Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) Reviews

We use it primarily for general workload for the virtual machines, reporting, and getting the capacity reports.

In terms of features, we have general availability with Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM), allowing me to manage my Nutanix cluster the same as I could on-premises, and the fact that I can quickly and easily stand up servers is very beneficial.

In Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM), the planning feature in reporting is very useful, as you can create a particular scenario that provides potential resource consumption of your current cluster and can help interpret workloads, which is great for forecasting how long depend on the current capacity and whether you need to purchase new hardware.

We can give developers access to a self-service portal. It's very helpful. You can grant access and give people the power to manage issues themselves. 

We've found we've generally saved time by using Nutanix.

Nutanix gives us access to a single pane of glass by which we're able to see everything. 

It is important to mention that while Nutanix claims improvements in licensing over the past couple of years, I find it a bit annoying, as it still does not work as intended. If there are licensing errors, for example, being told I have 96 cores licensed but Nutanix Flow not licensed despite having assigned units, it complicates things unnecessarily.

We have been using Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) for about three years.

I assess the stability and reliability of Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) with a few issues where downtime occurred; once it was related to power when the whole console went down. 

We had two instances where a network outage caused cluster reboots, which I would prefer to see handled differently as the VMs rebooted to ensure data consistency. 

This behavior differs from VMware where VMs would not necessarily restart, and I am unsure if there is an option to configure the network to prevent this.

Scaling with Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) is not as straightforward as they claim, largely due to the assumption that you have IPv6 enabled on your switches, which we did not. We encountered challenges while adding extra servers to existing clusters; however, we sorted it out with the expertise of the support staff, even though it was beyond my knowledge and experience.

I would say my experience with customer service is a nine out of ten, as I never give a ten. I do not know what a ten is. There is always room for improvement, and they are definitely high quality. There is a feature that allows you to escalate the call. Since 2019, I've only had to escalate twice. 

We had used VMware. If I had to deploy the same and used VMware or Nutanix, I would choose Nutanix at the same cost due to the number of features.

For the first deployment of Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM), we had a third-party help us with setup, while for the next clusters, I handled it myself. The latest deployment involved a partner due to time constraints. It requires some knowledge and experience, however, once I watched the first setup, I was able to do it myself after that.

Migration is also possible to do by yourself. Between Nutanix generation six to generation nine, we were able to move VMs. 

For the first deployment of Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM), we had a third-party help us with setup, while for the next clusters I handled it myself.

The cost reduction has provided some ROI. 

For those evaluating Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) as a solution, I advise not to be afraid to move from VMware and to run some proof of concept, as that was my case. People tend to stick with known technologies, and I understand their reluctance, but change can be beneficial. Comparatively, having similar hardware and paying less with Nutanix while getting many features that work well is appealing. 

In our case, we pay for 60 features with VMware but use only ten, while with Nutanix, we get 25 features at a better price. 

I rate Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) a ten out of ten.

Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) is used to provide applications to users worldwide, which Deutsche Bank requires to ensure accessibility for their end user environment, whether through official laptops or end user devices like mobile and BYOD.

We are responsible for providing the image for their devices, and we ensure different profiles are created based on their roles, granting access accordingly based on their roles and responsibility on respective applications as defined with Deutsche Bank.

One of the best features of NCM is that it provides a very stable environment. If you plan it properly, you can achieve a very robust environment where, from a security point of view, it is extremely good with minimal downtime.

Over the last four to five years, we hardly had any downtime, which is attributable to Nutanix.

This stems from the guidelines provided to us, and by following proper R2 security factors and right disaster recovery processes with appropriate configurations, backups, and screenshots, the environment remains stable.

I find the service and support from Nutanix to be very good compared to other OEM vendors.

I assess the speed of outcomes we receive using low-code automation as not extensively utilized on the automation part, but my team was capable of implementing some based on customer requirements.

We had architects from our side suggesting implementations, and we implemented patiently, creating a very good environment for the customer where their specific requirements were captured, keeping the customer happy and ensuring they felt they were in the right hands.

In terms of improvement areas for NCM, I strongly believe they need to train people on their environment, similar to how Azure provides free coupons for service providers to build strong support teams.

This would ensure resources are well-trained to support Nutanix.

Additionally, quicker response times from local service provider resources could greatly enhance customer satisfaction and confidence, especially during issues or downtimes, preventing business loss.

I have been using Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) for almost four years for one of my customers called Deutsche Bank.

