Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) Reviews

The main use case for Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) is to create a hybrid cloud experience. It serves as a turnkey solution where we can add management features to get the same experience we have with an NCM Nutanix product on-premises, even if we run Nutanix in the public cloud.

I work for an IT distributor where we sell products for virtualization and data centers, with Nutanix being our main solution for this kind of business. We resell Nutanix for other companies from various industries or markets in Brazil.

The setup of Nutanix is very easy. The overall complexity of the solution is much less, and it's a solution that provides freedom of choice. We can run Nutanix on any cloud, on any hardware with any hypervisor. 

The cost governance features of Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) are some of the most important features in this solution. We have features that help customers spend less on public cloud infrastructure. We have the observability of these costs, attribute quotas or chargeback policies, and with this kind of cost management, the expenditure of IT infrastructure in the public cloud could be significantly less so that the return on investment can be very relevant to companies that spend substantial money with the public cloud.

The console of the Nutanix solution has various reports that we can fulfill and use a SaaS-like solution for Nutanix that allows us to input our expenditure profiles of the public clouds and then compare that with the cost that we might have with the on-premise solutions. 

The main area that could be improved with Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) is the cost. This is a license that we can use as a complement for the NCI product, which is the main product of Nutanix. Here in Brazil, we have a total cost of ownership based on the NCI, and sometimes the NCM additions make the product a little higher when we compare it with the public clouds. We are much cheaper when we compare with the Broadcom vCloud solution, but not as competitive when we compare with AWS or Google when these kinds of solutions are built into the platform.

I have worked for about 10 years with the Nutanix portfolio: NCM, NCI, and NUS.

These solutions are already deployed in a high availability way with load balancing. Any problem with these machines does not compromise the structure of what we have built within. The solution has very high availability with no problems.

In terms of scalability, it is really high. The threshold is not about NCM; it's the size of your on-premises or cloud infrastructure. As long as your AWS or public cloud workloads can grow, the solution is already set up to manage it.

I would rate their customer service with Nutanix a nine out of ten. The support of the Nutanix team is great. The complexity of the matters might make it slightly lower, but even then, this is higher than the average of the market.

I have never used a similar solution in my company. I have only studied the solution from Broadcom.

The deployment of the Nutanix solution is instantaneous. These solutions are packaged in the Nutanix Prism Central that is a piece of software already deployed in the cluster. It requires only the setup of the policies that we want to have, the creation of the playbooks that we're interested in, and the setup of the cost profiles and the quotas or the project. The setup is already done when we deploy the Prism Central solution, which is a main managed solution for this kind of cluster.

Using NCM's built-in playbooks has freed up time for my IT team. We have saved more than 50% of the time. We can create the experience of scale-out and elasticity that we have in the public cloud, provide this to on-premises solutions, and it saves lots of time in micromanagement of the VM profiles.

Regarding the speed of outcomes from their low-code automation, some companies have longer cycles of deployment of applications of infrastructure, and time is money. Once we can deploy large solutions with CI/CD solutions and integrate a DevOps-like flow of production, we can reduce this time and accelerate the value of the solution for the infrastructure. Nutanix gives that with the turnkey solution. We do not have the complexity to assemble a CI/CD solution with open-source solutions or multiple products. This is a complete flow of work for DevOps, integrated even with the Kubernetes or containers infrastructures that can accelerate this kind of deployment significantly, varying with the profile of the company that utilizes it. My company is not a development company, so this does not have this kind of value since we do not develop, but I can see the value that this feature has for companies that build software in-house. 

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

We use the solution between different customers. Each has their own use case.

There's not one use case in particular. However, it does offer resiliency. The optimization and self-healing aspects are great. There are a lot of features. It offers a great infrastructure for our clients. 

The time savings is very good. It's one click to upgrade, for example. There's no interruption or impact, either. It's very simple. 

Its resilience and performance are excellent.

Using NCM's playbooks has helped free up our IT team's time to focus on other tasks. Sometimes, you can spend so much time writing your own playbooks, however, NCM has automation built-in that helps save time. Otherwise, we have to spend to save. If there are just two to five playbook executions a month, it doesn't make sense to write your own.

