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Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs Rackspace OpenStack comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructur...
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
199
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (5th), HCI (2nd), Software Defined Data Center (SDDC) (1st), Hybrid Cloud Computing Platforms (5th)
Rackspace OpenStack
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.0
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
Converged Infrastructure (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Storage Solutions solutions, they serve different purposes. Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) is designed for HCI and holds a mindshare of 9.0%, down 9.4% compared to last year.
Rackspace OpenStack, on the other hand, focuses on Converged Infrastructure, holds 7.4% mindshare, up 4.6% since last year.
HCI Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)9.0%
VxRail9.9%
VMware vSAN7.9%
Other73.2%
HCI
Converged Infrastructure Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Rackspace OpenStack7.4%
FlexPod XCS12.8%
HPE ConvergedSystem11.2%
Other68.6%
Converged Infrastructure
 

Featured Reviews

JD
Dsi at OFFICE PUBLIC DE L HABITAT DE ROUEN
Hyper-converged storage has improved performance and now supports high redundancy for our VMs
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) was transparent because we were on a regular infrastructure before. We went on NCI and were able to improve performance, but it did not really change how things worked. The performance was really better for applications and access times to the data. I regularly looked at the analytics to see what was going on in my servers and what it was saying to optimize performance. It was pretty interesting because it could analyze and give insights on how to get things working better. In the latest versions, the Prism interface has been replaced by Prism Central. This requires another machine to be deployed to manage the servers.
SS
Manager Dev Ops at MSD
Private cloud control has deepened my DevOps automation and strengthened security practices
For improvement, I feel the documentation available for setting up and creating infrastructure using Rackspace OpenStack could be enhanced, as I personally find the existing documents are not sufficient for new learners or beginners. We can also work on improving the user interface; the Horizon dashboard is functional, but compared to AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud, the UI feels somewhat dated. A more modern, intuitive interface with better navigation would enhance the overall user experience, especially for new users. Improving the documentation, including more real-world deployment examples, troubleshooting guides, and architecture best practices, would make onboarding much easier. Faster upgrades would also help; Rackspace OpenStack upgrades can sometimes be complex, so simplifying the upgrade process and minimizing downtime would assist organizations in maintaining their environments more easily. Additionally, improving monitoring capabilities would be beneficial, with advanced monitoring and analytics dashboards providing administrators deeper visibility into performance, capacity, and potential issues without relying heavily on third-party tools. Adding more managed services, similar to what public cloud providers offer, could reduce operational overhead while still allowing customers to retain the flexibility of a private cloud. Lastly, integrating AI could be valuable, with AI-driven recommendations for capacity planning, security monitoring, and automated troubleshooting improving platform management.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The machines provisioning times have reduced drastically."
"The flexibility of this system is very good. It's also faster than others, and has skilled technical support who showed more initiative than a competitor, e.g. VMware."
"The console and managing are user-friendly."
"Short answer: Ease of use, fast deployment, linear scaling of performance with capacity and richness of product features."
"The product provides a complete and wonderful package, and the best feature is the level of user-friendliness the solution offers, it's a class apart."
"The beauty of this product is that it is very intelligent in controlling the data set and metadata."
"Our environment is now consolidated into one solution, making it easier to get support because we no longer need to go to multiple vendors and can just have one point of contact."
"The scalability, performance, and licensing model are the most valuable features."
"Rackspace OpenStack impacted my organization positively in that the drive helped me keep files in an organized folder, and obviously we needed email addresses to be able to communicate with each other and for outsiders to be able to email us."
"Rackspace OpenStack is stable and reliable, often compared favorably against other solutions."
"I like its integration with GitLab and its simplicity. OpenStack has a lot of third-party libraries that it uses."
"It was a very flexible and scalable solution. It was very useful because we were not dependent on a single vendor's solution. Increasing the number of machines or changing the hardware configuration was very easy."
"It created a reusable library with OpenStack features."
"Customer Service: Top. Technical Support: Top"
"Administrators are very comfortable with the functionality and services OpenStack offers."
"Rackspace OpenStack has positively impacted my organization by bringing us much closer to our customers based on the supportability this platform provides, and it has unique features which are very useful for our customers."
 