Over the last four to five years, we hardly had any downtime, which is attributable to Nutanix.

For scalability, considering we have large clients, I would rate it a nine.

I would rate the technical support from NCM at a five.

While the technical staff are good, their process of transferring issues from one person to another has ample room for improvement.

Positive

Initially, our clients used Atos data centers, but due to costs, we decided to move them to AWS.

When comparing NCM to other solutions in terms of setup, learning curve, and ease of use, the setup involved Deutsche Bank, our old customer looking for a secured and stable environment.

We had two architects aligned for this account, and from the delivery side, I was aligned as well.

We configured the entire architecture with the help of Nutanix's suggestions, resulting in one of the most stable environments I have encountered in my twenty-five years of experience.

My team was capable of implementing solutions based on customer requirements.

We had architects from our side suggesting implementations, and we implemented patiently, creating a very good environment for the customer.

I do not have detailed figures available about how much time Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) saves, as architects are responsible for that, but I believe there is an estimated difference of at least ten to twenty percent.

On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I would rate Nutanix at around three or four.

When comparing Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) to other vendors or solutions such as VMware, IBM, Cisco, and Morpheus, I find Nutanix much more cost-effective.

As premium costs rise along with the growth of their environments, we are actively trying to convert customers to Nutanix due to its better cost efficiency compared to EMC and others.

My clients are global enterprises, with Deutsche Bank being one of the renowned banks in Europe and having a significant presence everywhere.

When comparing NCM to other solutions in terms of setup, learning curve, and ease of use, the setup involved Deutsche Bank, our old customer looking for a secured and stable environment.

We had two architects aligned for this account, and from the delivery side, I was aligned as well.

We configured the entire architecture with the help of Nutanix's suggestions, resulting in one of the most stable environments I have encountered in my twenty-five years of experience.

My final rating for the product is nine out of ten, but not for support.

My use case is for AHV. The specific solution I use is AHV, Acropolis Hypervisor.

What I appreciate about Nutanix Cloud Manager is the implementation and that process. It is a cloud platform, and the main features I am looking for include integrated network, micro-segmentation, and support for Kubernetes with seamless scalability.

Nutanix Cloud Manager saves me time within 30 minutes. Overall, it saves about 10% of my time.

In Nutanix Cloud Manager, areas that can be improved are AI and cost.

I have been using Nutanix Cloud Manager for the last 3.5 years.

I rate stability at 10 out of nine.

I rate scalability at 10 out of 10.

Compared with other solutions, Nutanix Cloud Manager is very simple, and its scalability is impressive. If I compare it with VMware ESXi, Nutanix supports private and public clouds.

Nutanix stands out because they provide very good support throughout India and outside the countries. That is the main thing, and they have a separate cloud environment.

They provide very good support from the customer side and give a response immediately.

The deployment is easy. It takes very few weeks to deploy based on client availability, and it will take within a week maximum.

I rate the pricing of VMware ESXi as cheap compared with Nutanix.

Maintaining Nutanix Cloud Manager is very easy. I rate their technical support at 10 out of nine. Based on that support and those features, overall support, I would rate it 10 out of eight. My overall review rating for this product is 8.

Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) serves as our single pane of glass to manage our resources for both our on-premises and cloud deployments of Nutanix.

Since I started using Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM), the best features I have noticed are similar capabilities to what we had with VMware vRealize Manager, which allowed us to manage our environments and growth capacity requirements for the future.

Faster outcomes are important for our organization because all IT leadership wants AI adoption and our ability to detect and predict anomalies, so it is crucial that we can quickly generate that data through this platform.

In terms of room for improvement in Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM), while the product has a lot of automation capabilities, the knowledge to do that does not seem to exist with our system integrators, such as Indian IT companies like TCS and Infosys, so perhaps they need to conduct more knowledge-sharing sessions with integration partners to help us at Philips take maximum advantage.

Using the built-in playbooks with Nutanix has not freed up time for our IT, as while the feature exists, the knowledge seems to be lacking with our integration partners.

I have been using Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) for almost one year.

My experiences with Nutanix technical support have been quite good; they are helpful and responsive.

Positive

I switched from VMware to Nutanix because it was a management decision not to continue with Broadcom after VMware was taken over by Broadcom.

Regarding deployment, we did our deployments in partnership with Microsoft and Nutanix Professional Services, and it involved directly running the scripts and making it happen, which was not very difficult.

The process of deployment took us less than a week to set up the environment.

