Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) Reviews

I meet many customers on a weekly basis and there has been always one common question in almost every meeting. Which HCI Solution is the Best for me?

in order to be able to answer this question, I had studied many HCI solutions in the Market and deeply analyzed the Pros & Cons of all major solutions.

The HyperScale Architecture which Nutanix adopted from day one is a game-changer, it enabled my customers to scale with no limits & give them their freedom back by avoiding Hardware & Hypervisors locking.

- Support Calls are being answered directly by L3 Support team who are capable to solve not only Acropolis issue but hypervisor as well. 

- One-Click Updates.

- One Management Console for Cluster Management ( Compute, Storage ) and VMs operations as well.

- Storage Only Nodes.

- Having multiple HW Vendors & Hypervisors in the same Data centre and manage all with one management tool.

having more integrations with security vendors to be able to introduce more Virtual Load Balancers and Virtual Firewalls.

I have been using Nutanix Acropolis for three years.

It's the most stable infrastructure we had ever proposed.

Customers love the Nutanix experience and keep on adding more nodes to cover more business needs.

It's the only solution that can scale properly — there is no limitation on the number of nodes that a customer can have in the same cluster.

Customers can expand at any time the storage layer by adding just storage nodes, which will not only expand the capacity but also will enhance the performance as each node comes with something called a virtual controller. So scalability-wise, we're only expanding the storage with no obligation to pay for additional hypervisors license. 

Their support is amazing. When we open a support ticket, there are always level-three engineers who respond to your calls. What I also love about the support is that whenever we open a call, usually it gets routed to the last engineer who already knows our environment. The support is Amazing.

The initial setup is very easy. It didn't take more than three days to implement this solution.

Never lock your self with a specific vendor.

if you are considering vXRail, for example, you need to pay attention that you will be locked in so financially speaking if you have an expansion, you can do it with Dell only leaving no space for healthy pricing competition & don't be surprised if they don't give you the same initial discount because simply you are already locked in! 

& The same goes for VMware, you would be locked in with VMware only. VMware license nowadays is not cheap, it's costly so eventually, you will find your annual spending are exceeding your budget and you no option but to buy from them.

If you are a new customer to Nutanix start with a Cloud Bundle; they are very cost-effective and they can fit any requirement.

Cisco HyperFlex

Dell vXRail

Hp Simplivity

Always go for AHV Option because VMware is costly, especially if you're considering not only the hypervisor cost but considering vRealize Operations, Automation and NSX on top.

Nutanix will help you to wave out the hypervisor TAX which is not less than 20 % of any infrastructure initial setup cost 

AOS is one of the most important parts of the Nutanix HCI solution. AOS provides a few main features - managing VMs (Hypervisor), one managing interface (Prism), distributed storage fabric with software-defined features instead of hardware implementations such as RAID.

Over the years, the Nutanix Platform capability set and services have grown substantially. Over the years, this has evolved to simplify and abstract virtualization, automated upgrades and operations, and much more.

We deployed Nutanix three years ago and now we see all benefits of AOS. It doesn't require a lot of engineers for managing the virtualization environment. We see a nice reduction of using storage resources. AOS can run any workloads such as business-critical DBs. Also, AOS provides great features for backup and DR.

AOS optimizes capacity utilization without hurting performance or resiliency by dynamically compressing, deduplicating, and erasure coding blocks of data based on potential capacity savings as well as application access patterns.

Building a beautiful, empathetic and intuitive product is core to the Nutanix platform and something we take very seriously.

• DSF with reduction techniques - more storage resources.
• Resiliency - self-healing, handling a failure.
• One manage interface - Prism. It's easy to use and monitor your workloads.

Monitoring:

• Anomaly Detection
• In the world of IT operations, there is a lot of noise. Traditionally, systems would generate a great deal of alerts, events, and notifications, often leading to the operator either a) not seeing critical alerts since they are lost in the noise or b) disregarding the alerts/events.

Nutanix Software Upgrade:

• Performing a Nutanix software upgrade is a very simple and non-disruptive process.

Nutanix should improve AHV to support migration VMs between clusters and storage containers. Migration between containers is possible, but it requires shutting down the VM. The procedure is long and there is no migration between clusters at all.

By and large, I have nothing more to add, but if we talk about what I have listed, then these functions would greatly facilitate the operation of Nutanix HCI.

