Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) Reviews

Our NetApp storage array, nearing its end of life, prompted us to seek a replacement. We aimed to migrate NFS, CIFS (SMB), and SIP shares to a new platform. Initially, we considered a Windows file server, but the Nutanix Unified Storage file offering proved more appealing. However, setting up Nutanix files required a dedicated server, and we used Robocopy jobs to transfer workloads to the new platform.

Nutanix Unified Storage boasts impressive flexibility. It offers extensive capabilities and built-in continuity, ensuring minimal disruption to workloads during updates. Unlike Windows servers, where applying updates or security patches necessitates rebooting and potential user downtime of five to 30 minutes, Nutanix Files seamlessly handles updates. During an update, user requests are automatically directed to another node while the original node reboots and sequences, ensuring a smooth and transparent experience for users.

Resiliency is about maintaining functionality despite setbacks. During our installation, we had three different file servers built with redundancy. When we tested this by powering down one server completely, users didn't experience any change in file accessibility.

I've seen demos of Data Lens, but it's not currently deployed in our environment. Nutanix United Storage is holding it in development and testing until additional features become available. However, I recognize its potential, particularly for specific notifications like unusual file activity, such as encryption or large-scale downloads. The snapshot technology offers the advantage of swift recovery within hours or minutes, compared to days or weeks with traditional methods.

One of the key advantages of Nutanix Unified Storage is its resilience, which allows us to perform updates without causing disruptions to users. This is crucial for our global organization, as any downtime would affect employees accessing files anywhere from Great Britain to India. With Nutanix, we can perform maintenance without worrying about complaints due to inaccessibility. We initially encountered the benefit of this resilience when we first implemented updates. While it was still in a testing phase and files weren't accessible to the entire company, we grasped the power of seamless updates for our globally distributed teams.

Unifying everything to Nutanix makes great sense. We no longer have to deal with multiple vendors. For us to have different workloads running. At one time, we had three different storage vendors for different application uses.

Three years ago, I was frustrated with the user permission management process for Nutanix files. It necessitated using an MMC plugin for Windows. Thankfully, newer versions, like our current version 4.4, have streamlined this management by unifying and integrating it into the overall solution.

Nutanix Unified Storage helps our organization remove storage silos. It allows us to create diverse file repositories, eliminating the need for separate tiers of storage. Additionally, we can set distinct policies based on the specific storage requirements of each repository.

Nutanix Unified Storage integrates seamlessly with other Nutanix solutions, presenting a unified view through Prism Central's single pane of glass. This centralized console simplifies operations, eliminating the need to navigate across multiple interfaces for information or management tasks.

With the current version of Nutanix Unified Storage, we've implemented a new feature called Data Lens that provides powerful capabilities for reporting file usage and identifying abnormal trends. These trends could include unusual file deletions, large-scale file access events, or potential indicators of cyberattacks like ransomware. Additionally, this data lens can help detect malicious insider activity, such as a disgruntled employee downloading sensitive company information before termination. The real-time alerts generated by this system enable us to swiftly address and mitigate such threats.

The feature request I have is for the consistent improvement of how user account permissions are assigned in Nutanix Unified Storage. While there have been vast improvements over the last three years since I began using it, there's still some additional functionality I'd love to see. I believe their team is working towards those goals, but I understand that not everything can be implemented at once, and progress takes time.

I have been using Nutanix Unified Storage for three years.

I've only experienced one instance of downtime, and even that wasn't caused by Nutanix. It was a network issue. This underscores the stability of Nutanix Unified Storage. I haven't encountered any other problems with it. If any concerns arise, we can always reach out to support for a health check. They typically respond quite promptly.

Nutanix Unified Storage is indeed highly scalable. With just a few clicks, we can deploy another worker VM, and the solution seamlessly scales to meet our growing needs.

Technical support is generally quick to respond to P3 requests. Their standard response time is within eight to twelve hours, although I usually receive responses much sooner than that. The benefit of their global support network is that even if we call from the US at midnight, there's a good chance we'll reach someone in Australia who can help and is happy to do so.

