Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) Reviews

We have two different clusters in the environment one is an all flash cluster of 40 nodes and other one is a hybrid cluster of 4 nodes and are on the way to introduce another all flash cluster of 9 nodes in the environment. All the clusters have VMs as well as file servers hosted in them. 

Managing multiple clusters with mix of VMs and file servers by logging into multiple console will lead to additional operations overhead and also can cause delay in incident resolution as operations team will have to login to particular management console and carry out the remediation activities. 

First of all, the product is very stable. We did not see any breakages happen due to product misbehavior.

Thanks to multiple automations and self-explanatory dashboards, the overall operations load on my team has come down considerably. On top of this, since we are utilizing the Files feature also from both of our clusters, it is easing out the management overhead in that layer as well. 

Though the console is highly sensitive about any small alerts, which makes the dashboard through many alerts even for one single issue with the server, network, or connectivity, it is always better to have alerts even for small things than having no alert at all. 

One more thing to notice is the strong customer support team that Nutanix has. In the initial days when we were not familiar with this technology, we had raised many support requests and they helped us with all of them with outputting them into non-an issue buckets which we have seen many large enterprises do.

Reporting features in the console is so self-explanatory that even a non-IT person in the office can also understand it. Our finance users have access to this console and they will get the consumption details without having any dependency on us. Also, this dashboard is extended to our NOC team who will be able to interpret the alerts and decide on what to inform us whenever an alert pops up.

Moreover, the deployment process was so easy and smooth that post rack and stack and management IP configuration, it just took less than 2 days to configure the cluster of 40 nodes, upgrade the firmware, create file service and VM space and integrate with our infrastructure.

From an AHV point of view, I look for the feature of setting a limit for the memory allocation for individual VMs. This will help in providing higher memory to VMs for users who always ask or more and more memory but end us not using it causing other needy to be deprived of it. It will be better if they can extend this to non-AHV hypervisors and also non-Nutanix clusters so that people who need this feature but can not goto HCI currently can make use of this product. 

Also, I believe they should take a relook into their licensing model to adopt to the current situation.

We have been using this from last 1 year.

From my past 1 year experience I can say that the product is very stable.

I would recommend keeping the cluster to smaller number of members which will help in faster maintenance and upgradation activities.

We use VMware in 3 tier architecture deployments. This was the first HCI deployment in our department.

It took less than 2 days to setup the cluster of 40 nodes. So need not say anything separately about the ease of deployment.

We took Lenovo professional services team support for this deployment and they are good at it.

1 year is too short term to recover the ROI.

This will be a better fit in the age of hybrid cloud and with Nutanix adding more and more products in its offering, soon Nutanix will become a complete package to run IT. So it will be easy to scale and add modules as and when needed.

We evaluated Horizon, Cisco Hyperflex along with Nutanix.

I know very well that when I was started with my organization with VMware Hypervisor solution for virtualization but we were facing very frequent and unforeseen issues with VMware and due to this outage on hosted services and servers means end-user productivity loss and indirectly loss on the business.

Then later on time, we came to know about the Nutanix and its interesting features, and the HA features attracted to us to use the Nutanix as a hypervisor solution in our company.

Now when we are using, our lives have been easy

Nutanix Prism Pro improves the quality and efficiency of IT operations for the modern datacenter. Powered by the machine learning and task automation, Prism Pro intelligently optimizes capacity, proactively detects performance anomalies, and enables the IT team to automate operations tasks with ease and confidence.

Prism Pro includes a powerful application and VM-centric capacity forecast, planning, and optimization engine powered by Nutanix’s X-Fit and X-Play technologies. Prism Pro enables smart IT operation and automation by optimizing capacity intelligently, monitoring and resolving anomalies proactively, and automating remediation and operations tasks

Prism Pro’s X-Play links intelligent signals with automated actions. With a few clicks, the IT team can automate their day-to-day operational tasks. They can build automation and improve the productivity of the operation with ease and confidence and zero coding

Using X-Play, the IT team can create playbooks for common remediation or troubleshooting steps. Those playbooks can be triggered automatically based on the alert polices along with predictive monitoring based on behavioral analysis to generate actionable signals and provide early warnings

In our company, Nutanix Hypervisor (AOS) is not fully operational for some things just because of what products & services offered to our end customers we tested but we found that it is as of now not supported. We are only allowed to use VMware, but I use AOS. I think the Prism Center needs to include more functions. I know that they're including the Nutanix Era, which is the database management and disaster recovery tool. I think that Era should include everything on a single tool where you can manage everything you need inside your organization.