Approximately four people were involved in the deployment from our side.

In terms of finance, using Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) is cost-wise comparable to what we would have paid Broadcom if we had continued with VMware solution, as it did not come at an increased cost; however, I do not think there are any savings as such.

When comparing Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) versus other cloud management solutions, I find that setup and ease of use are there, but it is only capable of managing a Nutanix environment, so it is not really comparable with other cloud management solutions.

My overall experience in my field is extensive; I have been working for 25 years in IT.

I would assess Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) as having the features to help our team address our current automation needs, though there is a learning curve for the people to get started using it.

I am quite happy with the outcomes we have received using Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) so far.

Faster outcomes are important for our organization because all IT leadership wants AI adoption and our ability to detect and predict anomalies, so it is crucial that we can quickly generate that data through this platform.

My overall experience with Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) is an eight because I am not able to fully utilize its capabilities. I would rate this review as eight out of ten.

My use case is that our entire infrastructure relies on Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) only, and currently we have our cloud environment in AWS, which is controlled with Nutanix as a hypervisor, where all our production environment is hosted.

Centralized multi-cloud management is available in Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM), which is very friendly, allowing me to manage all the application, infrastructure, and security in one console, which is a significant advantage for an infrastructure professional. I can rely on one application to manage all these aspects, including security, so we usually do not have to procure any other specific tools related to security or management.

In terms of operational efficiency, we were previously on-premises, and after migrating to the cloud about one and a half years ago, we noticed that our application performance improved to at least 10 times better compared to the previous on-premises setup. I appreciate the efficiency and performance of that environment, and in terms of monitoring and security, the posture management and lifecycle operation in Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) are very good, providing real-time insights that make troubleshooting easy.

Built-in playbooks are quite good when creating them, but we have not enabled those options for automation due to security concerns, so we have not leveraged them.

In terms of architecture, it is quite good, and I would appreciate exploring whether Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) has an option to restore the cluster to a new region. We perform our disaster recovery and have the option to take backups to an S3 bucket, so being able to pull out VMs to a new cluster from that bucket would be a very good feature.

I rate this area a seven because this technology is new to the vendor as well, so for them, it takes time to reach out to developers and check everything in their test environment before providing a solution. Because of this delay, particularly in our production environment, we cannot afford such delays, especially since I recently deployed a DR for Nutanix and have been experiencing some issues due to these delays.

I have been using the solution for about four years including on-premises.

For stability, I would rate it a nine.

Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) is scalable, and you can achieve scalability in a very short timeframe, which is excellent.

I would rate the scalability around an eight.

For technical support, I can rate it a seven.

Positive

Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) saves me a lot of time. Previously with our old VMware setup, operating servers and performing tasks such as snapshots was complex and time-consuming, but now with Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM), it is quite easy and saves me almost 60% of the time.

Deployment was quite easy, and the migration part was also smooth, with good support from Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) support team, resulting in minimal downtime for our critical applications.

In terms of comparison, Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) is very user-friendly and the GUI interface is easy to understand. When I look at other cloud options, the terms and technology defined by Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) are very friendly, allowing a normal system administrator to easily and proactively understand the features, options, and infrastructure capabilities available.

Since migrating to the cloud, we found that the performance of the applications we host there is very good, with increases of up to 10 times, which was the feedback from the application team regarding our production server applications deployed in Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM).

Overall, I compare Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) with other vendors and solutions, finding it quite good in terms of GUI and scalability, and I would describe it as excellent.

Currently, we are exploring Nutanix MST DR, which is the multi-snapshot technology we plan to deploy.

My advice for others looking to implement this product is that this whole environment and architecture is user-friendly, providing significant help for infrastructure support personnel in terms of easy and quick deployment. It is also very scalable and can be integrated effectively.

Overall, looking at the vulnerability aspects and other features, I would rate it an eight. I have provided an overall review rating of 8 for this solution.

My main use case for Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) is that we are deploying Nutanix for the customer and helping them with Nutanix Cloud Platform where the customer is running infrastructure on Nutanix. We have helped them with disaster recovery automation, network micro-segmentation, and related services.

We have a very large customer where we have provided disaster recovery with self-service capabilities. This leaf serves as a disaster recovery solution where we can get automated disaster recovery in the disaster recovery environment with one click. Disaster recovery happens with the leaf with synchronization and real-time synchronization. For micro-segmentation, we are using Nutanix Flow for the network micro-segmentation.