We were previously using NetApp for our storage needs. However, when we decided to switch to a hyper-converged platform as part of a broader platform change, we needed to move away from NetApp. Finalizing our purchase with Nutanix was an easy decision because it streamlined the process considerably. The fact that Nutanix offered file services was also a significant factor in our choice.

The initial setup was straightforward. While some network and firewall configuration was necessary, the installation wizard clearly outlined the steps. I was able to complete the installation myself within an hour, thanks to the helpful Nutanix documentation.

The migration, however, took several months due to the large amount of data involved and the need to coordinate with other departments and teams. Since the data resided in existing storage, we continued running our Robocopy jobs to maintain synchronization. This meant we had to carefully choose downtime windows compatible with business operations for the cutover, which ultimately extended the migration timeline.

Two people were involved in the full deployment process.

The implementation was completed in-house.

Using Nutanix as a whole, I've seen a significant return on my time investment. I spend significantly less time troubleshooting, configuring, and updating. It's been much easier, and it's allowed me to reclaim my nights and weekends.

Nutanix Unified Storage pricing is reasonable.

We were initially considering VMware as a hyper-converged solution, similar to Hyper-V. However, the licensing costs for VMware were significantly higher than what we found with the Nutanix solution.

I would rate Nutanix Unified Storage a ten out of ten.

I find the security of Nutanix Unified Storage to be on par with industry standards. Additionally, the various security reports and analytics offered by Nutanix help me ensure that we are following best practices and maintaining a secure environment.

For those considering Nutanix Unified Storage for their organization but concerned about the cost, I recommend visiting the Nutanix website to test drive the solution. For specific pricing information, speak with the local reseller to explore available options.

The only maintenance required is for the software updates.

I recommend reading the documentation and taking advantage of the free test drive before migrating your existing storage to this new platform. Be sure to create a migration plan to ensure a smooth transition.

We run our entire production environment on the HCI Nutanix cluster, including SQL servers, web servers, on-prem exchange, hybrid Active Directory, and essentially, our entire virtual infrastructure.

The biggest problem we had was with an old aging vendor and our three-tier architecture. We had to constantly spend a lot of money on purchasing storage to meet our demands, making it quite expensive. Additionally, our data center's power consumption was increasing rapidly. To solve these issues, we decided to replace the old vendor with a four-node cluster of about 8U, significantly reducing our footprint and the cost of buying various components for virtualization, CPU, and SAM solutions separately. This was achieved by implementing Nutanix Unified Storage.

Nutanix Unified Storage handles unstructured data effectively. Currently, we are using Citrix, which works well for audio and other tasks. However, apart from that, we don't have a significant amount of media of that type in our organization's environment.

Nutanix Unified Storage is incredibly flexible and scalable. It has made troubleshooting CPU spikes, memory, and network issues very easy for us. We can easily fix and remedy any problems that arise. The interface is user-friendly, and we can easily expand and add additional clusters when we run low on resources. Overall, it provides us with great flexibility in managing our storage needs.

The resiliency of Nutanix Unified Storage is impressive, with excellent uptime. We faced numerous issues with our previous three-tier architecture. However, with our current Nutanix solution, we have experienced no downtime in the last three-plus years. It appears to be very reliable.

Nutanix Unified Storage has significantly improved the performance of our virtual machines. We can now supply data faster to our end users without experiencing long waits and lag. Additionally, we save a lot of money by purchasing a server that contains all three components, storage, computing, and everything else at a much cheaper price, rather than buying them individually. Switching to Nutanix from a three-tier architecture has also allowed us to save considerable money on electricity consolidation in our data center.

We immediately recognized the benefits of Nutanix Unified Storage after its deployment.

