Cisco Piston Enterprise OS [EOL] vs Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) comparison

Cisco and Nutanix are both solutions in the Cloud Management category. Additionally, 100% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 97% of Nutanix users who would recommend it.

Cisco Piston Enterprise OS ...

Read 1 Cisco Piston Enterprise OS [EOL] review

100% willing to recommend

Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM)

Read 125 Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) reviews

9,846 Views
5,317 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

Cisco Piston Enterprise OS ...

Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM)

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 10, 2025

Cisco Piston Enterprise OS EOL and Nutanix Cloud Manager NCM are competitors in cloud infrastructure with Nutanix NCM more versatile due to its comprehensive features while Cisco Piston offers favorable pricing and support.

Features: Cisco Piston Enterprise OS EOL provides robust scalability, seamless integration, and flexibility within existing infrastructures. Nutanix Cloud Manager NCM offers advanced automation, centralized management, and integrated security features.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Nutanix Cloud Manager NCM ensures a simple and efficient deployment process accessible to users with limited expertise and efficient customer support through automation. Cisco Piston Enterprise OS EOL also allows straightforward deployment with notable support services requiring more user intervention.

Pricing and ROI: Cisco Piston Enterprise OS EOL is recognized for its cost-effective pricing offering significant ROI for budget-conscious users. Nutanix Cloud Manager NCM may have a higher initial cost but provides enhanced ROI with its comprehensive features and operational efficiencies over time.

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Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Piston Enterprise OS ...

Average Rating

9.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM)

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

125

Ranking in other categories

Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites (4th), Cloud Management (2nd), Virtualization Management Tools (2nd), Cloud Cost Management (2nd), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (6th)

Featured Reviews

Enterprise677

BS Systems Engineer at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees

A simple interface and helpful support for a solution that grows with us

It's a flexible enough tool to submit the changes that you want. It gives you the ability to cancel any loop. You can connect new orchestrations together. It offers enough support so that you don't need to have the need to get another device. The user interface is simple and easy to use.

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Phani Venkata Sai BKD

Technology Lead at Thomson Reuters

Manages hybrid infrastructure seamlessly with flexible cluster scaling and comprehensive oversight

The most important aspect of Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) is that it helps us manage the infrastructure as a hyperconverged infrastructure in HCI mode. If I have different physical servers, I can map them into a cluster and manage the storage together. It provides flexibility to make use of storage in a clustered format instead of using it in an individual storage endpoint. We have the flexibility to have Nutanix-based licensing based on the core model, instead of having a specific cost on the cluster. The costing on a core model gives customers flexibility to add multiple cores to a single physical host and adjust the infrastructure accordingly, and we can scale up the cluster as needed. While other cloud providers, AWS or Azure, are mostly into cloud-based solutions, and Azure has introduced Azure Stack HCI for managing on-premises infrastructure, Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) provides flexibility from day one. We can manage both on-premises and Azure solutions using a single pane of glass, eliminating the need to navigate different windows or screens. It provides a comprehensive view of the infrastructure and highlights specific areas through alerts, giving us good visibility of infrastructure conditions.

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Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"I strongly recommend the solution to people."

"It offers enough support so that you don't need to have the need to get another device."

"We have been very happy with it."

"The most valuable feature of Nutanix Cloud Manager is the flexibility we're finding in expanding our technology and our support."

"It's easy to set up."

"The arrival of Nutanix to the organization was a quality leap from the sky to the moon, we migrated the critical production services such as databases, applications and other servers that should have better performance, and more advanced management from Prism which gives us a way to monitor everything that happens in the cluster."

"Its resilience and performance are excellent."

"Nutanix is a company that cares about your experience and your thoughts and improving things."

"The scalability of the solution is way better than anything else, and everything is plug-and-play, which is pretty awesome."

"It's easy to use. Self-service is beneficial because it's easier for developers to assign themselves resources."

More Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) pros

Cons

"The solution is just too expensive, so maybe the pricing could be better."

"I think one of the points to improve is having the platform with multiple languages, for example Spanish, seriously, one point to consider is a valid point for me, my native language is Spanish, being in Venezuela."

"We would like to be able to provision virtual machines at the computing level, as that would give us an added value against the competition."

"The commercialization of their data fiber needs improvement to gain more traction with VMware."

"In the next release, I would like to see more cloud providers like Micro BH or local providers."

"Nutanix's costs tend to be quite high...Indian customers don't like high-priced hyper clouds, so they invest in VMware, which offers the same features at a lower base price."

"Even though it's a lot easier, it could be a bit slicker for the end-users."

"Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) can be improved as the NKP product needs to mature a little more."

"I cannot say Calm is providing centralized control of all our applications because we have some legacy systems. We have IBM iSeries, which is another technology. But with Calm we can centralize all our x86 machines."

More Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available

"At the end of the day, the product justifies the cost, and it leads to a conversation with management over whether we actually need this feature and if there are any use cases for why we would want to keep it."

"Prism Pro is a bit more upfront. It costs a bit more for some of the features that you get. We have four clusters, and two of them don't have Prism Pro because they weren't even available with what we bought. Those two clusters also run well, but they don't have all the features."