It could maybe have better documentation. Nutanix does have really good documentation, but it could have more details in the future.

It has been more than four hours approximately.

We used VMware, we switched just to make our life easy and work-life balance.

Nutanix is the best product in HCI solution & cost & pricing is very less what other solutions available in the market.

Keep improving and including customer demands and make nutanix more powerful HCI solution.

We are currently running a pair of production at both our home office and our DR center as well as a dev cluster. Between our prod/dev/fileshare we are now running around 32ish total nodes, and we have only had one drive failure in 4-5 years of running. The level of support that Nutanix provides and the timely response is another great attribute of Nutanix. We now are sitting right where we need to in regards to sizing, function, and design to fit our organization. We will continue to evolve and build with Nutanix.

It has allowed us to easily manage multiple clusters in multiple locations through Prism. We have multiple sites that we use to manage and run VMware at which could be a bit cumbersome with Vsphere. Since we made the migration to Nutanix we now only have active servers at three locations, and we can manage them through Prism Central with ease. If you can't see information in one spot you are going to overlook something that might fail, but with Prism we don't have that issue.                                 

The one-click upgrades and single-window management through Prism are the two greatest advantages for us.                                                                                                                

I can't think of any improvements at this time, but the support is top-notch. We have had our fair share of issues while upgrading early on, but the process now is working flawlessly. Between the initial POC to rolling it into production, everything has been smooth, and we have also added ABS & AFS to our infrastructure as well.                                                        

We have been running Nutanix Prism Pro for about four years now.

Stability is not going to be matched by anything else on the market.

Extremely easy to add nodes to the clusters.

We wanted away from the licensing cost from VMware.

Be prepared to have time on your hands after deployment.

Just a POC with Nutanix.

None at this time.

I currently use Prism in my work. All of our work is done within this environment as we also use AHV as the primary hypervisor. It was a resounding change since we migrated from vSphere and vCenter as a truly incredible level of simplification is achieved. One of the great advantages of Prism is its vision at a glance of our entire environment, be it a cluster of three or four nodes or hundreds of them. Finding what you are looking for or visualizing a problem is just a matter of a few clicks, so simple.

One of the great advantages is that it offers an extremely intuitive interface, but at the same time it manages to offer a level of control over all the underlying infrastructure that no other product provides. Options like One-CLick Update make the tool worthwhile on its own, as well as detailed performance metrics for each component in real-time. Its use is fantastic and managed to improve the response times of our IT department, optimize their tasks, achieve more free time to carry out other tasks, and really focus on what is important in the business. Other solutions spend a lot of time setting up an environment that, like Prism, should include everything you need to operate efficiently.

As I mentioned earlier, One-CLick Update, the dynamic monitoring of the entire environment, its simplified search, and all the reporting functions it offers to allow for really complete and neat infrastructure management. All of the additional features included allow for a very advanced level of general understanding. Virtually nothing can escape us working with the tool since every small detail (for example, an IOPS level outside of normal) can be analyzed in detail, generate an automatic report and send it to our team to immediately deal with it.

Perhaps the only point I see as an improvement would be the support of multiple languages ​​in the environment. One of the few things within which I see an improvement point could be the inclusion of multilanguage in the environment. Although it is extremely intuitive and everything is seen in a totally clear way, for some people who do not use English as the main language, it would be interesting to achieve a translation. I am not saying that it is in hundreds of languages ​​or alphabets, but if for example Spanish could be used. This would bring advantages to the Spanish-speaking world that is not used to English.

I have been using Nutanix Prism Pro for two years.

The stability in all Nutanix software is really perfect.

Scalability is one of the intrinsic characteristics of environments. It is a perfect web scale model

Technical support is the jewel of Nutanix and its products. There is no other company with this level of response and quality after Apple.

We previously used rackable servers and VMware as core software along with vSPhere as hypervisor. We switched to Nutanix hardware and its free, native hypervisor AHV, which is really cool.

The initial configuration of the entire environment and its tools was practically invisible. The learning curve does not exist, literally.

The implementation was in-house. Zero problems

In our case, the ROI was only 11 months.

It is essential to take into account the licensing terms. In this regard, Nutanix offers options that allow licensing for much longer terms than the competition and that is a great advantage.

Before using this product we evaluated vxRail as a solution, but economic aspects and compatibility problems made us go for Nutanix and its environment.

