2020: Kicking off 10 years of FlexPod Success

2010 was a year I’ll never forget. Whether it was because I was severely disappointed and heartbroken in the season finale of Lost or not, I’ll never tell. The launch of Instagram, Angry Birds, The Jersey Shore and the first iPad also defined pop culture that year – and are still leading it in one way or another 10 years later.

When comparing pop cultural phenomenon over the past decade, it’s wild to see how far we have come. The past decade was also a monumental year for the growth of tech. As my friend Bruno Messina at NetApp covers in his latest blog, servers, storage, networking and IT infrastructure have seen similar change and market transitions, including:

Public cloud market increasing from $77 to $266 Billion

Introduction of Software Defined Networking

Rise of Virtualization

SATA to SAS to SSD to NVMe

1 GbE to 10 GbE to 40 GbE to 100 GbE

6 and 4 core Xeons now up to 56 cores

Rise of AI/ML as a large workload that will likely touch all major datacenter applications

And many, many more…

Another area of tech growth near and dear to my heart, is the growth and innovation we have seen in the FlexPod over the past 10 years. Launched into the marketplace in 2010, the FlexPod was one of the very first solutions I was tasked to grow when I entered into the world of Solutions Marketing. Today, years later, I’m back working with the FlexPod team and let me tell you, it’s just as exciting and innovative as it was on day one.

FlexPod has thrived throughout this decade of near constant-change in the underlying IT landscape.   But how did FlexPod achieve both its endurance and success in an ever-changing landscape?

Because FlexPod’s differential value remains true to its original purpose. A platform for innovation, unmatched versatility and trusted worldwide:

One call solution support for entire FlexPod stack

Accelerated journey to the Hybrid Cloud through data fabric powered by NetApp ONTAP software and innovative infrastructure management with Cisco Intersight

Added value of an enormous reservoir of partner FlexPod expertise

Rated the #1 most trusted CI stack

Diversified set of over 170 solutions with Cisco CVDs and NetApp NVAs

Continued addition of new solutions, innovations and technology

Now, 10 years later, we’re still celebrating the same success and innovation we have been seeing since day one, with more on the horizon!

If you are attending Cisco Live EMEA 2020, we’d love for you to join us in kicking off the celebration of our FlexPod 10-year anniversary. Stop by booth number 3 for a demo or for one of the plenty of treats we will be bringing to the party. Also, while you’re planning your schedule, don’t forget to plug in to the many FlexPod activities, including three sessions presented jointly by NetApp and Cisco:

Session ID: PAR-1233​

Day/Time: Tuesday 28th, 13:15 – 13:45, Cisco Theater ​

Title: Practical Applications of Hybrid Multicloud Architectures

Speakers: Chris O’Brien, Director UCS Solutions, Cisco Systems, Inc. & Manash Kirtania, Product Management, NetApp

Session ID: PAR-2234​

Day/Time: Tuesday 28th, 15:30 – 16:10, WoS Theater

Title: Triple Performance with Half the Resources Using Memory-Accelerated FlexPod

Speakers: Chris O’Brien, Director UCS Solutions, Cisco Systems, Inc. & Chris Gebhardt, Principal Technical Marketing Engineer, NetApp

Friday, January 31, 11:30 AM – 1:00 PM​

Title: Cisco Live Network and NOC: Panel Discussion

I’ll see you there! To learn more, please visit:

cisco.com/go/flexpod

flexpod.com

netapp.com/flexpod