FlexPod is a solution developed by Cisco and NetApp, two leaders in enterprise networking, compute, and storage, that have come together to develop a simplified, scalable, and flexible solution to support virtualized and private cloud environments. This collaboration has resulted in more efficient virtualization and cloud computing solutions and numerous jointly validated reference architectures.

The proposed technology is well-suited for a variety of workload environments, including enterprise-critical applications such as Microsoft® SQL Server, Exchange, SharePoint, and Hadoop. For example, a base FlexPod configuration can support 1,500 users for these four popular workloads simultaneously: virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), Microsoft Exchange, SharePoint, and SQL Server. FlexPod provides sufficient headroom for additional workloads in addition to:

• Validated technologies: A single platform, built from unified computing, fabric, and storage technologies allows you to scale your environments to meet the largest data center requirements without disruption or the need for architectural changes in the future.
• Cooperative Support Lab: The developers have built a Cooperative Support Lab where support engineers can reproduce customer environments, diagnose issues, and rapidly resolve customer cases. This lab further strengthens the global 24-hour cooperative support model that offers customers a streamlined response to identify and solve potential issues related to the FlexPod and secure multi-tenancy (SMT) architecture designs.

The goal of FlexPod is to provide clients with a cost-effective infrastructure to experience next-generation data center technology.