Undoubtedly a world-class solution in the administration of hyperconverged environments.

We had large testing VM servers environment on Cisco UCS with Nimble storage, and we have a large Dev environment on Azure. We have a hard time monitoring and managing both environments. And we end up paying lots of money for both. After talking to Nutanix, we ordered 8 nodes, setup and we migrated most of our Dev/Test VM servers back from Azure back in-house. We use Prism to manage all of them from single point of view, have overall picture of our whole environment. The dashboard is the best spot we check and keep it on our screen every day.

We had a test VM environment on Cisco UCS and Dev environment on Azure. From time to time, we need to transfer a large amount of data from one to another. And we have to spin up a different set of test/dev environment, which was challenging. We had many struggles with VM updates and configuration synch up. Since migrating to Nutanix, we have a single virtual platform for both test and Dev virtual environment. It's easy to transfer data and synch up the change and manage/monitor from a single point. Backup is much easier too. 

• Update management for all nodes, which included in it and it is straightforward and visual upgrade processes. 
• Calm is another good feature we are looking at to use the playbook to manage all VMs. We are likely to give a trial on that.
• File is a cool feature that allows you to share files like windows server but actually without a server and it can replicate the changes by using a build-in replication tool. I can snapshot the shared data and the user can restore the files by themselves if needed, which saves lots of effort of SD.

I still remember it was a struggle when we configured the initial network setup, that part was a little bit confusing about how exactly it works, we have two different Nutanix technicians who were on-site to help on the configuration. But both of them could not get right the first time, and we had to reset and start over again on both systems. Even after that, I was still a little bit confused about the virtual network and how each item was configured to work. I would think why do not have a single virtual IP and webpage to guide on that, or sort of wizard to guide through it.

I have been using Nutanix Prism Pro for two years. 

It is a very easy and stable solution, we have not had any issues. 

It is very easy to scale out, you can just keep adding node to have more capacity, and mange from the same prism.

Support is good. But we do not use them much.

We used Cisco UCS with Nimble storage which was over the capacity, then we got some VMs on the Azure, which we have to manage separately. So we moved everything to 8 nodes Nutanix and manage from a single point.

The setup is straightforward. Only the initial network setup is a little bit confusing.

We deployed mostly in house, but we have help from Nutanix engineer. They are very good.

The ROI is better than what we have on Azure and UCS.

The set cost is very minimal, the Nutanix pricing is good too. The file licensing should be bound into the system already.

Yes, because the UCS is close to end of life, we tried to move to Azure, but the cost skyrocketed. 

It is to manage all my clusters. I have nine nodes, splitting six nodes on one side and three nodes on the another side. Prism Pro is the center to manage the whole cluster.

We have a nine node clusters. All machines are NXs from Nutanix. Our environment runs new development tools, like GitLab. DevOps are running inside of Nutanix and a few other systems. We are using Nutanix for new stuff to implement and test new technologies, such as DevOps, Kubernetes, Dockers, and Hadoop (in a few of the clusters for big data).

I am using the latest version.

Prism Pro can do everything that I need to manage my machines. I can manage my storage, priorities, and higher operations.

• The update for all clusters
• The Kubernetes solution for Nutanix
• Calm is a good tool for deploying critical blueprints. 

All these tools are managed by Prism Pro. With Prism Pro, you have the scripting tool where all functions are available through the interface and 1-click centralized upgrades. Though, you can do the same things by programming.

The tool's management for clusters is amazing and simple. It's quite simple to use it daily. With 1-click centralized upgrades, I can update my entire cluster using the data tech software from a single point in an easy way. It shows me that I have an update, then I just apply it, wait a few minutes, and all of the clusters are updated. It doesn't matter if it's a software update or something like bills. Everything is done from one central point. Also, the dashboard are really good. We have some relevant formations where I can see my cluster's CPU age, memory age, virtual machines, etc. All information can be viewed in an easy way, which provides me a cloud-like experience on an on-prem solution.

The dashboards also let me see the efficiency of my virtual machines, e.g., I can set it for a reminder to show me if there are any machines that are overprovisioned or constrained, then I can adjust the machines. In addition, I can create new virtual machines on any clusters from a single point of access. It's a pretty cool tool.

The interface is nice and simple. When the guys did the implementation, they told me, "They will walk me through on the solution and explain most of the important configuration tools." After that, I learned Prism Pro by myself. I never did a training or anything else. When the techs provide a new update, I take a look and see what's new. Sometimes I watch YouTube video from Nutanix with the new features, but it is really simple.