I hope they will fix this soon, although I have been waiting for this for a long time.

I have been using Nutanix Acropolis AOS for three years.

VMware. 

VMware vSAN.

We use Nutanix Acropolis AOS for the high availability that we get with it. The platform's extremely stable and other nice things that we like about it is that if we have to move the server or anything, it's not a lot to move and power consumption is a big thing for us as well.

My primary use case of this solution is that it helped me solve all of my use cases. I can create an integrative private cloud in a data center, create a hybrid cloud, public cloud, and near-site data recording. For example, there are lots of sites that do not have the data there so I can create data because Nutanix also has got it stored on the nodes. It takes care of storage on the nodes. I can build storage on the nodes, compute them, give the clients who already have a small data center within themselves but they do not have it externally. By using storage on the nodes in Nutanix I can give them the external.

We primarily use Nutanix as our base environment where we host all our database servers. We also host our active directory on it, our mail servers, and all of our bare-metal systems combined into one unit. Then we use Inuvika for the VDI environment on top of Nutanix.

One of the benefits this solution has had for my organization is space consumption. Space consumption was reduced by approximately 40% because if I had gone with another kind of traditional, or open-world solution, then I would have not saved my floor space. Another way it has benefited my organization is because of the energy consumption.

I definitely find the reduced power consumption very valuable. Another aspect I really like, when one compares Citrix to VMware, is the interface where you talk directly to your VM from the present software.

On-demand scaling is the most valuable feature, I can keep on scaling on-demand.

With Nutanix, if I do three or four nodes if I look at the traditional environment I have to really figure out the wave concept. Connect wave one, wave two, wave six, wave five. In Nutanix I don't have any of these issues. Lastly, deduplication. Deduplication and erasure coding

As of now, Acropolis and VMware cannot talk to each other. Until we have some kind of interface, it would be much better for Nutanix if they built an interface that can talk. Otherwise, if I have a VMware stack and I already have a Nutanix stack, I can create containers, I create clusters on VMware, I create clusters on Nutanix. All of these clusters cannot talk to each other. Then it has to be then subverted as parallel execution.

I would suggest that this could perhaps be switched. That is so far the only change I would like. I would like it if they could fix the instance where you double click on a VM and it opens the VM instead of the setup.

We've only been using Nutanix Acropolis for a short time now so we haven't gone into full production with the product yet.

This product is very scalable. We currently have 60 users. One of the things I like about it is that you can add extra nodes without any problem. Something we are currently looking at for the future is to put a smaller cluster on each side, where we can then, overnight, replicate the data from the site to the primary cluster. That's one of the other reasons why we looked at Nutanix instead of VMware and Citrix.

We had only one query so far, and the support team was excellent. They came back to us immediately and their service was excellent.

We've only been using Nutanix Acropolis for a short time now so we haven't gone into full production with the product yet.

The entire setup took us half a day. We used a consultant for the deployment. The service I received from them is unbelievable.

One of the major problems with IT in South Africa is that licensing fees are 14 times more expensive than anywhere in the world.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten. If they develop the interoperability then it would make it a ten.

We looked at other options like VMware and Citrix, but Nutanix was the only solution that offered us scalability and the option to add extra notes without any problems.

I would rate it a nine out of ten.

Our primary use case for Nutanix is removing the classic 3-tier architecture and switching to hyper-convergence. 

Migrating from the 3-tier architecture to HCI helped us to free up rack space, remove the old hardware, and run systems on the new platform. 

There was a four-rack, and now there are ten units of hardware. It's really cool and fantastic.

It is now managed from one interface, covered by technical support and it's homogenous. If you need to expand a cluster or storage then all you need is just add new nodes. You don't need to buy new storage, you don't need to expand your SAN, and so on.

Now, all of the systems run on the same hardware with the same software, which can be managed from a single pane of glass. All you need to know is AOS. You don't need to learn about storage, SAN, or virtualization. It's easier to start with Nutanix than start with classic architecture.

The software features which really can improve the organization are deduplication and compression. These really can help to save a lot of space. On the non-homogenous systems, we achieved approximately 2:1 space savings, which is great.

We really love the Lifecycle manager and one-click upgrades. All you need to do is run the upgrade procedure and watch it go.