We have integrated the Nutanix file system to consolidate our files and object storage. Previously, we had a CIFS share from a different vendor, which resulted in significant lag and poor performance. However, after implementing Nutanix and its file analytics component, the speed improved drastically. As a result, we are now able to share numerous files with our end users, enabling seamless collaboration. We no longer experience network bottlenecks or performance problems like before.

Nutanix Unified Storage helps our organization manage and operate its storage from any location. Currently, we have two campuses where we utilize this technology. With the challenges brought about by COVID, our employees in the healthcare profession have shifted to remote or teleworking, and Nutanix has played a significant role in enabling them to access all critical systems just as if they were in the office. It has allowed our end users to work from home and connect seamlessly to their workstations.

Before switching to Nutanix Unified Storage, we had a three-tiered architecture with siloed individuals who only knew specific components of that architecture. This led to a highly compartmentalized organization, with separate individuals responsible for storage, virtualization, and VDI. Now, with Nutanix Unified Storage, all these tasks can be handled by a single administrator as they are integrated into the same system. This centralization makes management much easier as everything is now consolidated within the organization.

We have a Nutanix cluster with four nodes. Additionally, we use File Analytics and Nutanix Files for managing our files. The integration between these solutions and Nutanix is excellent. We can easily manage them through their respective management UIs, which are very user-friendly. There are numerous add-ins and third-party products that we can incorporate into their system, although we haven't explored this option much yet. However, the products we currently utilize, such as Files and File Analytics, seamlessly integrate into a single management interface.

The scalability, ease of use, and technical support are the most valuable features of Nutanix Unified Storage. Whenever we encounter an issue, we call their support team and they are great in assisting us. We are able to quickly scale our environment to meet our annual demands without incurring high costs for replacement or addition. We do not have to remove anything, we simply add on as needed.

The graphical user interfaces could benefit from more attention to detail. Simplifying some menus and incorporating a few sub-menus would enhance the ability to manage the clusters through Prism and Prism Element.

I have been using Nutanix Unified Storage for a couple of years.

Nutanix Unified Storage is extremely stable. In the past three years, I have never encountered any issues that resulted in downtime. The storage system has multiple resiliency and backup features, ensuring that we do not experience any outages. Occasionally, we have come across some software bugs, but when we contact their engineers, they promptly provide solutions and guide us through the process of fixing them. Through screen sharing and phone calls, we quickly resolve these minor issues without any significant impact on our operations or data loss.

What I like about Nutanix Unified Storage is the ability to easily add the amount of space it would save in our data center. With our previous vendor, we needed almost an entire rack full of hardware to accommodate what we are now able to do with just four servers sitting at the top of our rack. This takes up very little space, leaving plenty of room underneath for expansion and growth. All we need to do is buy one server if we want to expand, as it contains the CPU, memory, and storage in one small unit, all being solid-state drives. We can easily expand our current cluster by adding on an additional one, and if we run out of space, we can simply buy and add more servers until our rack is full. This level of flexibility and ease of expansion is something I haven't experienced with their competitors or other solutions we've tried in the past. It requires a lot less effort and work on our end.

I have never encountered tech support that is better than theirs. Whenever I call their main number, I am always connected with an engineer. The person who answers my call is always the engineer who then opens a ticket and ensures they have all my contact information. Once the engineer receives the information and inputs it into their computer, we are already on a screen share. This means there is no waiting involved, and I have never had to wait for a callback, regardless of the criticality of the issue. Whenever I call, I immediately get on the phone with an actual engineer, and I am never transferred. They always manage to resolve the issue efficiently.

Positive

We used to use NetApp before switching to Nutanix Unified Storage. NetApp had much slower disks and did not have solid-state disks. It was essentially just a 10K RPM storage shelf that we kept having to add on to, and it eventually reached the end of its lifespan. The performance was no longer good, and we experienced some outages as a result.

The initial setup is straightforward. I had never worked on an HCI solution before, but I found it very intuitive once the engineer contracted to help us install the solution and showed us how to do it. It didn't take very long at all. He was there for only two days, and we had an entire cluster and all of our production stuff migrated over to it. It was simplistic.

