To help more customers accelerate their transition to the cloud, Cisco and NetApp on Thursday announced plans to extend the FlexPod with a series of new pre-validated design architectures priced and sized for smaller workloads. 

This new FlexPod is built on a flexible, scalable, shared infrastructure that combines computing, networking and storage solutions from Cisco and NetApp. Additionally, to simplify and accelerate implementation of cloud automation capabilities, Cisco and NetApp have also validated several new management solutions from leading software management vendors for of the all FlexPod design architectures.

Offering price and scale that’s sized for business application workloads with 500 to 1000 users, the entry level FlexPod solution allows customers to invest only in the infrastructure they require and allow for simple and rapid scaling to meet growing demands as their business needs change.

Customers gain investment protection with the new entry level FlexPod solution, which easily scales to larger enterprises by simply adding incremental capacity, as their needs grow for larger application workloads.

The entry level FlexPod combines for the first time the NetApp entry level FAS 2240 and the Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS) C-Series. 

Similar to traditional FlexPod design architectures, the solution also includes Cisco Nexus 5000 Switches, Cisco Fabric Extender Nexus 2232, and Cisco Fabric Interconnect 6200 series. 

Since Cisco and NetApp first announced FlexPod in November 2010, it has grown to become an extremely popular converged infrastructure platform. FlexPod is available worldwide through more than 500 FlexPod partners and more than 850 customers are using FlexPod for their data center infrastructure – representing more than 400% growth in customer adoption in less than a year.

In addition, customers can also maximize their investment in existing management tools by managing their solution via open APIs, Cisco Intelligent Automation for Cloud or VMware vCenter Server.

"FlexPod has freed us not only from aging equipment but a 100% physical environment, which has allowed our infrastructure to take a huge leap forward", Omer Mushahwar, senior associate at Torti Gallas and Partners, Inc.

“With NetApp, Cisco is working to increase opportunities for partners to provide customers with the scalability, flexibility, and manageability of Cisco UCS with NetApp storage to achieve maximum return on investment”, Satinder Sethi, vice president data center solutions for Server, Access, and Virtualization Technology Group, Cisco

“With today’s announcement, Cisco and NetApp have evolved the FlexPod architecture to address growing demand among midsize enterprises, and deliver greater value to an expanded range of customers”, Chris Cummings, vice president, Products and Solutions Marketing, NetApp