Nutanix AHV Virtualization Reviews

Nutanix AHV Virtualization is used for the migration from the physical to the virtual.

Nutanix AHV Virtualization has good performance and can be used for backup and disaster.

It would be better if the solution's replication to another site could be efficiently optimized.

I have worked with Nutanix AHV Virtualization since 2015.

Nutanix AHV Virtualization is a stable solution.

Nutanix AHV Virtualization is a very scalable solution. Most of our customers for Nutanix AHV Virtualization are small and medium-level businesses.

The solution’s initial setup is easy.

Around 15 engineers are needed to deploy the solution.

Nutanix AHV Virtualization's Series 1000 is cheaper than other competitors. If you start to use the Series 3000, it'll be the same or sometimes higher. We have to pay a yearly licensing fee for the solution. Clients must pay for another license if they want to use more features.

VMware vSAN is better than Nutanix AHV Virtualization because it improves every year.

The solution's maintenance depends on the project, but I think one person is enough for one cluster.

Before choosing Nutanix AHV Virtualization, users should know their workload.

Overall, I rate Nutanix AHV Virtualization a seven out of ten.

Our primary use case is virtualization and Citrix Workload (VDI and SBC). 

Less clicks, more time, and more holidays. ;)

The main benefits are that it is easy to use, automation, VM-centric view, is low cost, secure, and provides high performance. 

There is no USB mapping at the moment. 

I have been using this solution since 2013. So, it's been over ten years now. 

I would rate the stability a ten out of ten.

I would rate the scalability a ten out of ten. We have around a hundred end customers and thousands of users. 

The customer service and support are the best. 

Positive

We use VMware vSAN also but we prefer Nutanix solution. We work on both solutions but we try to quit VMware vSAN for Nutanix solution.

The initial setup was easy and straightforward for me. It took a couple of minutes. 

We are the system integrators. So, we also provide maintenance for the solution. We have a team of up to ten engineers for many customers.  

We have seen ROI in terms of stability, performance, cost-saving and time-saving. 

The solution's licensing cost is nearly the same as the other solution. I would rate the pricing a seven out of ten, with one being expensive and ten being cheap.

We did not evaluate any other solution as Nutanix is simply the best.

I highly recommend using Nutanix to other users. Overall, I would rate the solution a ten out of ten. 

The solution's most valuable feature is Prism Central. It has a feature which allows you to upload the firmware software with just one click, requiring no downtime.

Nutanix AHV Virtualization's price is very high. 

I have been working with the product for seven years. 

I rate the solution's scalability a nine out of ten. Its scalability features support our company's growth by making the platform very easy to access with no downtime and no prerequisites. It allows expansion, similar to expanding the cluster.

Nutanix AHV Virtualization is easy to install and takes only a few hours to complete. 

I rate Nutanix AHV Virtualization's pricing a five out of ten. 

I rate the overall product a nine out of ten. 

From a hypervisor perspective, AHV appears promising. However, some enhanced features, like fault tolerance compared to VMware and template management, seem to lack user-friendliness. While performing tasks in AHV is possible, the process can be cumbersome. Users often find themselves navigating through multiple interfaces and resorting to command-line actions. Although AHV functions adequately as a hypervisor, improving its user interface and streamlining features like template management would greatly enhance the user experience.

The significant advantage lies in its storage policies. With AHV, we can create multiple containers and apply distinct policies to each underlying storage container. Additionally, AHV employs a concept of core tier and core tier data, ensuring that frequently accessed data is readily available, even in hybrid environments. Unlike other systems like AHV Excel, AHV doesn't separate cache and capacity drives, leading to faster data read speeds. This streamlined approach contrasts with solutions like Dell EMC.

Nutanix has Prism, which offers numerous capabilities. Unlike VMware, we don't require additional monitoring tools. We often rely on VMware for monitoring, logging, capacity planning, and analysis. However, all these features are available within Prism. Additionally, one-click upgrades for all components are available within Nutanix AHV. Similar features are also available in Dell EMC VxRail.