The learning curve is low. It's easy to learn and simple to use. It's very competitive in terms of ease of use. 

We haven't noted any features that may be missing. 

If they integrated more with GPT, that would be ideal. 

I've been using the solution for three years. 

All Nutanix platforms and products are stable. If there is an issue, it's due to the fact that someone didn't follow Nutanix best practices.

The scalability is very good. 

The customer support is amazing. It's the best support I've dealt with. When support is proactive and opens support cases on its own when it detects something wrong on your cluster, that's great. They'll email you and ask about your availability so they can fix the problem with you.  

Positive

We do not choose NCM on our own. We rely on our customers to pick the product and then we play with it, figure it out, et cetera. 

I am aware of their solutions. The Nutanix deployment, for example, is much easier in comparison. Configurations at the start are straightforward as well. It's got an easy setup. For a developer, it's easier to learn and code code blueprints. 

The setup is intuitive, and it's an easy solution to learn and use. 

Most of the time, it is deployed on-premises.

We provide our clients with the blueprints needed to ensure a successful setup. We tend to follow Nutanix best practices. 

We're a consultant. We do reselling and service. We have an expert in our company that can assist with the deployment. 

It's an affordable solution. However, it depends on the size of your infrastructure. 

We are partners, not customers. We're a dedicated Nutanix partner. We work with Nutanix based on our customer's needs. We're implementing and showing our customers how to use the product, and then we move on. We don't use Nutanix in our own day-to-day.

I'd rate the solution seven out of ten.

I use the solution in my company for all of the created VMs. We have all of our systems in Nutanix. My company migrated from Veeam to VMware and then to Nutanix. In my company, we have Nutanix for all of our servers.

My company chose the tool since it is a very simple and good product. When I checked the comparison between VMware and Nutanix, I found the latter to be better, especially since it is very easy to monitor.

The tool is easy to use. My company learned how to use Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) in about six months.

For me, Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) is a very good tool. The solution's dashboard is fine. The possibility of changing some of the icons in the dashboard configuration would be good since it is an area where the tool has shortcomings. If I want to change the LAN connection or a configuration, it is difficult since I have to keep clicking and clicking the options in the solution. I want to have a one-click button for the network. With one click, I should be able to download three or more VMs with the help of the tool.

I have been using Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) since 2019, so it has been almost six years. I am an end-user of the tool.

The technical support for the solution has been very, very good. With the support team, once you create a use case, you can automatically call and get access to the technical team in fifteen minutes. I rate the technical support a ten out of ten.

Positive

The solution can be deployed in a period of two months. As per the contract, I know that my company had to migrate from VMware to Nutanix in two months.

With VMware, which we had for one year in our company, we paid 20,00,000 United Arab Emirates Dirhams. With Nutanix, in five years, our company has paid 83,000 United Arab Emirates Dirhams, which is very good and not as expensive as VMware. Time for creating VMs is very easy in Nutanix, compared to VMware, as it can be done in two to three minutes since all the templates are great. With VMware, the time required to create VMs is about ten minutes. In terms of time, Nutanix helps save 20 percent when compared to VMware.

I don't use the automation options offered by Nutanix.

I rate the tool a ten out of ten.

It is a part of our automation tool.

It has helped us with our automation. That is the biggest benefit of it.

It is quite easy to get started and be up and running. I would rate it highly in that aspect because you can create lots of things with a small amount of effort or in a small amount of time. These faster outcomes are important for everybody. We do not have any special needs for speed, but everybody needs speed.

Nutanix Cloud Manager’s built-in playbooks have freed up time for our IT team to focus on other tasks or projects. You set it up and then you forget about it, but it is hard to provide any metrics because we have some work to do to use it all the way. We are expecting to have about 20 hours a week of time savings when we are done. That is the expectation, and let us see if we end up there.

Nutanix Cloud Manager is a part of our automation, so it needs to be there. It is important.