"The pricing model offered by Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) is better than the ones offered by the other solutions in the market."

"It is a nightmare to keep up with all the licensing. I would prefer everything to be in one price."

"The pricing is less compared to Hyper-V."

"The pricing has been reasonable."

"Compared to UCS and the NetApp storage, Nutanix is actually cheaper."

"The solution's price is reasonable."

More Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

No data available

Marketing Services Firm

14%

Computer Software Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Construction Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	28
Midsize Enterprise	26
Large Enterprise	75

Questions from the Community

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Which set of Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) features do you find to be the most useful?

For me, the features related to cost savings are the best part of NCM. Of course, the whole product is worth using and when it comes to cloud management, there is a reason why it is favored by so m...

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Are the setup process and further maintenance of Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) difficult?

When I came into my current organization, NCM was already set up. According to the team that dealt with it, the product was fairly easy to set up. Compared to other products, our IT rates are set u...

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Is Nutanix Cloud Manager’s Intelligent Operations feature effective?

Yes, this is a highly effective feature and the rebranding only made things better as they introduced more improvements. You can benefit from Zero coding task automation Automated optimization Tic...

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Comparisons

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Compared 19% of the time

VMware Aria Automation vs Cisco Piston Enterprise OS [EOL]

Compared 17% of the time

IBM Turbonomic vs Cisco Piston Enterprise OS [EOL]

Compared 16% of the time

VMware Aria Operations vs Cisco Piston Enterprise OS [EOL]

Compared 14% of the time

HPE OneSphere vs Cisco Piston Enterprise OS [EOL]

Compared 6% of the time

More Cisco Piston Enterprise OS [EOL] Competitors

VMware Aria Operations vs Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM)

Compared 7% of the time

VMware Cloud Director vs Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM)

Compared 6% of the time

VMware Aria Automation vs Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM)

Compared 6% of the time

Morpheus vs Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM)

Compared 5% of the time

Nutanix Prism vs Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM)

Compared 5% of the time

More Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cloud Management

May 2026

Download Cisco Piston Enterprise OS [EOL] product report

Buyer's Guide

Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM)

April 2026

Download Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) product report

Also Known As

Piston Enterprise OS

Nutanix Cloud Manager Intelligent Operations, Nutanix Cloud Manager Self-Service, Nutanix Cloud Management Cost Governance, Nutanix Cloud Manager Security Central, Nutanix Software Subscription

Overview

Piston Enterprise OS (pentOS) is an enterprise grade cloud operating system meeting the security and governance needs of enterprises wanting to use OpenStack for their infrastructure services. pentOS is an OpenStack distro that builds on top of the OpenStack codebase adding some proprietary features to meet the security and governance needs of the enterprise customers.

Cisco

Nutanix Cloud Manager streamlines hybrid cloud management by offering centralized control, automation, and workload optimization across platforms. It improves operational efficiency while reducing IT management complexity.

Nutanix Cloud Manager is designed for comprehensive hybrid cloud governance, providing tools for virtualization, resource allocation, and compliance. Its features include one-click upgrades, dynamic dashboards, and the seamless automation of tasks through X-Play. Users can efficiently manage virtual machines, ensure secure storage, and enhance productivity with predictive monitoring. Self-service capabilities allow users to reserve resources easily, while central management via Prism Pro and automated reports enhance oversight and decision-making. Challenges include UI simplicity, pricing transparency, and licensing efficiency, with users seeking improvements in VM organization, blueprint customization, and collaborative support for hybrid environments.

What important features define Nutanix Cloud Manager?

One-click Upgrades: Simplifies the process of updating and maintaining systems.
Intuitive Interface: Offers a user-friendly experience with a low learning curve.
Prism Pro: Central management for streamlined control over environments.
Dynamic Dashboards: Provides real-time insights and monitoring capabilities.
X-Play Automation: Facilitates seamless and efficient task automation.
Capacity Planning: Assists in optimal resource allocation and future growth planning.
Compliance Monitoring: Ensures adherence to industry standards and policies.
Efficient VM Management: Enhances control and monitoring of virtual machines.
Self-service Capabilities: Empowers users to manage and allocate resources independently.
Cost Governance: Allows organizations to maintain budgetary control and efficiency.

What benefits should be considered when evaluating Nutanix Cloud Manager?

Enhanced Productivity: Streamlines tasks and improves efficiency through automation.
Predictive Monitoring: Proactively addresses potential issues before they impact operations.
Robust Disaster Recovery: Provides reliable solutions to recover data and maintain continuity.
Automated Reports: Generates timely insights for informed decision-making.
Unified Cloud Management: Offers comprehensive control across multiple environments.

Nutanix Cloud Manager finds utility in industries requiring robust hybrid cloud strategies like finance, healthcare, and manufacturing. It excels in centralizing management for secure and compliant operations, optimizing workloads, and providing scalable solutions for resource allocation and compliance monitoring, thus enhancing cloud operations in diverse markets.

Nutanix

Sample Customers

Kuwait Petroleum Italia, Ministry of Foreign Affairs

JetBlue, International Speedway Corporation, Volkswagen SAIC, Brighton and Hove City Council, Foresters Financial, Janus International Group, Cloud Comrade, Serco

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