.View all Posts by Natalia Eichinger

Next Steps

Blogs

Brush up on the latest trends and developments in cloud, on premises, and everywhere in between. This is where it all gets real, with a cherry on top.

  • Get to reading
Community

Explore a wide range of open forums where you can post questions, share answers and just generally get smart on all the NetApp technologies that matter most to you.

  • Join the discussion
  • © 2026 NetApp
FlexPod – A Simple Path to a Hybrid Cloud Model | NetApp