I can compare it to Azure. Nutanix is way simpler to start with. It is simple to use. It is not a simple tool, but it is simple to use.

The ability to use the APIs and talk to it through APIs is the most beneficial feature for us because we have to do automation.

Its licensing can be better.

I have been using Nutanix Cloud Manager for about two years.

It is very stable. We have been using Nutanix for 13 years. We have not had any downtime because of Nutanix.

I have not thought about it. If Nutanix Cloud Manager scales with your cluster as a whole, it is then good.

We do not have plans to increase its usage for this use case.

In general, Nutanix's customer service is good. It was better a couple of years ago, but we know that the company is growing. You can feel that as a user, but it is still good. When you get the right technician, you will always have things sorted.

We get the response on time. Sometimes, you might need to prioritize your ticket a bit, but it is working fine.

Positive

We did not use any other solution in the same way that we are using Nutanix Cloud Manager.

We are a heavy Nutanix customer, so we just ended up with it. Its ease of use was important because it made things easier.

It was easy. We did the trial and started using it.

We take care of the deployment. I am a consultant.

We have time savings, and time is money.

It is a nightmare to keep up with all the licensing. I would prefer everything to be at one price.

We evaluate a lot of things.

I would rate Nutanix Cloud Manager an eight out of ten. I have not yet explored everything in it. I am not sure about everything it can do. It might be a ten, but I do not have that much experience with it to give it a ten.

I work at a distributor. We use it for partner-facing demos, and it has been really great. My mission is to help partners see the light with Nutanix, and that's where I use Nutanix Cloud Manager the most.

It's highly capable. In an organization, you can make it easy to use, but you still have advanced features. You're not simplifying or dumbing it down. You're still enabling an advanced user to design solutions and leverage the full product suite. It's highly capable, so you have that great ability to be successful for a lot of different users. You can have a very low-level, simplified user experience and you can also go advanced. In terms of organization, that's really key. As you get into hybrid cloud IT environments where there's a lot going on, Nutanix storage is very powerful.

The speed of the outcomes received using Nutanix Cloud Manager's low-code automation is very fast. The beauty of it is that because it's low code and no code, even as a beginner, I was able to go in and walk myself through it. I didn't need a lot of coaching or instruction to get there. It was fantastic.

In terms of the importance of these outcomes, it's not just about delivering an outcome. Anybody can deliver an outcome if you offer enough time, but delivering that outcome more reliably and faster enables that business to benefit a lot sooner. They then see the cost get lower. They see efficiency go up, and they start to really benefit from technology as opposed to seeing technology and IT in general as a cost center and as a liability.

It's awesome for helping teams address their current automation needs while planning for future expansion. That's because of the way that it enables a broad variety of users to accomplish what they want in a very efficient and simple way. It brings an iPhone user experience to IT, and that's a really powerful story right now.

The best part of it is that when you use the product, there's no secret proprietary magic that you experience as a user. The real genius is under the covers, so it makes the user experience very straightforward and easy. It's a wonderful solution to teach partners about. The ease of use is something a lot of suppliers talk about, but Nutanix does it better than anyone else.

Nutanix has room for improvement around the partner tools and making them approachable and easier to learn.

I've been using this solution for about one year.

It's highly stable. I haven't had any issues. It's very easy to run, and it keeps running. I don't have to do much with it. That's the beauty of it.

The details around scaling, like Prism Central and scaling the resources, are highly technical and get highly specific per use case, but it's always scalable. You can always find the documentation very easily, and it's very straightforward to do so.

Their support is terrific and world-class. Nutanix always talks about their NPS scores, their success, and their commitment to customer service, but I've seen its boots on the ground level. People try to help me even if it's outside of their role. Ever since I stepped into this role, it's been a really wonderful surprise to see Nutanix try so hard to help us. I'd rate their support a ten out of ten.

Positive

I supported other suppliers in different roles. In my IT career, I worked with a number of different suppliers, typically more on legacy three-tier work, such as fiber channel attachment and the like. All those suppliers struggled to evolve to support modern workloads, and that's where I feel that Nutanix has always been ahead of the game. I chose this role to support Nutanix on purpose. It wasn't by accident that I ended up here.

