Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) Reviews

We are using it for hyper-converged deployments of VMs and SRM replication. It is performing very well.

SRM capabilities for replication have been proven reliable and very useful for our organization. 

We would like to see it support other systems outside of the compute stack from which it was built.

I would recommend this product to others.

Currently, we are using it for our VMware workstation. We use it to host our non-production servers.

It has seamless expandability.

Their Google operating system is more mature, so their results are much better.

I don't feel that I am receiving the performance which I am paying for.

We should have something called micro segmentation inside the Nutanix box, which can be easily implemented.

They should support more VM, which is not currently supported.

The technical support is very good.

The initial setup was straightforward.

The operating system is free.

We're using Acropolis as our own cloud platform. FutureTech, my company, has built a cloud which is called Jute Cloud and is offering services to customers in Kuwait, Bahrain, and in Jordan as well. We are offering infrastructure as a service, backup as a service, DR as a service, security as a service. All of that is based on Nutanix Acropolis.

In terms of performance, it is outstanding.

The TCO model of Nutanix is much more mature than other solutions, because everything is consolidated. We're getting the best value for our investments. We're able to build cost-effective solutions, so it helps us to generate better revenue, and better margins as well.

Flexibility. We're able to mix performance nodes with storage nodes easily. Unlike other vendors where, if we start a hyperconverged solution with them, we have to stick to a specific model, to a specific series with specific capabilities, with Nutanix it's very easy to mix and match the best solution, especially for a dynamic infrastructure like ours.

It would be fantastic if there was a built-in layer, in Nutanix, that acted like a cloud interface. So far, we need to integrate a cloud interface on top of Nutanix for billing the usage for specific customers' domains. It would be great if a cloud gateway was built-in, inside Nutanix.

Also, one of the very important things that I would like to see in Nutanix, but I'm not sure if it's in the roadmap or not, is to have some kind of caching optimization at remote sites, to build active-active data centers more easily.

The stability is really outstanding.

One of my biggest customers worldwide is called Agility and they have distributed data centers around the world. In my first meeting, I asked the IT Manager there, "Okay, so what do you think about Nutanix's stability?" He said, "You know what? My only problem with Nutanix is that it's very stable, so I don't know how my engineers, if one day they face a problem, will fix it, because it's very stable, unlike other vendors." 

We literally put the appliance in production, and we forget about it. It's a very stable environment. More than 70 percent of my sales are coming from existing customers. Customers start with a small workload and then they add more workloads because they find the platform very stable and they can depend on it. They can add more workloads to it. And they even refer the technology to other customers as well.

No other vendor in the market today has the scalability options that Nutanix has. We're able to mix different models, different capacity models, different performance models. It can do all of that. Other vendors cannot do that.

The support is very good, because whenever we have a support ticket, even from the virtualization layer, all we need to do is open one ticket with Nutanix, and they solve all of our problems related to hardware or related to hypervisor. We love that because it helps us to maintain our SLAs.

They are very responsive.

We switched to Nutanix Acropolis, because of the 3D architecture. The old architecture has a lot of disadvantages. For example, whenever there is a support ticket that needs to be opened, we used to check with the software manufacturers, and they would point fingers at the hypervisor layer or the virtualization software, so we would have to go open a ticket again with the virtualization vendor. Then, they would say, "No, maybe it's the storage." Then the storage guy would say, "No, maybe it's the SAN switch, not the storage," and we would keep on cycling.

With Nutanix, the best thing is that they support the whole solution. We're getting just one appliance.

One more issue was the storage itself. Regardless of how big the investment was - we could increase the capacity of the storage as much as we wanted - the problem remained in the IOPS. We found a very good solution for this in Nutanix, because whenever we're adding new appliances, not only are we increasing the capacity, but we're also increasing the performance. This is the best solution, especially for a dynamic workload.

Our most important criteria when selecting a vendor are 

• support
• having a decent roadmap
• R&D.

Those are the most important factors. I put support first because maybe they have a very good technical solution but the support is very weak. That would be a very big problem for me, and production. And a vendor that is investing in R&D, it makes a lot of sense for me to use them.

I evaluated Cisco HyperFlex. It was very weak. We also compared EMC2. They have a hyperconverged solution, but I don't remember what its name was. We also evaluated Simplivity, which is now part of HPE. All of them lacked a lot of features compared to Nutanix.

For example, automatic sync is not there. To guarantee the performance in all of them, you have to go with all-flash nodes. Nutanix is more cost-effective because we can mix a hyper solution and still get better performance than all-flash from those vendors.

Do a demo. Don't just depend on the theoretical information in the information sheets, but go for an actual demo. Once you see a demo in action, you know exactly what the features are and how to do it.

I rate Nutanix Acropolis a 10 out of 10 because we're getting superior performance, support is very good, and it's a very cost-effective solution.

We are currently using Nutanix in a PoC environment to determine if it will meet our VDI needs, as well as our server virtualization needs. Our current production environment uses Citrix XenServer as the hypervisor. Nutanix plans to work with XenServer, but in the PoC, we have elected to test the Acropolis Hypervisor.

Our current production solution is complicated and requires many different management consoles to configure and monitor the solution. Inevitably, something gets missed and requires us troubleshoot resources. The Nutanix PoC appears to eliminate some of this confusion. The AHV integrates with the solution and most of the complexity is hidden from the admin's duties. 