The deployment was completed by two network engineers, including myself and the consultant.

We hired a consultant from Converge Technology Solutions who was helpful in assisting with the implementation.

We have definitely seen a return on investment, particularly from an uptime perspective. It has proven to be more cost-effective and efficient. Our users have been able to be more productive due to the increased uptime with our old solution. Previously, we experienced quite a bit of downtime, which hindered our users' ability to perform their jobs. Therefore, Nutanix Unified Storage has undoubtedly been beneficial for us.

The only concern I have about the cost of Nutanix Unified Storage is the buyout between VMware, as we still use VMware instead of Acropolis. I believe Broadcom now owns VMware, and Nutanix has its own hypervisor, Acropolis. We are considering migrating to Acropolis due to the increased cost imposed by VMware since being acquired by Broadcom, which raised their virtualization pricing. However, in terms of pricing, Nutanix is very competitive. They offer one of the better pricing schemes compared to their competitors, providing many included products at the base level that other companies charge extra for.

Considering our origins and the benefits we gained from Nutanix Unified Storage, we explored other vendors such as Dell VxRail and another NetApp three-tier solution. However, we ultimately found that Nutanix was the best fit for us. Currently, I am the main administrator for this product. In terms of its functionality, I find that it works wonderfully and has several fail-safe features. For instance, if updates are done, it can easily roll them back or identify and fix any issues. Personally, I haven't encountered any problems with it. Additionally, I appreciate their tech support as they are always very responsive.

I give Nutanix Unified Storage a perfect score of ten out of ten.

When I compare the security offered by Nutanix Unified Storage to Dell VxRail, the two solutions are very similar. However, it seemed that Nutanix had a slightly higher level of granularity and more control over the security features and options available to us.

I am the person responsible for managing the environment, particularly in terms of maintenance and patching. I take care of these tasks using either Prism Element or Prism Central. Occasionally, I update our VMware hypervisors through VMware VirtualCenter.

I'm not sure about all the various vendors currently in that field, but when we installed Nutanix Unified Storage, there weren't many other competitors. I recommend researching different solutions, checking their pricing, ensuring a fair comparison of features, and considering their potential future needs. Additionally, it's essential to evaluate how easy it is to support the solution, decide who will administer it, and select a vendor with excellent tech support. Nutanix offers new training at Nutanix University, and I've never seen anything like it. They provide a lot of free videos, training, certifications, and similar resources. I think that's also important for the decision-makers evaluating other vendors to ensure they have some sort of good training documentation or utilities as Nutanix does.

Our organization primarily uses Unified Storage for hybrid cloud connectivity, virtual machine deployment, and migrations. We mainly use mixed storage with varying block and object sizes and compare various databases within the unified interface. It's mainly used to share storage to the SMB and enterprise protocols. It's very helpful for my use case.

We use any data type. The structural application code is any type of data storage. We have EC2 and S2 buckets in AWS and also GCP bucket storage. All of our storage is managed from one location, and we have more than 100 users. 

We previously used a traditional file server storage solution, and we had to use a different vendor for every type of work. By migrating to Nutanix storage, we could simplify everything through a single-vendor approach. The fact that Unified Storage is centralized makes it easier for us to consolidate business operations. 

We also appreciate the scalability aspect because we can scale based on the performance procurement of our workload. It unifies all types of storage. Everything has been streamlined and simplified to a single-window approach. This is amazing because we can accomplish whatever we want in terms of operations and migration. We had a three-tier architecture, but now we can stream everything using a single vendor. 

Unified Storage's centralized management features enable us to accomplish whatever we want in terms of operations and migrations. It's easy to manage the environment. Scalability is also a valuable feature. Unified Storage is highly flexible and stable. Scaling up the environment is simple, and we can scale based on our workload, which can be unpredictable. 