The lack of public documentation makes it difficult to implement available solutions efficiently. While generic information is accessible, specific problem-solving documentation is lacking. For instance, millions of KB articles are readily available with Dell or VMware, facilitating swift issue resolution even before consulting official support channels. However, finding straightforward answers for Nutanix-related issues proves challenging. Therefore, increasing KB publishing and public documentation would greatly benefit users, particularly by focusing on specific problems rather than general product information. Like VMware's community, Nutanix could enhance its community platform to provide readily available answers. While Nutanix might have the potential for such initiatives, they are not as prominently exposed as their counterparts.

When a customer considering Nutanix as a VMware alternative wishes to migrate to Nutanix but finds that it does not support external storage, this presents a significant roadblock for customers contemplating moving away from their current infrastructure, especially if they heavily rely on external storage. However, it would have significantly improved if Nutanix had addressed this issue. AHV is indeed a viable option. Additionally, if Nutanix enhances its SDN capabilities, particularly in areas such as VPN connectivity and load balancing features, it could become an even more attractive alternative to VMware for those looking to transition from a VMware-based data center to a Nutanix-based one.

I have been using Nutanix AHV Virtualization as a partner.

For one of our customers, let me provide a live example. The customer was using NFS as an external file storage solution. However, by embracing the native functionality of AHV file services, they could remove the external file servers from their environment. They utilized the native feature set of Nutanix, mainly the AHV file services managed remotely. In another scenario, a different customer initially used external storage with their Windows clusters after migrating workloads from VMware vSphere. However, when it comes to AHV, it offers its own volumes or block storage feature.

Consequently, they no longer relied on external storage but utilized the internally provided storage. Especially noteworthy is the ease of migration facilitated by Nutanix Prism. Unlike many other hypervisors, with Nutanix, there's no need for additional migration tools or costs. This aspect presents significant cost savings when transitioning to Nutanix from different platforms. These examples underscore the value proposition of Nutanix AHV, particularly in terms of cost savings and leveraging its native capabilities, which eliminate the need for additional external costs.

When utilizing Nutanix AHV virtualization, especially when seeking optimization for our workloads and the best performance, it's essential to place IBM on the host properly. Typically, when AOCs are overloaded, and AHVOCs are less overloaded, but we aren't achieving the expected performance for the VM region, diagnosis is necessary. If the host lacks the resources to supply to the VM, AHV will automatically balance the workload across multiple nodes.

Nutanix offers two key advantages. Firstly, it provides native snapshot features, significantly reducing the need for additional backup solutions. These snapshots efficiently back up VMs to local storage, simplifying the backup process. Secondly, Nutanix excels in metro cluster capabilities, allowing seamless workload protection across two Nutanix sites. In the event of a failure at one site, VMs are automatically restarted on the secondary site, ensuring continuity of operations. Additionally, Nutanix boasts native DR capabilities, eliminating the need for additional expenditure. Whether customers are utilizing on-premises Nutanix clusters or extending their environment to Nutanix on AWS or Azure, they can easily establish DR setups by configuring initial connectivity via IP, VPN, or similar means to safeguard their workloads.

Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

Nutanix AHV works really well. It's much easier to administer and manage than VMware. Since we're not a large IT department within the finance sector, our team is relatively small. We don't have a huge team of IT professionals to manage all the other systems.

Everyone desires to maintain competitive AHV pricing. AI technology has made significant strides. However, AI also introduces complexities in terms of security. It seems to function but when considering security, it adds layers of management. Integrating AI involves managing IT processes and ensuring they don't compromise security or provide unauthorised access. Unforeseen events may occur due to AI implementation, which require careful consideration. While AI streamlines certain tasks, it doesn't offer a universal solution to improve everything instantly. Incorporating targeted AI solutions within competing products is advantageous. In terms of financial considerations and functionality, integrating AI and Microsoft components into half of the Nutanix AHV evaluation is beneficial. When it comes to the core networking infrastructure, stability and reliability are paramount.

