Vendors Cisco Systems and NetApp have grown their FlexPod portfolio with a series of new validated designs, including the launch of FlexPod Select for dedicated data-intensive workloads.
Now included in the FlexPod portfolio are FlexPod Datacenter for core enterprise data centres and service providers, FlexPod Express for medium-sized businesses and branch offices, and FlexPod Select for data intensive workloads.
“Cisco and NetApp are committed to constant innovation in our joint FlexPod platform to address the business needs of our mutual customers,” said Jim McHugh, vice-president of unified computing marketing for Cisco, in a statement. “This portfolio expansion delivers broader flexibility across the unified data center for an open, scalable, multi-cloud infrastructure that can now also support some of the world’s largest datasets. Together we can help our customers simplify their data center infrastructure deployments and transform IT from a cost center to an asset for innovation and success.”
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FlexPod Select addresses targeted workloads, such as high-performance applications. The vendors say an initial focus will be data-intensive, Hadoop-based big data applications in verticals such as financial services, government and retail manufacturing. It combines NetApp E-Series and FAS storage systems, Cisco UCS C-Series servers, Cisco Nexus switches, and Cisco management software in a validated architecture.
“NetApp and Cisco are looking to drive FlexPod further by tailoring the platform to address today’s data-intensive environments,” said Brendon Howe, vice-president of product and solutions marketing for NetApp, in a statement. “As more organizations look to incorporate powerful data management tools such as Hadoop into their environments, customers will need solutions that greatly simplify infrastructure deployment and management, deliver budget efficiency, reduce risk, and increase IT agility to create enterprise-class environments.”
The first solution in this category is FlexPod Select with Hadoop, and aims to reduce the risk around Hadoop deployments by validating the open source analytics platform for storage, compute, connectivity, and management.