Cons

"One thing to keep in mind is that only experts can use it. It has to be in the proper hands, instead of going to XYZ people just for some cost savings. So lift-and-shift and migrations might be tricky, because it is not like a VMware."
"We'd like to have more resource management."
"Pricing is above average, but it is worth it."
"I would have liked it if Nutanix were a hardware as well as a software platform."
"Setup cost is minor, pricing is quite a bit (we have a 7-node-cluster for about 450K EUR with 2 vGPU-nodes for Citrix) but that includes hardware, software, and support."
"The solution does not lend support when we connect with a few dongle licenses."
"Nutanix licensing and pricing is premium compared to other hyperconverged infrastructure vendors."
"It is not as tolerant as other systems, especially in hardware, if hardware faults often occur."
"OpenStack is difficult for the novice in terms of beginning to use cloud tools."
"For improvement, I feel the documentation available for setting up and creating infrastructure using Rackspace OpenStack could be enhanced, as I personally find the existing documents are not sufficient for new learners or beginners."
"Rackspace OpenStack can be improved because it wasn't clear that you have to cancel 30 days before; otherwise they charge you for the month."
"It could use more examples in different languages (API use cases).​"
"The pricing of Rackspace is quite high in the Vietnam market."
"I cannot comment comprehensively on how Rackspace OpenStack can be improved, as I do not find that much difference; however, some areas can be improved, such as support for OEMs deploying highly specialized real-time telecom and media workloads."
"As a beginner, I find some difficulties in understanding Rackspace OpenStack, as it can be complex without a foundational grasp of cloud and networking concepts."
"It should have a single dashboard for cloud management and on-premises systems"
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Nutanix is cheaper than Cisco HyperFlex, although it depends on the configuration because Nutanix can also be expensive."
"There is a license required for this solution and my clients usually purchase a two-year license with extended support. The price of the solution could be reduced, it is more expensive than competitors."
"Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure's pricing is higher now."
"The overall cost depends on the contract of each customer and the discounts they have, but the price for the three-tier architecture can be slightly lower."
"If they could further reduce the cost, that would be great. I would like to see the cost be less than the equivalent three-tier architecture."
"It's a bit expensive, but it's worth it."
"Nutanix Acropolis AOS is affordable, it has good value. The final price depends a lot on the hardware used, it's an appliance in the end. Whether you use HPE as the hardware vendor or Supermicro as the hardware vendor, it really depends on what hardware is used which is the main cost."
"Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure's core licensing needs to have an upper limit since processors are coming out with incredible numbers of cores on them."
"The pricing is low."
"I use it as an open-source tool."
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Comparison Review

it_user244362 - PeerSpot reviewer
Managing Consultant with 51-200 employees
Aug 30, 2015
Nutanix vs. VMware EVO:RAIL vs. FlexPod
Originally posted at www.storagegaga.com/dont-get-too-drunk-on-hyper-converged/ I hate the fact that I am bursting the big bubble brewing about Hyper Convergence (HC). I urge all to look past the hot air and hype frenzy that are going on, because in the end, the HC platforms have to be aligned…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business93
Midsize Enterprise76
Large Enterprise88
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise8
 

Questions from the Community

How do I choose between Cisco Hyperflex HX Series and Nutanix Acropolis AOS?
Cisco HyperFlex HS series vs Nutanix Acropolis AOS Cisco HyperFlex gives extended hyper-convergence functions from core to edge and multi-cloud environments. It helps IT and OT teams deploy hyper...
What makes Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) worth using?
NCI is a product with many tools and services but the one that, in my opinion, makes it better than similar products and worth using, is the full-stack lifecycle management. This capacity allows u...
Have you received reliable help from Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure's support when you contacted them?
NCI is one of the best out there. For any software, no matter how good it is, technical support makes it or breaks it for me. You may have an amazing product but if there is not anyone to help you ...
What needs improvement with Rackspace OpenStack?
I cannot comment comprehensively on how Rackspace OpenStack can be improved, as I do not find that much difference; however, some areas can be improved, such as support for OEMs deploying highly sp...
What is your primary use case for Rackspace OpenStack?
My main use case for Rackspace OpenStack is that we are particularly using it for our OpenStack applications, where we are putting our applications on Rackspace OpenStack software day-to-day. A spe...
What advice do you have for others considering Rackspace OpenStack?
I rate Rackspace OpenStack an 8 on a scale of 1 to 10. I chose 8 out of 10 for Rackspace OpenStack because every product has some space to improve. Regarding Rackspace OpenStack's AI capabilities, ...
 

Also Known As

Nutanix Acropolis AOS, Nutanix AOS, Nutanix Acropolis
OpenStack
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

St. Lukes Health System, the City of Seattle, Yahoo! Japan, Sligro, Empire Life, Hyundai AUS, and many others.
X.commerce
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