You don't need to update firmware, software, hypervisors, and so on by yourself. LCM can do it for you. It really can save a lot of time. LCM will install only compatible firmware and software, so you can't install (for example) unsupported firmware and break down your system.

LCM is a really cool feature and one of the best in the market. I have never seen anything like this before. 

I think there is a lot that Nutanix can improve in AOS, in particular, moving tasks such as creating trunked networks and managing nodes from the CLI to Prism Element.

I would like to see more information in Prism Element about how Curator works. 

There is a lot of functionality in Prism Central, but sometimes you want to see those features in Prism Element. One of them is RBAC. If we have one small cluster, and we need RBAC, we must install Prism Central. This is an inconvenience and I hope to see this feature in Prism Element in the next releases of AOS. 

We are using Nutanix solutions based on AOS since 2017. 

Nutanix AOS is a very stable system. You can lose drives or nodes, depending on your replication factor, and you will not lose your data. 

It's very easy to scale. You just add new nodes, increase compute, and increase storage at the same time.

Nutanix has one of the best technical support groups I've ever seen.

They answer fast and they solve problems fast. They don't ask you a lot of unnecessary questions; rather, they just do the work.

Previously, we used different solutions from different vendors. We needed to put it all together, and Nutanix helped us.

Setting up a new cluster is easy and the documentation covers this process.

They are very highly qualified specialists. 

We did not evaluate other options before choosing Nutanix. 

My advice is that deduplication and compression can save money, so use it. 

The main reason we decided to implement the Nutanix solution was the ease of use of the environment. More than anything, it's a completely robust software environment. We not only migrated our servers from VMware, but we also moved from vSphere to AHV and Acropolis. The change was incredible in every aspect.

Our team managed to complete this migration in just three days and all of our workloads will start to run amazingly after the migration. It is a robust environment that runs smoothly. For example, our SQL Servers increased their performance dramatically after migration.

The biggest change we had was the time it took for our IT team to perform all the tasks of administering and automating the environment. Although everything worked before, with Nutanix, things work even better, almost without administration, since it is a software that allows you to analyze down to the last detail. Tasks that were previously performed manually can be automated.

On the other hand, our development team can consume its customized resources from our datacenter without our intervention, and the Acropolis integrations via API with other environments turn the software into a complete and flexible solution.

One of the most valuable features that can be found, is the inclusion of a hypervisor for free. This allowed us to direct the investments and the budget towards other types of aspects, generating a lot of added value.

With the cost we saved on hypervisor licenses, we were able to invest in more nodes and blocks for our platform. In this way, our environment is now prepared to grow much more without having to re-invest in hardware. On the other hand, automation managed to redirect the time of IT staff to other projects, thus increasing productivity.

There are few areas in which I think this Nutanix product should be improved, but to name a few I can decide that there should be support for more languages natively. This could apply to the main AOS and Prism environment, as well as the help channels that Nutanix offers.

Except for these points, I don't think there is much more to improve.

We have used this solution in our company for three years.

While the customer support is truly incredible, for Spanish speakers it would be appropriate to have support in their native language to further improve problem-solving conditions.

We did a full migration from VMware vSphere and vCenter to AHX and Acropolis.

AHV is free! This is a great feature that should be taken advantage of.

Beforehand, we evaluated using vXRail as a hyper-converged solution, but the cost and usage issues made us opt for Nutanix.

It is a robust solution that also has integrations and a complete suite of solutions for multi-cloud environments.

The solution actually has multiple use cases, including business critical infrastructure, VDL, and Database. The solution covers pretty much anything inside the software-defined data center.

The solution is very stable.

The ease of deployment is very good.

The pricing of the solution is too high. It needs to be adjusted or lowered to be more competitive.

I've been using a solution for about three years now.

The solution is very stable. It's reliable. It doesn't freeze or crash. There aren't a lot of bugs or glitches that affect the functionality.

The solution is definitely scalable. A company that needs to expand can do so easily using Nutanix.

The solution works for all sizes of business - from small to large enterprises.

I've dealt with technical support in the past and I've found them to be excellent. I would say they are one of the best in the industry in terms of the experience we've had.

I've used other solutions in the past. The main difference between Nutanix and others is that its architecture is superior.

The initial setup is not complex. It's very straightforward.

How long deployment takes depends on the number of nodes and the type of deployment that you're doing. How long it takes is a bit of a strain, really. A simple deployment might take a couple of days.