I have been using Nutanix AHV Virtualization for four years.

The product is stable.

The solution’s scalability is very high.

I rate the solution’s scalability a ten out of ten.

Nutanix AHV wasn't difficult to complete compared to VMware. VMware can be quite complex. Shifting from one account to another, or from one platform to another, but making a direct comparison is challenging. Nutanix has adopted a similar approach. However, Veeam operates differently. Their focus is on delivering a fast and comprehensive product, like Spectrum. They aim to provide an all-in-one solution.

Nutanix is made up of many different components. Our approach varies, especially with larger virtualization setups, depending on your requirements. If you're a large organisation with thousands of users and hundreds of offices, then, it will be a better fit depending on the requirements. For a small organisation with just a few offices, Nutanix AHV might be easier and simpler to deploy, administer, noticing that it works for larger deployments. 

The initial setup is super easy and takes a couple of hours to complete. We deploy the Nutanix AHV virtualization product on major data centres. We'll back up and replicate our data there.

Deploying the hardware only takes a couple of hours to plug it in. There are other factors to consider from a production. We can't simply download databases, client applications, or live trading functionalities. These aspects need to be carefully managed through change control procedures. The migration was conducted systematically and methodically over a certain time period. If you condense the actual time it took to perform the migration. You have to consider the number of virtual machines. It could take a couple of hours. Therefore, it's unfair to categorise it solely as an economic trend because it depends on several factors.

If I had to pay for it personally, I wouldn't be able to afford it. Considering how much business we generate and how it aligns with current trends, it's worth it for the company. If you're only going to deliver one package once a month, buying a big truck would be expensive for you. But if you're delivering fifty packages every day and making money from it, the cost of a one-minute delay on the truck isn't very significant. Nutanix offers enterprise-class hardware and software. It's a solution tailored for enterprises and while it might be quite expensive for smaller businesses, it's well worth the investment. In the market segment it operates in, it offers competitive features.

We've two Nutanix clusters that replicate between each other. One is production and another one is disaster recovery. It has higher availability clusters. We've three nodes on the side, and it's replicated between the two. One of the nodes goes down. The network capabilities of AHV is very good.

Everything would be connected. It's all on one singular platform, making management streamlined. There's no need for add-ons; everything you need comes with Nutanix. You won't find yourself constantly adding and using different add-ons, or dealing with the complexities of integrating with Linux.

The best implementation is to integrate the Nutanix AHV virtualization framework directly with the hardware and facility infrastructure. This allows you to quickly start using and building new virtual machines in just a couple of hours. It's a seamless process that significantly reduces deployment time.

Overall, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.

I've configured the solutions for two or three customers. It's my first time with Prism Central, Prism Element, and the CVM (Control Virtual Machine).

I haven't come across any limitations. Nutanix doesn't support externally attached storage through Fibre Channel.

However, Nutanix doesn't support Fibre Channel connectivity. This, in my opinion, is a weakness. For instance, it does not support Cyber Talent. To clarify, you cannot connect external Fibre Channel storage or NAS storage resources with Nutanix. However, VMware vSAN supports such solutions.

I have been using Nutanix AHV Virtualization for 2 to 3 years.

It is still working fine. However, when compared to VMware, I consider VMware to be more stable. I would rate the stability of Nutanix around 8.5 or 9 out of 10.

It is highly scalable, and I recommend it for larger companies. Adding nodes to expand clusters is straightforward. However, due to its cost, I don't recommend it for smaller companies as they might find it challenging to afford.

I'm highly satisfied with their support team.