For now, my biggest problem in our corporation is the Nutanix hypervisor (AOS) is not fully operational for some things. We are only allowed to use VMware, but I use AOS. I think the Prism Center needs to include more functions. I know that they're including Nutanix Era, which is the database management and disaster recovery tools. I think that Era should include everything on a single tool where you can manage everything you need inside your organization.

It could maybe have better documentation. Nutanix does have really good documentation, but it could have more details in the future. 

Since 2018.

It's really stable. In two years, I never have had a problem with Prism Pro.

I do the maintenance.

It can grow with my environment. With Prism Pro, it manages your entire Nutanix cluster. If I add more clusters onto that, I can manage it from the Prism Center, I just need to redistribute the cluster, then I can manage it like it's one machine. It doesn't matter if I have two or 100 clusters, I can manage it from a single point, which is good. This saves me time because if I need to update (for example), I can update a lot of machines from 1-click. Then, it will go on each machine of the clusters and update them. I am saving at least 40 percent of my time managing multiple clusters from a single point.

I am using the solution’s machine learning algorithms for things like predictive capacity planning or other functions but I already sp;have good capacity inside of my cluster. I think if I create new machines, it is really good but I am not using it so much. I have enough capacity at the moment. For the tools on Prism, I'm not planning to create so many machines. However, I already do use the tool and the predictions are really amazing. It is really helpful for planning in advance (e.g., six months, one year, or two years) the capacity for the cluster. I can estimate what will be the capacity of my cluster. For example, if I am a planning for one year to create 20 machines with a specific size, the machine learning algorithms can show me if I have enough capacity on the cluster to do that or if I need to expand the cluster. 

Between my colleagues from the operations team and me, there are around six people using it. I'm the owner of the contract for this company as the infrastructure architect. The other five guys are Linux and Windows administrators.

The support quality for Nutanix is unbelievable. The normal way support works from some other vendors: If I open a web ticket, then I need to wait three to four hours for a first contact from the company. Normally, this contact will ask me, "What is my problem," and try to direct me to the right person, then need to wait more. A few times, an engineer talked with me and acted on the solution. However, with Nutanix, I open a ticket, and in five minutes, I am talking with an engineer who can solve my problem. 

It is a really good experience to call Nutanix support via the phone. E.g., I explained a problem that I was having, and they told me, "I don't know so much about this problem, but my colleague at my side does know it. Just a minute." They transferred the call to the guy, whom I talked to and he help me. When they are going to end the call, they only ask for my serial number of my cluster to open a ticket. This is just to register the case. Before this, I had never seen a company where you call, get the support, and after that, they create a ticket for you. Normally, with companies, you need to call to a call center who registers the calls, then sends them to the engineer. When you call to Nutanix, you talk with the engineer.

We are still using VMware vCenter for virtualization management. Unfortunately, many systems are managed by my colleagues from Germany, and we're located in Brazil. 

We brought on Nutanix because we were looking to improve our environment and boost its speed. We were also looking for a new solution/tool. We trust Nutanix, and especially like the cloud-like solution for on-prem. We have been happy with them.

It was really simple for me. When I purchased the hardware, I also asked for an implementation. I followed the implementation with the guys. It was one to two days. When we deployed the machines we needed to do some updates, after that the configuration was quite simple and fast.

For deployment, we needed to install the hardware, do the start up, connect all the cables, and build the network, then install the Prism Pro and all the software. This took two days for us to unpack and put in the rack.

Our implementation strategy was to install the rack and configure the system, then when it was up and running, deploy the machines. It all worked and was really amazing. 

Two guys from the vendor did the installation. I used a third-party integrator, Servex (a Brazilian reseller/partner of Nutanix), to implement Prism Pro for me because because they have some configurations hided in Nutanix. They configure every piece of the driver, etc. I preferred that a third-party company do the implementation for me and I just follow up on all the activities.

Our experience with Servex was really good. Those guys really know the product and tools. The implementation went well.

We needed to install the hardware in two data centers. We installed in one location, then went to another location for install. However, this was a fast implementation.

I haven't fully recovered my investment.

If you compare a three layer solution, server, cell network, and storage to Nutanix, the prices are quite similar. However, if you take a look at the whole environment including the management, Nutanix has a better cost when compared with other solutions, especially because it's hardware. 

