The shift toward integrated infrastructure in the server, storage and networking worlds has thrown up numerous alliances between vendors, and seen some system vendors extend their product lines into adjacent areas. NetApp, while remaining a pure storage company, has focused for the last two years or more on a key partnership with Cisco for its converged offering, which is marketed as the Cisco-NetApp FlexPod. Officially launched in November 2010, the FlexPod user base has now grown to over 1,000 customers, and runs 20 validated workloads – VMware, Citrix, Microsoft, SAP, Oracle and Red Hat included.

1. Cisco-NetApp FlexPod reaches
1,000-customer milestone as
pre-integration gathers pace
Analyst: John Abbott
14 Jun, 2012
The shift toward integrated infrastructure in the server, storage and networking worlds has
thrown up numerous alliances between vendors, and seen some system vendors extend their
product lines into adjacent areas. NetApp, while remaining a pure storage company, has focused
for the last two years or more on a key partnership with Cisco for its converged offering, which is
marketed as the Cisco-NetApp FlexPod. Officially launched in November 2010, the FlexPod user
base has now grown to over 1,000 customers, and runs 20 validated workloads – VMware, Citrix,
Microsoft, SAP, Oracle and Red Hat included.
The 451 Take
The overall subtext here is the cloud, which is driving suppliers to establish new partnerships
to create integrated service portfolios. The deliverables will be sold directly to end users as
engines for private clouds or to service providers creating their own cloud offerings.
Datacenter customers are increasingly asking for greater vendor collaboration across the
suppliers of their key infrastructure elements – server, network and storage – to help them
achieve the holy grail of the virtualized dynamic datacenter. Virtualization has certainly
helped, but many virtualization projects are still at an early stage – they tend to exist in their
own silos, and they rarely extend to all applications (especially mission-critical ones). NetApp
contends that the only way to 'break' these silos is by collaborating; this, it thinks, will
engender enough customer confidence that a practical dynamic, shared and service-based
infrastructure is actually achievable. However, individual customers will want to move forward
at their own pace, and in their own way. For some, the cloud encapsulates this vision. For
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2. others, it's anathema.
Context
NetApp's continued focus on storage is reflected in the nine acquisitions it's made since 2003 – all
of them storage-focused. That's in contrast to its primary rival, EMC, which has made a
wide-ranging series of acquisitions, and to server vendors such as Hewlett-Packard, IBM and Dell,
which have all made their own forays into the storage and networking worlds by buying up other
firms with next-generation technologies. The focus has paid off – while EMC still dominates the disk
array market, NetApp is now number-two, according to most market share estimates, ahead of IBM
for the first time and growing its storage business more rapidly. NetApp's revenue for fiscal 2012
(ended in April) reached $6.23bn (up 22% on 2011), with profits of $605m. As a pure storage house,
channels and OEM partners have always been of great importance to NetApp, but 2011's $480m
acquisition of LSI's Engenio storage business places even more emphasis on it. Channel sales now
account for over three quarters of its revenue (a quarter of that driven by distributors Arrow
Electronics and Avnet), with OEM sales (including sales to Fujitsu and IBM) accounting for 15%.
NetApp first began talking about FlexPod in January 2010, only a month after the formation of the
VCE Consortium (an integrated infrastructure partnership between VMware, Citrix and EMC). Its aim
was to build an underlying infrastructure for virtualized dynamic datacenters, and to provide mutual
customers with streamlined IT operations, improved resilience and reliable support. Focused on
product integration and interoperability, the collaboration kicked off with jointly tested designs and
best-practice guides across specific areas, including reference architectures for VMware View,
secure multi-tenancy, high availability and virtualized Microsoft business apps. The collaboration
also stretched to professional services, whether delivered directly or via mutual systems integration
partners, and included a cooperative support arrangement between the three companies to deal
with problem resolution.
Products
The Cisco-NetApp FlexPod began shipping toward the end of 2010. It's described as a 'unified
datacenter architecture' combining NetApp FAS storage, Cisco UCS servers and Nexus networking,
with VMware vSphere and vCenter as a predesigned, pre-sized and validated base configuration.
In 2012, NetApp and Cisco unveiled a new version of FlexPod for smaller workloads of 500-1,000
users, providing a more attractive entry point for smaller businesses or larger companies
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3. experimenting with integrated infrastructure. It also enables FlexPod infrastructure to be scaled up
on a more granular basis when more capacity is required. The new configuration uses Cisco UCS
C-series rack mount servers and the entry-level NetApp FAS2240 storage array.