My initial choice for high availability (HA) solutions is VMware ESXi. If someone asks for an alternative, my first recommendation is usually Dell EMC PowerFlex. In comparison to Nutanix AHV Virtualization, VMware ESXi has the advantage of supporting external storage, making it more flexible for integrating existing storage solutions. VMware ESXi is also perceived as more affordable than Nutanix AHV Virtualization.

They should make the product more competitive by working on their licensing model. Lowering the price would help make it more affordable.

I recommend using Nutanix AHV (Acropolis Hypervisor) for hyper-converged computing processes because of its simplicity in deployment and configuration. The platform also offers good support and is versatile, supporting various hypervisors such as VMware, Microsoft Hyper-V, and its native AHV. I would rate this product a 9.5 out of 10 overall.

There are a lot of use cases of Nutanix AHV Virtualization involving general IT workloads, I/O workloads, and big data workloads.

Most of the features provided by the solution are good, but in general, all of the product's features are identical. The performance and stability of the solution are good.

The integration capabilities of Nutanix AHV Virtualization is an area with certain shortcomings that need improvement.

Nutanix AHV Virtualization is still a new product in the market with which integrating many products, especially Citrix products, is not possible.

I have been using Nutanix AHV Virtualization for four to five years.

It is a stable solution. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

My company caters to seven or eight customers who use Nutanix AHV Virtualization.

Whenever a customer reaches out to the technical support team with a problem, they understand the customer's use cases and suggest the most beneficial solution.

The initial setup of Nutanix AHV Virtualization is straightforward.

The solution can be deployed in two days maximum.

The solution is deployed on an on-premises model. The solution can be deployed on the cloud as well to get to the varying use cases.

The deployment process consists of mounting the upgraded framework and installing Nutanix's package to get it ready to function. Once you complete the aforementioned procedure, you install Nutanix vCenter and create the cluster. The solution doesn't require any extra hypervisors that need to be deployed.

Just a few technical people are required to deploy and maintain the solution.

Nutanix AHV Virtualization comes with a built-in hypervisor, so you don't need to buy an extra license from Nutanix if you already have other Nutanix products. Nutanix AHV Virtualization is an affordable product. I rate the product's price an eight on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is costly. I don't think there are any extra costs in addition to the standard licensing fees of the solution.

I believe that Nutanix AHV Virtualization has good features, so the solution is in good shape in the market.

I recommend the solution to those who plan to use it. Nutanix AHV Virtualization mostly meets the requirements of its customers.

I rate the overall solution a nine out of ten.

The solution is used for virtualization.

The dashboard of the solution is one of its strongest points.

Pricing is an area that needs improvement. In future releases, I would like to see a better pricing policy. The solution's scalability needs to be improved.

I have been using Nutanix AHV Virtualization for eight-plus years. I am using the solution's latest version. Also, I am not using it, but my team does use it. My company has a partnership with Nutanix.

Stability-wise, I rate the solution a six out of ten. There are some issues with the availability of the services, which we are trying to sort out.

Around 10 to 20 people, who are managers and developers, are currently using the solution in my organization.

Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a six out of ten. It's not a very scalable product.

The support team is helpful, and I rate the support a nine out of ten.

Positive

The initial setup was easy. For maintenance, ten engineers are needed.

The pricing depends upon the licenses, considering the number of devices.

I rate the overall solution a seven out of ten.

This is for on-prem virtual infrastructure, for computing storage, and to apply the hyper-converged infrastructure concept while doing a lot of virtualization features, like HA, high availability, redundancy, and replication. We also do some reports and analyses based on utilization. The product has a lot of features.

There are many features we can leverage. 

The hyper-converged infrastructure concept is great. This is the best feature. I also like the high availability. This protects our workload against any failures, like a failure for load, or failure of a rack, drive, or network. It helps us create business continuity.

It's easy to set up.

The solution is stable.

It can scale well. 

Technical support has been helpful. 

I'm already looking into possibly adding micro-segmentation features. It will help control traffic better and make everything more secure. 