I can't say that I had this same level of experience with the competitors. We are an HPE shop. We have a huge HPE presence, which is great, and I have experienced a few other hyper-converged providers. I've done some VMware training over the years, but I haven't really gotten my hands on them in the administrative sense. It's not as deep as with Nutanix.

Simplicity is a key function for helping a customer really benefit from technology. You can have technology for technology's sake, but suppliers are really stuck in a world that's proprietary. Even to navigate an administrative tool, you see a lot of proprietary terms, whereas a generalist can sit down and run Nutanix very quickly.

In my role, I didn't really decide on Cloud Manager myself, but in talking to partners and end users, it's a very strong consideration. There are a lot of competitors in the space that Nutanix plays in, so the value that Nutanix brings has to be superior in order for them to be effective, and, of course, they are. That goes back to simplicity and the efficiency that comes with it.

I was involved in its setup for our lab. It was very straightforward. We had some help from Nutanix. Nutanix is always falling all over themselves to help us, which is wonderful. It only took a little while. We just did it via a remote session, and it worked out great. I'm located in Minnesota. My lab is in Georgia. The help from Nutanix was in another place, and we had no issues at all. It was very smooth.

It's not necessarily from leveraging NCM or NCI itself just because of the way that it works for us, but our ROI is tied to our partners and to customers in a way. Their success is our success, and that's why we're gaining a lot of momentum with new partners. We're reactivating dormant partners and trying to broaden the Nutanix message. There are a few core partners that do it really well, and that's great, but we try to broaden things, and we have success with it.

For customers, the ROI is primarily around efficiency and simplicity. So as an example, Life Cycle Manager isn't just a great tool for updates and upgrades, it's a way to have happier staff. It's a way to give your staff weekends back, which is great for the staff. They're happy, but it also means you don't pay overtime. There's a win-win there. There's a great symbiosis if that happens when people adopt the technology.

I've never heard a customer ask for a higher price. Everyone says everything is expensive, and that's true. Nutanix is really smart to understand that the most important fact is the value to the customer, not the price tag. 

While you do get some sticker shock sometimes, as soon as you show this and you prove the value, all of a sudden, it looks exceptionally affordable. We've had wonderful success when we get a buying decision in front of an economic buyer, like a financial leader. They start to see the TCO benefits of Nutanix very, very quickly.

Sometimes it's about the little things. It's about what your experience is like and how much time you spend trying to learn how to use the product. It's about how much time and money is it going to cost you to understand their proprietary terms for things as opposed to having a generalist sit down and be off to the races. That can save a lot of hassle and frustration but also time and money. With these projects, it is important to get outcomes, get that workload deployed, and enable a business or a customer to focus on what keeps their lights on, which is probably not managing infrastructure. That's how I see it. 

I'd rate it a nine out of ten. There's always room to improve, but as far as what's on the market today, it's a unique value add.

We have a group of sister companies with different types of applications, from web-based to server-installed. 

We segment our clusters into different areas for each company to use, from development to staging to production. 

Currently, we mainly use the production area, and our staging is off. With the new NCM, we may use a different hardware or environment. 

Since moving to Nutanix, the development and support teams prefer it more.Due to differences in hardware and workload deployments.

One of the solution's greatest strengths is its "Single pane of glass" feature, which allows users to access all pertinent data in one location immediately upon logging in. Additionally, the solution's ease of deployment and mobility are notable aspects that I personally find appealing.

During my attendance at Nutanix, I personally discovered a significant benefit. Although we currently operate a separate division for our public cloud infrastructure, we have yet to leverage the potential of integrating it with Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) or Nutanix Clusters (NC). 

What I've learned is that we can seamlessly migrate and manage the details displayed on NCM's dashboards, consolidating everything into a unified environment. 

While we haven't taken advantage of this opportunity yet, I am eager to take full advantage of it in the future.