Nutanix's SaaS-based data security solution is great. It protects us against ransomware and global data threats. Everything is protected. It also provides cloud-hosted analytics. The Data Lens monitoring services are working well for us. We can view all the analytics from within the centralized management platform, which is convenient for users. The security features are all there. We feel comfortable knowing that we get a high level of detail at the security level. Data Lens' rating is centralized and everything is easy to use. 

The graphical user interface could provide more detail. It would be nice if we could click on the service and get some expanded definitions of them. When hiring new people, it's difficult to teach them how everything works, but if they can access everything, they can teach themselves. 

I have used Unified Storage for a year and a half.

I rate Unified Storage 10 out of 10 for stability. 

I rate Unified Storage nine out of 10 for scalability.

I rate Nutanix support 10 out of 10. 

Positive

Deploying it is straightforward. I wasn't part of the initial deployment, but I know about the integration and migration because I primarily focus on storage. The deployment took about 20 days. We have about 10 people on our team. 

Unified Storage requires some maintenance, but it isn't that difficult. We need to do some patching, but everything is efficient and manageable. The support system around is excellent. If we need to purchase anything, we can get everything quickly from the website. Only three people are responsible for maintenance and administration. 

The Nutanix team handled the deployment. They were very helpful. 

Unified Storage is reasonably priced compared to other platforms. The license is neither costly nor cheap, but it's reasonable. 

We explored Dell VxRail and NetApp's retail solution. Unified Storage offers a higher level of granularity and more control over the security features, and options are available to us.

I rate Nutanix Unified Storage 10 out of 10. I would recommend Unified Storage if you're looking for more security. It's a feature-rich platform that gives you a high degree of granular control over security. 

We use Nutanix Unified Storage for object and file storage.

We wanted to improve the availability of our storage solution by implementing Nutanix Unified Storage.

Nutanix Unified Storage is a flexible solution that is efficient.

Nutanix Unified Storage has enabled our organization to consolidate our storage needs, eliminating the need for multiple storage solutions.

Nutanix Unified Storage helps us with file and object storage on the same platform.

We are able to easily manage Nutanix Unified Storage from any location.

Nutanix Unified Storage effectively eliminates the silos in our storage and provides centralized access to all our locations across the country from a single location.

Nutanix Unified Storage integrates well with other Nutanix solutions.

The most valuable features of Nutanix Unified Storage are the unified dashboard and the ease of administration.

The integration could be improved by addressing the outstanding tasks that need to be completed before implementation can begin.

The documentation on the support site needs to be improved.

I have been using Nutanix Unified Storage for one year.

I would rate the stability of Nutanix Unified Storage ten out of ten.

I would rate the scalability of Nutanix Unified Storage ten out of ten.

The technical support is quick.

Positive

We previously used Azure NetApp Files.

The initial deployment was intricate due to the comprehensive set of requirements that needed to be fulfilled prior to implementation. It took four weeks and five individuals to complete the deployment.

Nutanix Unified Storage was cheaper than other solutions we evaluated.

I would rate Nutanix Unified Storage nine out of ten.

We have 1,000 users in our organization. Nutanix Unified Storage is currently deployed for a small group of people, but it will be deployed across the organization soon.

Nutanix Unified Storage requires some maintenance.

I recommend Nutanix Unified Storage.

We are using Unified Storage for our hybrid cloud connectivity as well as virtual machine deployment and migrations. We use it to create different tiers where we store our important data, for our data classification policy. Apart from that, we are using it for our production SAP HANA platform. All our use cases are related to our field which is energy and utilities.

The solution has definitely improved things a lot for us. Earlier, we were using legacy infrastructure with a heterogeneous environment with storage platforms from different providers. We had to approach each vendor for every type of work. But after migrating to Nutanix Unified Storage, everything has been streamlined and simplified, through the single-vendor approach. We are able to accomplish whatever we want in terms of operations and migration.

And with the advanced features—the data protection, data tiering, et cetera—we have been able to get rid of data silos.