The solution is very expensive.

We have a business relationship with Nutanix. We're a reseller and services partner.

I'd advise other companies considering the solution to do your research fully and make sure it's going to fit what you need it to do before jumping in.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten. Their continuation of integration into all the supporting infrastructure is great. It's just about making sure that they got all the accreditations with backup and replication software and the antivirus. If they had an even wider ecosystem that supported additional products I'd rate them higher.

We primarily use this solution to deploy to clients. We suggest the best solution for their requirements, which is often Nutanix, and we implement it for them. Each client has different requirements, so each user's primary use might be slightly different.

The solution brings a lot of convenience and ease of use for the customer. 

The product is easy to manage.

It has easy scalability, which is one of its great advantages. A customer will often look for this feature. 

The solution is highly compatible with other platforms.

I'm not very technical, so I don't know if there are any features that are really lacking. Our customers seem pleased with it, and I haven't heard of any downsides.

I'm not really using the solution. I am a reseller and I sell it to clients who are actually the end-users.

The solution is stable. There aren't bugs or glitches and it doesn't freeze or crash on us. It's reliable.

The scalability is very, very good. It's one of the selling points. If a company needs to scale the solution, they can do so easily.

The technical support is very good. We don't have any complaints about how they interact with us or our clients.

We have some integrators on our team. We implement the solution for our clients as resellers.

I'm not sure what the pricing on the solution is.

We're a Nutanix reseller.

We would recommend this solution to others. We tend to recommend it often to our clients. 

All of our customers rate this solution very high, so I would rate it overall at an eight out of ten.

I won't be able to disclose anything with regards to our client's contractual agreements in terms of what we have done or not, at their premises, or even if it's on the hybrid model. I'm not even allowed to disclose the name of our clients without their prior approval, so I can't really get into primary use cases.

One of the most valuable features is that it can be applied at any scale. 

The value you get for the price is quite good.

It's difficult to discuss what is lacking on the solution. We would have to do a proper analysis because not every client has the same requirements. 

Based on our experience up until now, even the clients, when they are looking for a proper platform, have already identified Nutanix as being the one solution that would be the most relevant to them. We would need to get into a more detailed analysis in terms of what features or benefits the clients are looking for to see if there is something lacking. 

We would need to look at scalability, or reduced latency, and stuff like that. There are so many elements that are implemented for each client. As well, there may be specific areas that the client wanted to be improved. However, from our perspective, we don't see any glaring holes in the product.

The initial setup does need a team with experience with it in order to execute it correctly. It's not easy.

Some clients find the solution's cost to be too high.

I haven't been using the solution for too long. I've only been using it for 18 months, so just over a year or so.

I can't speak to the stability of the solution. I'd have to discuss this aspect with my team. We do provide support and may have some recommendations in relation to that, however, at this moment, I can't really comment.

The scalability of the solution is great. If you are a large company or an enterprise, you should be able to scale it well.

We actually provide technical support to our clients. Our technical team has the training, and we're able to provide guidance and clarification on our end in terms of problems or issue son the solution.

The initial setup is not straightforward. On our team, for example, we had to get to know Nutanix extremely well before we could master it. Only then would we be able to prepare the solution for different clients. If you have knowledge of the solution, the setup will be much easier. Still, it's complex.

I'm not sure how long the average deployment takes.

However, the project may not just include Nutanix. There may be other interventions that have to happen simultaneously. Typically, a project from end to end may take about three months to complete.

Some clients think the solution is quite expensive.

In terms of advice I could give to those considering the solution, I'll say this: it all depends on what they're looking for and what their ultimate objectives are. They need to clarify that internally before landing on Nutanix.  

At the same time, anyone going for hyper-converged should do so, as it's the future. Once a company decides on a solution like Nutanix, they expect to reap the benefits. Even before going with their decision, they need to know what it offers and how it will work to help them achieve their goals.

At the end of the day, it's all about our clients being more effective and efficient in their daily work or with their end clients. 

I'd rate the solution seven out of ten.

They're still evolving and we are not yet in a situation where we must interact fully. Some people will definitely come and tell you Nutanix is very, very expensive. However, expensive with regards to what? Or expensive compared to what? It's all about what you get out of it, and what kind of returns you're expecting. This is where Nutanix can make a difference.