Our sister company currently uses an outdated database technology, Sybase, which presents challenges in migrating to a newer database. Despite our efforts to encourage them to move to a different database, the company's 25 years of code and data basic make it difficult to do so. 

We are open to any level of support or guidance that can help us manage the Sybase database, even if it's not a fully managed solution. 

Direction on how to scale, improve, and optimize tables and queries within Sybase would be greatly appreciated.

I have been using Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) for less than a year.

The company has been using Nutanix for the past four or five years and has gone through different versions. However, we have been using NCM for about a year to a year and a half.

I am satisfied with the stability of the system. Our engineers have had no issues accessing it and I have not received any reports of bugs or accessibility problems.

This solution effectively addresses our current automation requirements, especially with regard to repetitive tasks that the team needs to learn how to automate. 

As our company expands, we are interested in shifting the bulk of our workloads away from the public cloud and into our private cloud clusters.

Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) offers a lot of automation capabilities that we can take advantage of in the future. While there are already some basic automation features like Nutanix Move, there is significant potential for additional automation within NCM. 

This automation will greatly assist us in scaling our operations without the need for manual repetition. As we continue to explore NCM and prepare for transitioning away from the public cloud, we can leverage a substantial amount of automation to streamline our processes.

The scalability of the system is straightforward, even from a hardware standpoint. 

Simply adding servers to the data center and integrating them into the cluster is a remarkably effortless process. 

I have not come across a solution that offers such ease of scalability.

I have had the opportunity to engage with Nutanix support through various channels, including email, meetings, and post-installation calls. Even when we added two nodes to our infrastructure last year, Nutanix engineers were on-site to install the cluster, and I must say, they provided excellent service.

The support we received from Nutanix through emails has been excellent, with detailed and concise information provided.

Our experiences with Nutanix's account management and technical account management calls in early 2019 were extremely productive. They were highly focused, aiming to gather detailed information about our environment and workloads. This allowed them to effectively assist with scaling out, gaining a thorough understanding of our environment, and troubleshooting as needed. The level of support provided by Nutanix has been consistently outstanding.

Although I am not directly involved, from my observations, everything has been great, including the engineers who assisted us in adding nodes to our cluster. They were very helpful and knowledgeable.

I would rate the technical support a nine and a half out of ten.

On a personal level, I would rate Nutanix at a nine and a half. However, this rating is based on my limited direct involvement and is not a comprehensive assessment from a Nutanix perspective. Taking into account the algorithm used to evaluate performance, my interactions with Nutanix have been highly positive.

I did not participate in the initial setup process.

We have experienced a significant return on investment (ROI) through our implementation of Nutanix. Initially, we started with two Nutanix systems, using them in our staging environment. However, as COVID-19 emerged in 2019, we acquired six additional nodes and deployed them in our production environment. Almost immediately after putting them into operation, we witnessed the tangible value they brought. The returns generated from this implementation have been substantial.

We initiated a gradual migration process, gradually transferring workloads into the Nutanix environment. As our workload demands grew, we reached capacity in the system by the end of last year. To accommodate this expansion, we have already acquired and installed a new cluster. Additionally, we have a dedicated disaster recovery (DR) site, and our objective is to transform this DR site into a fully operational production site by deploying another new cluster there.

On one side, we have our production environment, while on the other side, we have our disaster recovery (DR) setup. As we continue to witness the positive impact and returns on investment (ROI), we anticipate further growth in our Nutanix infrastructure. Initially, there was some hesitation and uncertainty, but once we experienced the immediate benefits and ROI, we realized the immense value Nutanix brings to our operations.

Implementing Nutanix brings both cost and time benefits. With an initial investment, the focus shifts toward recovering and maximizing the value of that investment. In contrast, when relying solely on the public cloud, there is a constant ongoing investment and potential challenges in controlling costs. While efforts are made to maintain control, it can still be a never-ending endeavor. However, by adopting Nutanix, engineers can quickly grasp and adapt to the system, making informed decisions and judgment calls more efficiently. This ease of learning and system familiarity empowers them to navigate and optimize the infrastructure with confidence.

