NetApp and Cisco Strengthen Partnership Announcing New FlexPod XCS to Extend Converged Infrastructure into the Hybrid Cloud

New capabilities will increase hybrid cloud connectivity and automation to improve costs and accessibility with native cloud provider integration

NetApp (NASDAQ: NTAP), a global, cloud-led, data-centric software company, together with Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO), today announced the evolution of FlexPod with the introduction of FlexPod® XCS, providing one automated platform for modern applications, data and hybrid cloud services.

FlexPod is composed of pre-validated storage, networking, server technologies from Cisco and NetApp. The new FlexPod XCS platform is designed to accelerate the delivery of modern applications and data in a hybrid cloud environment. FlexPod XCS is the first and only hybrid cloud solution natively integrated across all three major public cloud providers. Additionally, organizations will have the option to use FlexPod-as-a-Service, a pay-as-you-grow pricing model for financial and operational flexibility.

“For years, FlexPod has been helping Presidio customers increase app performance, save software Capex, and decrease unplanned downtime incidents,” said Raphael Meyerowitz, vice president, Engineering at Presidio. “With FlexPod XCS, NetApp and Cisco are providing more flexibility, accessibility and scalability to our customers to deliver a seamless hybrid cloud experience.”

“It is great seeing Cisco and NetApp launching FlexPod XCS together in this hybrid cloud era,” said Jeffrey den Oudsten, Chief Technology Officer at Conscia Netherlands. “Standardization on FlexPod XCS brings rich technologies and huge benefits for us and our customers in various ways, with ability to deliver one point for billing, ordering, support and validated designs. Conscia is determined to facilitate the best hybrid cloud infrastructure for its customers, and together with Cisco and NetApp, we have the best-in-class technology partners helping us to deliver on that promise.”

FlexPod XCS simplifies hybrid cloud operations by increasing accessibility and scalability, extending the infrastructure from an on-premises and edge standard to the hybrid cloud. This new offering lays the groundwork for continued joint innovation that will bring new solutions to market for hybrid cloud, containers, and modern workloads.  

FlexPod XCS provides a new set of capabilities to the FlexPod platform:

• Hybrid Cloud Connectivity: By extending organizations’ data fabric, customers gain the operational certainty of putting the right apps and data in the right place at the right time.
• Automation: Comprehensive infrastructure automation across all lifecycle phases using Cisco Intersight™ Cloud Orchestrator and NetApp automated scripts and workflows to simplify day-to-day IT operations including configuration, deployment, expansion, and infrastructure consumption and optimization.
• Visibility: Providing an enhanced and unified view of all FlexPod components through Cisco Intersight, enabling organizations to respond to their business needs more quickly with more intelligent resource decisions
• FlexPod-as-a-Service: Lowering initial costs for flexibility and tailoring purchasing options based on budgets and usage
• New Reference Architecture with NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP® (CVO) instances in AWS: FlexPod XCS and ONTAP integration with automation via Cisco Intersight

FlexPod XCS also allows IT departments to gain new insights with full-stack visibility and customized automation capabilities that increase operational productivity. The new FlexPod-as-a-Service consumption model enables customers to have more financial and operational flexibility by aligning costs based on usage.

“Our strategic relationship with NetApp continues to create value for businesses through deep technology integration aimed at solving our customers’ biggest challenges,” said Siva Sivakumar, Vice President, Cloud & Compute Product Management, Cisco. “FlexPod XCS powered by Cisco Intersight delivers key new capabilities for our customers such as automation, visibility and hybrid cloud operations into a single unified platform for modern apps, data, and hybrid cloud services.”

“We are proud of our continued innovation with Cisco as we expand FlexPod’s capabilities that solve for organizations’ unique business challenges,” said Mike Arterbury, Vice President, Hybrid Cloud Infrastructure & OEM Solutions at NetApp. “Building on our twelve-year partnership with Cisco, FlexPod XCS combines our best-in-class technologies to simplify the delivery of data and applications, enabling enterprises to run new services more efficiently at the edge, core or in the cloud.”

FlexPod® XCS is in preview for partners and customers and is expected to be generally available globally in mid-2022.