The features that are most important to us are related to integration with the cloud platforms like Azure and AWS, although it supports Google Cloud as well. But the most important point is the simplicity of the API integration. We can leverage the API integrations and connect our hybrid-cloud network environment with Nutanix's cloud storage.

We also use Nutanix Data Lens to boot our virtual machines and to create zoning. 

In addition, we can manage and run the storage from any location. The solution gives us the capability to operate the complete unified platform from the cloud. We can create the logical chunks in the storage, and we can map the different types of pools to any resource, residing in any environment, irrespective of location.

And for managing unstructured data, like audio, video, and images, we create different types of tiering or pools in Unified Storage. On the basis of those pools, the data is classified and we use the classifications to connect the storage pools to their respective endpoints.

I would like to see the integration of artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies. That could definitely be a major breakthrough in providing a unified, seamless experience for end-users. It could reduce costs as well as human effort.

We have been using Nutanix Unified Storage for about three and a half years.

The stability is perfect. We haven't faced any high-priority or critical issues where the storage platform has been degraded or users are facing difficulties. We are satisfied with the stability and code releases.

In terms of resiliency, with high availability and redundancy, Unified Storage works on a cluster model. With the help of this solution, everything has gone well.

An important point is that this storage is scalable on demand. It's very elastic. We can add and remove clusters without any downtime. We haven't faced any challenges with the flexibility or scalability. We have completed seamless integrations with third-party tools, including monitoring tools.

We have it deployed across multiple locations and have more than 10,000 end-users.

We get tremendous technical support from the Nutanix team, 24/7.

Positive

Previously, we used traditional, legacy storage solutions provided by different vendors, including CommVault and Dell. There were problems because we worked with a very heterogeneous network. We were facing a lot of complexities in terms of compliance and defining processes because we had different types of storage devices in our environment.

We found that Nutanix Unified Storage has a complete and rich set of features that can support a cloud-native platform as well as all the workloads that we operate on different cloud platforms. In addition, it's a very cost-effective and stable solution and includes an extensive set of security features for data protection.

After moving to Unified Storage, we got rid of all those complexities. Everything is simplified. We have a single-vendor approach for all of our storage.

I was involved in the full deployment, including migration, implementation, and operations. The initial deployment was a very straightforward process. We followed the complete life cycle approach suggested by the vendor. With that approach, all the phases went well.

Maintenance of the solution includes patching, checking the efficiency of storage, and checking alerts. These are part of the day-to-day operations. We have about 10 people involved in the maintenance.

We worked directly with the vendor.

We have seen return on investment over the last three years and we are quite satisfied with it.

The solution has reduced our operational, capital, and licensing costs. It has also reduced the human effort and our headcount in managing the operations compared to our old storage models.

Nutanix's pricing is definitely much better when compared to other storage providers. That was one of the main reasons we switched to this platform.

To anyone who is concerned about the price, I would say that Nutanix is very robust, stable, and unified, with a complete set of advanced features. If you look at the features, Nutanix has the upper hand when compared to other vendors.

The licensing model is very easy with Unified Storage and our operational cost has been reduced drastically.

We evaluated another product from a similar vendor whose storage platforms we were already using. The main differences were the cost, simplicity, ease of management, and having a single pane of glass dashboard for each module. The seamless integration and simplified licensing model were also important.

Nutanix also provides very robust security. The encryption is perfect. The data is fully encrypted with an advanced set of encryption keys and policies. We are very satisfied with the encryption and data protection provided by the solution.

My advice to organizations that are planning to migrate to a unified storage solution is to go with Nutanix Unified Storage as this is the most trusted and stable platform I have ever seen.

We haven't had any challenges using the solution. There have been no problems with the implementation, integration, or in terms of operations. That is also true for operational support, technical support, patch management, and license management.

We are also using Nutanix clusters for our traditional workloads and Prism Element and Prism Central. We are using them because they are a part of hyper-converged technologies and save us a lot of costs. These clusters have unified storage, network, and compute, providing an integrated platform that simplifies management.