With the ease of use and automation provided by Nutanix, our engineers can make informed decisions on workload management such as migration, reduction, or scaling up. This saves them time and provides opportunities for personal and professional development.

We evaluated AWS as a file management system, and it appears to be a possible solution.

When it comes to setup, both AWS and Nutanix offer attractive features from a management perspective. However, AWS can sometimes be a bit confusing, requiring repetitive actions and causing potential challenges. 

On the other hand, Nutanix, particularly with the support of NCM and its accompanying university resources, simplifies the transition from learning to live environments. 

The comprehensive coverage in the university program facilitates easier implementation in the actual environment, further aided by features like the test drive, which allows for experimentation without concerns about breaking anything. This emphasis on ease of use was the primary topic of discussion.

From my personal preference, having everything consolidated in a single pane of glass is important, and Nutanix excels in this aspect. 

While AWS has recently introduced cost statistics upon login, Nutanix had already implemented this feature earlier. 

Not only does Nutanix provide a comprehensive overview, but it also allows for effortless navigation into deeper insights with just a click. In contrast, AWS requires more extensive digging or clicking to access detailed information, making the process less user-friendly compared to Nutanix.

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

The primary use case for Nutanix Cloud Manager is to distribute the workload for the infrastructure. It is used for virtualization and integrates with the front end to provide cloud features as a private cloud to the development and operations team, leading to less management overhead for the administrator team.

Nutanix Cloud Manager is a stable product compared to other vendors. It is beneficial for integrating with the front end to provide cloud features as a private cloud to development and operations teams. This reduces management overhead for the administrator team, allowing the end users to directly access features and reducing integration time.

The file server is the best feature because it supports different vendors such as Microsoft Hyper-V and VMware without locking with a specific vendor. Nutanix is a stable product with fewer limitations compared to competitors like VxRail. It is beneficial for integrating with the front end to provide cloud features as a private cloud to development and operations teams. This reduces management overhead for the administrator team.

The product could be more flexible with plugins. Quick resolution of disconnection issues and errors in plugins is crucial. Sometimes plugins are not working well, and the resolution time is too long.

I have been using Nutanix Cloud Manager for around two years.

It is a stable product. Bugs, glitches, and downtime are minimal. I would rate the stability a nine out of ten.

Scalability is good, and I would rate it a ten.

Technical support is good. I would rate it nine out of ten.

Positive

I used VMware VCF before, but it was not as flexible compared to Nutanix.

The initial setup was moderate. It required some understanding of clustering, so while it was doable, it was not very easy for every user to undertake.

The deployment involved around ten people.

Setting up Nutanix Cloud Manager has saved a significant amount of time. Compared to VMware, the setup time was reduced by about twenty percent.

The pricing is moderate. It is not cheap or expensive.

I used VMware VCF before, but it was not as flexible as Nutanix. I also considered VxRail.

I would give Nutanix Cloud Manager a seven out of ten. The complete solution is overall good, but some improvement is required, especially with the flexibility of plugins and disconnection issues.

We use the solution to automate the business processes for our customers.

For our customers, the solution is an added value to their environment. It helps them automate critical processes instead of doing them manually.

The solution provides the best automation features.

They should include more use cases for automation in administering the environment.

We have been using the solution for two years.

It is a stable solution.

It is a scalable solution.

The support team’s response time is good. Although, it depends on the criticality of the issue.

Positive

We have used PowerShell and Orchestrator before. In comparison, NCM provides better integration.

The solution's initial setup is straightforward. There is a lot of documentation and webinars on Nutanix's portal to learn the implementation process.

The solution generates a return on investment. There is no need to appoint a resource as it automates the processes.

The solution is expensive.

NCM provides faster automation than manual operations. Its maintenance is less time-consuming due to the high availability of its infrastructure. In addition, it saves a lot of time as there is no need to generate reports and alerts. We can just read the insights data on the dashboard. It helps our executives to concentrate more on projects instead of operations.

I rate the solution an eight out of ten.