Majorly, the customer is looking for disaster recovery and network micro-segmentation solutions. One more use case is where we deployed Nutanix file. The customer required object storage where we created S3 buckets and Nutanix file serves as a NAS and unified solution. The customer deployed their Kubernetes platform on Nutanix where we assigned Nutanix file as a read-write many. This is a very large use case for us to deploy for a customer.

The best proper feature is Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) where we can get AI Ops, where we can get help from online with the Nutanix portal as well. The second one is self-service and automation.

Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) uses machine learning driven inside to help optimize the capacity, detect performance and automate routine tasks, including enforcing future needs to be automatically resolved. The proactive issue detection helps teams stay ahead of outages.

Another feature is self-service automation which we are using for customers in Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM). Fast provisioning is one of the good features that helps my organization where my team is seeing dynamic improvement to how quickly infrastructure and services are provisioned.

Based on my experience with Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM), it is a very good product and very good platform where we can deploy multiple things. However, I feel that simpler onboarding and learning curves are needed as some users find the initial setup and configuration planning requires expertise. This is significant and required for the customer and there we need to improve.

One more thing that I want from Nutanix is that there is one feature that is lagging. When I am a PS partner or a SI service provider where I deploy Nutanix for a customer, I need a feature in the Nutanix portal where I can download the as-build guide or runbook from the portal as well as on my cluster on my Prism Central or from Prism Element. Somewhere this option may be included in the future where the engineer can download easily and hand it over to customer. This would help to build a fresh document.

As I already mentioned some of the improvement points, one is the documentation gathering. The as-build guide is very important for engineers or persons who are using Nutanix.

I have been working in my current field for 15 years.

Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) is now stable.

It is easy to scale Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM). We can scale a cluster with expansion cluster as well.

Customer support is also good. Response time from support is very minimal.

In my few last experiences where we have migrated workloads running on the cloud and the customer was paying X of Y amount on the cloud, after the migration from the cloud to on-premises on Nutanix, the customer has now saved cost and currently they are very happy with the solution on Nutanix. Their infrastructure is running on on-premises Nutanix with Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM).

Previously, we were using Cloud One as well as VMware. Now, today due to cost-effectiveness, we moved or almost every customer has moved to Nutanix.

I work for a very large organization where 500 Nutanix nodes are deployed. In that scenario, when a customer is requested for a couple of VMs to be provisioned, we created 100 plus virtual machines. This can help with resource utilization and all the related things.

I give an example where we integrated our ticketing tool with the self-service portal where I can get notifications and automation where I can easily manage my infrastructure with automation with a third-party tool.

As I see in this current scenario and today, Nutanix cost and pricing is lower than the different OEM or vendor options.

Faster outcome is very extremely important for most organizations today. Business agility and time to market in the competition market directly impact revenue and growth. Faster provisioning is very good in Nutanix where we can deploy fast and quick outcomes with faster environment setup and fast scaling.

Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) has a feature called Calm or self-service where we are using automation. Before, it was that if the application team needed a VM to deploy their application, I would go to the VM creation and deploy the operating system and deploy the binaries. It would take a lot of time. However, in their self-service portal, I use the template and with one click, we can get the VM very quickly. For example, manually, I spend two to three hours to build all components where I click in the self-service and my playbook is running and quickly in five to seven minutes, I can get the VM.

I give the advice to others to start with clear objectives. Nutanix offers fast provisioning, cost visibility, governance and compliance. All of these features are available. Being with the focus use cases such as common VM provisioning workflow and standard application blueprints, which are all available. I would rate this solution a ten out of ten.

My use case is for legacy cluster migration. We have removed the legacy cluster. We are using a Nutanix cluster to increase availability because it is a very good product with everything in one box: storage, network, and compute. We migrated from physical hardware, which was out of warranty and expired, and migrated the application to the Nutanix cluster.

The best feature of Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) is Life Cycle Manager. When upgrading your infrastructure, there is nothing to do. You just have to pre-check it, and the process is automated. It will check one by one for availability and fault tolerance. It is an auto-run job, and if anything finds an issue, it highlights it in the pre-checks, so that feature is very good.

When comparing Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) with other cloud management solutions, it is good because we are using many things, such as UCS Manager, VxRail, VMware, and vRealize in our infrastructure. The support and SLAs are good, and it is very easy to use, especially when upgrading. The administration is very easy.