Nutanix has good central management tools where one guy can manage the entire system. Looking at other systems, I need a guy to manage the servers and another guy to manage the cell network and storage. I need a bigger team for other solutions compared to Nutanix where I can use a small team and reduce my operations to manage the cluster. Sometimes what you hear with this solution is, "It is so expensive," but the cost and benefits that Nutanix has inside are really good.

When I purchased the cluster, I could use the Nutanix hardware or purchase Dell EMC hardware using Nutanix software. However, when I purchased Dell EMC hardware in the past, if I needed some support, first I would need to call to Dell EMC and they would need to see if it's a hardware or software problem. If it's a software, then the issue is for Nutanix to resolve. This is the reason that when I purchased the solution, I purchased the hardware from Nutanix. I wanted to have the full support experience from Nutanix. I have been really happy with them.

I did a small evaluation of HPE SimpliVity and Dell EMC VxBlock, but I did not like these two tools. I preferred Nutanix because the scalability is better than the other two solution. It also has a better hardware solution that is simpler to use.

While I know that VMware has some hyperconversion tools like Nutanix, the problem is the licensing cost for VMware. For a hyperconversion system, Nutanix has a better solution than VMware, especially if you take a look at the costs.

I only use the Calm automation feature where I can create machines, but only inside my clusters. Its codeless approach to automation is amazing and good. It does some automated tasks on drag and drops. It also provides you the power to adjust scripts and the code so you can do more than the basics. Specifically in Calm, admins can confidently set up automation rules. In the Prism Pro, we have the CLI tool where you can deploy a machine and administration cluster over command line. Basically, you can create your automations on your own without using a DB. This provides us with a single tool for monitoring automation.

I would rate this solution as a 10 (out of 10). I really love this solution. It is excellent.

We are using Calm to deploy a new server. We have four blueprints: the first one is to bring the network; the second one is to configure the elements; the third and the fourth ones are for deploying new servers.

We save a lot of time with Calm. It has enabled our company to develop and deploy applications faster and it has reduced the time it takes us to QA applications. In addition, the solution's support for scripts, API, and domain specific language, has reduced the man-hours it takes to deploy and support applications because we don't have to rewrite all the scripts.

It also helps us react faster to the changing needs of our business because we can deploy another server easily, with just a few clicks.

Also, all of the deployments are exactly the same. We have exactly the same clusters deployed in each of our environments. 

The time savings and uniformity are the two main advantages for us.

We use the solution's support for scripts, API, and domain specific language.

There is room for improvement in making the solution easier still. If you don't know Calm, it's not so easy to use. Blueprint repositories are not all in the same place. Sometimes they are in the Marketplace, sometimes they are on the cluster. And from start to finish, it's not so easy to create a blueprint.

I have been using Nutanix Calm since January of 2019, so well over a year.

The stability, now, is okay, but in the past it was awful, due to both our environment and the solution.

The support for Calm is really excellent.

To me, the initial setup was complex. The way we are using it, it was not easy to do what we need to do. The deployment took us about two hours.

We used an integrator, SCC, for the deployment. Our experience with them was quite good.

For standard use it is quite easy to use, but for more complex tasks it's definitely more complex to use. An example of a simple task is deploying a new server, while a complex task would be configuring a bucket or another repository. Overall, it's easy to use.

You need to have a clear idea of what you are doing before creating blueprints in Calm. It is a really good solution for doing simple tasks, but it's not a good solution for complex tasks. But it can definitely save you a lot of time.

In terms of the solution's abilities when it comes to team collaboration, our team is really small; we are three people. It's quite easy for us to communicate and to tell each other what we are doing.

We use the solution in our production environment and test environment.

The product is very easy to learn. It has a very user-friendly interface. The technical features of the product are very valuable for us.

The solution should introduce more automation features.

I have been using the solution for two years.

The solution is stable. We did not face any downtime.

We were using another software with a poor interface and faced some difficulties. Switching to Nutanix Cloud Manager was very valuable because it saved us time and money. Our administrators also say that the product is very easy to use. We get all the features we need in one product.

Nutanix Cloud Manager is a lot easier to set up compared to other products.

The product is very cheap.

We are currently constructing a new building with a new data center. We plan to use Nutanix for our new infrastructure, which will be complete by 2025.

We use automation to create virtual machines for CIS Benchmarks for our servers, which is mandatory for banking systems. The product has a lot of helpful features for creating servers. The tool can handle our current automation, which has helped us.

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