There are two specific differentiation points worth highlighting – a focus on the application layer,
and its support for a secure multi-tenancy model, which is of particular interest to the
service-provider community. SAP and Microsoft are two of its application-level partners. NetApp and
SAP have worked together on application, process and workflow integration with NetApp core
technologies such as FlexClone, Snapshot and SnapManaager. Their work began prior to FlexPod,
with the development of the 'Lean Cloud Reference Architecture,' which was subsequently
integrated with the Secure Multi-Tenancy Architecture and ported onto FlexPod infrastructure. With
Microsoft, NetApp and Cisco have validated FlexPod for use with the Microsoft private cloud, and
have come up with a Cisco-validated design for running up to 100,000 SharePoint users (with 10%
concurrency), using five UCS blade servers.
The Secure Multi-Tenancy work was initiated before the launch of FlexPod, and based on a
combination of NetApp's own MultiStore – a product it established a decade ago, long before cloud
became a buzzword – in combination with VMware vShield Zones and Cisco Nexus switching,
resulting in multi-tenancy enforcement at three levels – virtual machine, network and storage. It
helps address service-provider (internal and external) concerns around security, regulatory
compliance and service-level agreements.
Strategy
The emphasis for FlexPod has been on making it easier to deploy a shared IT infrastructure and
making the transition to the cloud simpler. FlexPod, which NetApp claims can deliver up to 50%
capex and opex savings, isn't about promoting specific product bundles, it's more of a reference
architecture, and NetApp says its own recommendations are driven by customer requirements.
NetApp has also set out to make FlexPod more partner-friendly than some rival integrated
infrastructure efforts. It has built up around 500 FlexPod partners with the help of a whole raft of
go-to-market plans: channel and direct sales enablement, joint engagement, integrated demand
generation, joint seminars, workshops and 'high touch' executive summits, and integrated
marketing programs.
Specifically for the Cisco NetApp FlexPod, NetApp has put a number of alliances in place at the
management layer, in order to keep its options open and make it easier to attract partners. While
the initial software partner was VMware (for vCenter, vCenter Orchestrator and VMware vCloud
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4. Director), NetApp has since added multi-hypervisor support, and keeps its management options
open by emphasizing API integration with third-party orchestration tools. For instance, FlexPod
supports Cisco Intelligent Automation for Cloud (the combination of Cisco's newScale and Tidal
Software acquisitions), Microsoft's System Center 2012 (with its newly added private cloud
capabilities), and automation and orchestration consoles, including Cloupia's Unified Infrastructure
Controller, Gale Technologies' GaleForce Turnkey Cloud and CA Technologies' Automation Suite for
Data Centers.
Competition
VCE is the first entity to come to mind as a competitor to FlexPod. NetApp points out that VCE is a
formal coalition between EMC and Cisco, along with VMware, implying EMC and Cisco are the
driving force. Its own pact is less formal, and each partner is equal. And while VCE is about
promoting specific product bundles (aka Vblock), NetApp says its own recommendations are more
driven by customer requirements. But in April, EMC appeared to take direct aim at the FlexPod
business with its own channel-centric VSPEX (short for Virtual System Specifications) program, a set
of 14 new reference architectures designed and maintained by EMC, combining storage, servers
and networking equipment into easily deployed and proven infrastructure building blocks. Unlike
Vblock (typically aimed at high-end service-provider and enterprise customers), VSPEX is geared
toward midrange customers, and will only be sold through the channel.
All the big server vendors now have their own integrated infrastructure offerings, and startups such
as Nutanix and Pivot3 are also starting to emerge, fielding modular storage-server-networking
hybrid systems designed to run virtualized workloads.
SWOT Analysis
Strengths Weaknesses
NetApp's pure focus on storage makes it an Some argue that the looser the integration, the less
attractive partner for Cisco, and offers a more benefit there is to be gained from converged
partner-friendly alternative to some of the primary infrastructure. NetApp's reference architecture
competition. approach is less tightly coupled than that of VCE Co,
for instance.
Opportunities Threats
A broader set of partners and sales channels could EMC appears to have taken notice of FlexPod's market
take Cisco and NetApp into market areas they impact, and come up with a more direct competitive
might not otherwise get to – virtual desktop play in the shape of VSPEX – and EMC can be a very
infrastructure is one particularly bright spot. aggressive competitor.
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5. Reproduced by permission of The 451 Group; © 2011. This report was originally published within 451
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