My colleague and I are currently trying to migrate from the old-style file server to the new Nutanix Files feature. We have bought and organized some sessions with their technician to be able to migrate the files to the new structure and see if we can meet the compliance needs of our company.

We migrated our whole infrastructure based on HPE and VMware to HPE and Nutanix. This powerful and new type of structure has taken our workload to the next level.

We have seen fast recovery time and the ability to quickly move the model machine from one to another. We are proud to be here at .NEXT 2024 and having bought the Nutanix Infrastructure.

Fortunately, we did not have any attacks, and we did not have to manage any attacks. However, with a good recovery point, it would be easy to recover data with Nutanix.

Nutanix Unified Storage has not resulted in a reduction in the number of storage nodes due to increased storage capacity per node, but we have the possibility to utilize more VM servers to synchronize any workload. We can move a VM from one node to another in a fast and secure way based on our needs. We have different types of nodes. We have different configurations, and we can move the servers from one to another based on our needs and the workload.

Nutanix Unified Storage has saved us money because many activities are completely automatic. It surely saves money and time for our IT team. It has saved about 30% of their time.

The scalability, data redundancy, and security are valuable.

The dashboard can have more details and be more useful.

I started using it when we put the Nutanix infrastructure in our company in 2021. It has been about three and a half years.

We have chosen Nutanix just for scalability. We are planning a new installation of the cluster. We have to create a new cluster due to the workload needs. We have to put a cluster in the full flash mode and not hybrid mode. We will put new nodes and attach them to the cluster. It will work great.

Their technical support is great. We opened a number of cases. We had a problem with licensing, and we also wanted some information about launching the shell in CVM. We absolutely had a great experience with the tech support.

Positive

We did not use a similar solution for storage. We moved from hyperconvergence and we had the standard structure.

It is quite easy to deploy.

We had help from Nutanix. Their technical architect came to help us during the migration. He helped design the configuration of the new clusters because we had new clusters. It was great. We had no problem with that.

We had someone working in a supplier company who had experience with Nutanix. One day, we were discussing that our company had decided to go to a new type of infrastructure, and we realized that Nutanix was the right decision. We also started using AHV. We left VMware completely and used the hypervisor on Nutanix.

We are currently considering a new cluster of three new nodes, full flash to NVMe, because we have some new needs for the ERP of our company. If the management approves it, we can put it in our company and take our infrastructure to a new level.

We are starting to analyze the flow with micro-segmentation to protect unstructured data in our organization. We have not yet put it into production. We need to study more and go deeper into it. These tools are absolutely important for us. In our company, security or cybersecurity is put at a very high level. It is considered important. We have to manage it and put the correct configuration with things like micro-segmentation.

I would rate Nutanix Unified Storage a nine out of ten.

We use it for servers and files for internal use. We also use it as a partner because we are also proposing it to clients for S3 anti-ransomware storage and so on.

It is helping us better understand the solution so that we can sell it. We are Nutanix partners, so this is the most relevant for us.

We have not tested Nutanix Unified Storage for data-intensive workloads, such as AI or data analytics, but because we know the latency of the Nutanix clusters, my understanding is that it will be good.

The simplicity of management is valuable because, in more traditional environments, the platform updates are much more complex.

I do not have any input as such. It is a robust and simple solution. Perhaps when it comes to deploying NUS virtual machines on top of CVMs, it should not be necessary for them to be in all of them or they should require fewer resources on the servers.

We evaluated it about two or three years ago and deployed it internally last year.

Its stability is very good.

Its scalability is spectacular.

Nutanix’s support is very good.

Positive

Before Nutanix Unified Storage, we did not work with anything similar.

It is pretty simple. We do not have any deployment strategies.

Infrastructure management is greatly reduced, and that is a quick return on investment.