Prism Central allows managing the cluster from a single pane of glass, and it allows a deeper dive into the solution.

Coming from a XenServer environment, I would like better integration of XenServer into the AOS and Prism Central.

We love the idea of having one box capable of doing a lot of work.

With the whole rack becoming a 2U Box, we had a smaller data center footprint and power consumption. Compute and storage became one, so it became easier to manage. There was no need to worry about SLAs, as it had great resiliency

• Nutanix Distributed File System
• Multi-hypervisor support
• Erasure coding
• Protection domain
• Acropolis File Sharing
• Acropolis Block Service
• Strong support

Our challenge has been to simplify our data center, reduce OPEX, easily scale out, and improve agility. Here are some improvements that we would like to see:

• Reduce our data center footprint.
• Reduce its power consumption.
• Make it easier to manage.
• Have an agile data center.

Power supply and memory will affect stability, same as any other hardware vendor.

Not at all. Scalability is within minutes.

They have one of the best technical supports in my experience.

Previously, we used three-tier architecture.

Initial setup is very straightforward.

We did the implementation in-house.

Estimated around four to five years, compared with three-tier deployment.

Work close with your InfraTeam and discuss with Nutanix the best way to achieve sizing and  price that are right for you. 

Licensing depends on the features needed.

We evaluated HPE SimpliVity.

Soon, it will be only software. Therefore, you can provide preferred hardware. You can inject it with Nutanix software as long as the hardware compatibility meets Nutanix requirements.

We run our primary data center on Nutanix. We run an on-prem Exchange environment along with multiple application servers. We have about 200 VMs and about 20TB of raw storage on the appliance.

Simplified management: It provides us more time to work on other tasks. We were able to replace two SANs and two blade centers with a single 2U Nutanix appliance.

Simplified storage management. Therefore, we do not have to rely on others to manage storage, which removes wait times in getting tasks done.

Extra features should not be so expensive. We would love to be able to use or even just try some of the extra features without having to buy them. Buying those features is just as expensive as buying vSphere licenses, so the cost savings is nullified.

Our primary use case is infrastructure consolidation and it has performed fine.

The benefits are consolidation. That's always a benefit. I wouldn't say it has necessarily improved the way that the organization functions. It just takes up less space.

• Price
• Ease of use

I don't have any requests for features. It does everything that I need it to do, and then some.

It's very stable.

I switched because I got tired of paying support renewals for three different companies.

My most important criteria when selecting a vendor are ease of use and price.

The initial setup was very straightforward.

I evaluated EMC as well. I went with Nutanix because of the price.

I rate it a nine out of 10 because I think there is still room for improvement on the price.

My advice is to take your time and evaluate everything.

We use our cluster for three scenarios:

• Virtualized Infrastructure
• Citrix 3D Terminal Services
• Clustered File Server (Windows-based).

Any task with our servers which is painless because the system runs really fast.
Our users are glad to be migrated to Citrix, although giving up the local admin rights there (yes, there are some local admin users still in place), because it performs so well.

• Single click actions is definitely the most important. They were not even aware that they wanted this.
• Performance was the main point for buying it. 
• No virtualization-vendor lock-in is another main point.
• But if you ever had good support, Nutanix Support will overwhelm.

There are various areas, but all points that I could mention are under development and get to you free of charge with another single-click cluster-upgrade.

To name some: Native File-Services are under heavy development and Container Services just came out.

No, also the system does daily self-checks and comes up with warnings. Support can fix this without system downtime. Over time you learn from support sessions to fix thngs yourself. The tool chest (already there inside the Controller-VM) is really impressive.

We had no requirements to scale it yet.

A 10 of 10. Simply that. Responsive, callbacks, top knowledge, easy escalation, and fast connection to development (during our PoC-phase I had a conference with developers in a few days).

Traditional storage on NetApp with ESX-Blades from Dell. We switched because of the simpler setup and easier scalability.

Initial setup was in a half workday. This means the first VM was up and running.
And it would be half on hour without racking and cabling.

We had consultants to guard us through it although we could have done it ourselves. It is good to get things straight initially. Their expertise was well set.

We do not estimate numbers for administration, rack powerage, and such. We use IT to do our business, not vice versa. You get nowhere if you want to measure the street instead of driving on it. But I was quite firm with netapp and the blades and had no huge admin effort. The timely effort for nutanix is even less now.

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. I would also license Prism Central in Pro Edition because you get capacity planning. This makes sense even for a single cluster setup.

We evaluated the successor models of our former systems. New NetApp Filers and new Blades, but the pricing was similar so we went with the better solution. We never used NetApp Vendor support (we did it ourselves with support from a netapp partner) and Dell Server support was poor (I can google manuals myself). Buying Nutanix includes superior support. You should call Nutanix support if you are doing a ProofofConcept!

Always check compatibility matrix before you upgrade to get a clear view what comes after your upgrade. I recently found that AOS 5.1.4 and 5.1.5 will not let you upgrade to 5.5.x as of now see (https://portal.nutanix.com/#/p... Login Required). 5.6 is your upgrade path if you are on 5.1.4 or 5.1.5.