The solution can be pricey. 

I've been using the solution for seven years.

The stability has been good. It handles daily administrative tasks automatically. So far, there are no bugs or glitches, and it doesn't crash or freeze. 

We have around 1,000 people using the solution. 

It's scalable and easy to expand. 

It's easy to contact technical support. They are helpful.

I've also used VMware solutions. 

Both are basically the same. VMware is like Nutanix. Nutanix has an HCI feature. However, with VMware, we can use the vSAN. This is the same feature for hyper-converged infrastructure. That said, in VMware, you need a lot of licenses since every feature needs a license. In Nutanix, it's different. Everything is built into one product. 

The initial setup is pretty straightforward. However, it will depend on the design we go with. In our case, we needed just one week to get it deployed. 

The solution is a bit expensive. We pay a lot of money for S nodes. 

We're partners. 

While the solution is largely on-premises, we do have some infrastructure on AWS.

I'd rate the solution six out of ten.

I would recommend other companies deploy it. It's very powerful, whether it is on-prem or in the cloud. 

Customers often choose Nutanix AHV Virtualization for its leading position in the hyperconverged segment. The primary use case is virtualizing workloads, whether migrating from a physical environment or transitioning from other virtualization platforms like VMware or Hyper-V.

Nutanix AHV Virtualization is a private cloud platform offering integration with various public cloud providers. This integration allows for a multi-cloud approach. In my opinion, Nutanix AHV Virtualization's strength is its storage. It innovates and excels in the hyper-converged storage segment, making it the number one choice in this area. 

Honestly, there's a lot to work on the product, especially for someone like me who has worked on VMware. VMware offers a significant level of customization when configuring virtual machines, and that level of detail is not as pronounced on Nutanix AHV Virtualization. 

I have been working with the product for six years. 

I rate the tool's stability an eight out of ten. 

I have not contacted the tech support team yet. 

The tool is pretty easy to set up. While I haven't deployed it for a customer, I have set it up in my home lab. It may require some resources, but the process is straightforward overall if you have the correct equipment and follow the deployment steps. I rate it a seven out of ten. 

Depending on the customer's environment and other details, people can set up Nutanix AHV Virtualization clusters in a week or two. Assuming all prerequisites are in place, one week should be sufficient to deploy it. 

The tool is not as expensive as VMware. It is essentially KVM, a Linux-based virtualization with a rebranded version and a web interface. While it does the job, it may not offer the same level of detail as VMware.

The solution's pricing is cheap for a new customer but becomes expensive during renewal. Especially when a customer plans to expand their environment, feedback in the market from end customers and partners becomes crucial. There have been instances where customers who chose between Nutanix AHV Virtualization and VMware opted for Nutanix AHV Virtualization due to cost considerations. Yet, as they aimed to scale, the pricing factor became a more significant consideration and changed their mind. 

The product stands out in the hyper-converged market due to its user-friendly nature. Automation minimizes manual configuration tasks, reducing the operational burden and making it less headache-prone for administrators.

In light of recent developments, especially with Broadcom's acquisition of VMware, there's a sense of uncertainty and potential disruption in the market. Broadcom's history, as seen with the Symantec acquisition, raises concerns about the impact on licensing renewals. VMware no longer selling perpetual socket licenses adds to the uncertainty.

In such a scenario, Nutanix AHV Virtualization appears to be stable. Unlike VMware, it hasn't undergone frequent changes in ownership. We have small, medium, and enterprise businesses using it. 

When considering it, it's important to assess third-party integrations. While the product has a mature platform with an expanding ecosystem, it may not be as mature as VMware regarding integrations. Therefore, potential buyers should ensure their desired integrations have native support within the tool's ecosystem. Whether it's an existing backup solution or other third-party products, compatibility checks are crucial before adopting Nutanix AHV Virtualization to avoid any issues with integration.

I rate the overall product an eight out of ten.