Everything required is already in place. It's easy to use, and there is good customer support. For my use case, it's fine. There could be slight improvements in support because sometimes they are not able to understand the issue.

I have been using Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) since 2022 or 2023, when I was at HCL.

It is stable; I never saw any problems.

I would rate its scalability as nine out of ten considering our clients are enterprises.

Technical support is good. There is no issue. They meet the SLAs. They also have a feature for auto generating tickets. With the pulse monitoring feature in Nutanix, a ticket is generated. It's a good feature. We also immediately get an email from Nutanix.

Positive

As an administrator, I am using different products, but Nutanix continues to grow. More customers are deciding to go with Nutanix. They have deployed and migrated legacy clusters to Nutanix. We are still using a VMware hypervisor, but the usage of Nutanix is growing. Companies are moving to deploy Nutanix clusters in their infrastructure.

Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) makes it faster to work. As administrators, we recommend solutions to the client, but the client needs to decide whether to go with UCS, VMware, Broadcom, Nutanix, Azure clouds, GCP, or AWS. Many cloud solutions are available in the market. We are working in IT support as administrators in multi-cloud infrastructure, where we are using Azure, AWS, Nutanix, and Broadcom products.

It is easy to deploy Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM).

Most companies have a hybrid infrastructure with on-premises and cloud environments. The cloud provider is Azure.

Its implementation takes months in terms of planning, designing, deployment, etc.

Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) is cheaper than VMware and other products.

I would recommend Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) to other users because it is easy and cheap compared to other products. I would rate it a nine out of ten.

I have been working with Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) for approximately three years. I work as a multi-cloud architect and solution architect on several different OEM products within the cloud and virtualization space. Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) initially launched in 2022, and I have been working with the product since 2023.

Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) provides automation capability in multi-cloud management, automation, and security with different use cases depending on the organization. The product has different capabilities including self-service capabilities, blueprinting, and compliance, which we utilize.

Feature-wise, the self-service capabilities are quite improved from the initial version and provide governance and visibility of Google Cloud and Azure. Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) Playbook helps us orchestrate operations and reach the desired state, which is very helpful. The low-code automation allows us to manage VMs, remediate alerts, and handle day-to-day tasks with playbooks, enabling intelligent operations.

Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) has the capability for cost optimization and analysis, which helps us scale workload and perform cost assessment and optimization. This is a great feature available in the product.

When comparing Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) with other competitive portfolio products, there is some lack of capabilities. When compared with VMware Aria from an automation perspective, it lacks some CI/CD integration capabilities and integration of CI/CD pipelines.

The user interface could be improved. The UI should be more cosmetic and visually distinct, as sometimes it is very similar to other Nutanix platforms.

Stability-wise, there are no issues. Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) is a very good, well-known, and safely launched tool. I have not found any crash, legacy, or latency issues. The product is completely reliable.

Regarding speed and quality, I would rate the quality at five out of five on the largest scale. Support-wise, I would rate it around 4.5 for speed because sometimes it depends on the issue. If there is a P1 or P2 issue, the timeline will change. Support-wise, I would rate it 4.5 for speed, and the quality of support is five out of five.

Positive

Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) is very easy from a deployment perspective because it comes with the SaaS service. It is completely SaaS-based, which makes it very easy for deployment and allows for a quick start. A fast start is achievable with this product.

For deployment and day-zero, day-one, and day-two operations, around two to three people are required. This may include a system admin, and it depends on how much Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) is utilized. Two people is sufficient for operating and managing the product from an operations perspective.

There are a couple of cloud management solutions apart from Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM). The most competitive would be Aria automation and the Aria Suite from VMware. Nutanix is launching Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) for managing hybrid cloud management environments and performing cloud management.

The low-code automation speed-wise is satisfactory. When doing an apple-to-apple comparison with other automation tools, it is quite good on the Nutanix side.

It depends on deployment. If using SaaS-based deployment, it does not require any management from the organization. If using VM-based deployment, it will require management as per VM-level operations, such as upgrades.

I am not a direct customer of Nutanix. I manage customers who have a Nutanix environment as a managed service provider. Some of our clients have Nutanix clusters, and some have VMware clusters, which we manage as a managed service provider.

We are not a partner with Nutanix, so we do not sell the product, but we suggest it based on the use case of the customer. If a client comes to us with a requirement for automation or management, we will facilitate a tailored solution and recommend it. However, the purchasing and cost are handled by the authorized Nutanix partners who are aligned with that particular customer.

I would rate this product nine out of ten overall.