We are Nutanix partners, so it is pretty good. With the free terabyte that comes with the Nutanix clusters, we have started to build proposals for the clients. The price adjustment with the new policy of Nutanix Unified Storages seems attractive. Let us see if it has results.

We did not evaluate any other solution.

On paper, Nutanix Unified Storage looks very good for detecting and blocking ransomware threats, but we have not tried it. From what we are seeing and hearing, it can be very interesting and powerful.

Implementing Nutanix Unified Storage can result in a reduction in the number of storage nodes due to increased storage capacity per node, but our use case is not very big. We had a more or less small environment, and now with the Nutanix cluster also, it is not very big. It has not affected us in that sense.

For protecting data in our organization, we have backup tools and antivirus tools. We are backing up the clusters with the NAKIVO solution in addition to taking snapshots of Nutanix itself. We also apply the Microsoft security part in the environments. These tools are very important for our functionality to guarantee business continuity in the event of a disaster.

I would rate Nutanix Unified Storage a nine out of ten.

I use the solution in my company mainly for file shares and also in conjunction with objects to provide persistent volume claims with Kubernetes.

In terms of benefits, my company has reduced costs by using free trial storage. Cost reduction, along with simplicity, means only fewer hours are required from manpower in configuration and day-to-day administration.

The most valuable feature of the solution is its simplicity because managing installations sometimes involves defining, undoing, and configuring phases, which are not very easy, but Nutanix makes it straightforward. The tool is very stable. It doesn't come to my mind that I have seen the tool in our company's infrastructure for four years.

According to the keynotes announced by Nutanix the previous day or this morning, the data storage for Kubernetes requires improvement as it has a few shortcomings in the area of operations.

I have been using Nutanix Unified Storage for four years. I am a customer of Nutanix.

It is a stable solution.

Scalability-wise, it is quite a simple and straightforward tool. If you need more storage, you just get a new node, and everything gets done in the background, so you don't have to configure anything much.

The technical support for the solution is the best I have seen in my life. I rate the technical support a nine out of ten.

Positive

In the past, my company tried to use an early version of vSAN, and we found that its performance was not good. After my company performed a PoC phase, we deployed Nutanix Unified Storage.

The product's initial setup phase was simple.

When it comes to the product's deployment phase, my company defines the strategy along with the PoC because we are a manufacturing company that has a large and sparse site with more than 100 factories, which we have to take into account. My company started off with the PoC, and then we expanded.

The solution is deployed on a hybrid model, but the majority of the storage is on an on-premises model. My company uses the cloud services offered by Azure.

Nutanix does provide my company with a technical consultant and a pre-sales engineer to help us deal with the implementation part, after which we perform a small test and then go ahead with everything. In Germany and the United States, my company has worked with a third party that Nutanix recommended we approach in order to deploy, install, and configure.

My company pays money for the tool's licensing fees, but we are saving quite a lot of money by getting to have our own resilient storage device.

In my opinion, the product is fairly priced. I would not be surprised if, in the near future, there is a rise in the prices associated with the tool's licensing models.

My company did not evaluate any other solutions against Nutanix Unified Storage. After Nutanix Unified Storage was presented to our company at a meeting, it would be a good idea to do a PoC before choosing the product.

The throughput or latency of Nutanix Unified Storage for data-intensive workloads, such as AI or data analytics, is not an area my company considers a use case in our infrastructure. In our company, we are exploring and migrating some AI and LLM models while also testing them on an on-premises model in order to have a little more control of the data that we are training and so that we can reduce some costs associated with the public cloud, but in general, it is a medium-term project we have in our operations. The product is also capable of working with big projects.

My company has not faced any use cases where we had to use the product to detect and block ransomware threats.

Implementing the tool has certainly resulted in a reduction in the number of storage nodes due to an increase in storage capacity per node. I don't have the specific number because storage is not my main area, but I say from the top of my head that it could be at 3:1 or 4:1 consolidation. You should not take my word for granted because it is not my main area. The aforementioned area has affected my company's operations and business, especially in terms of simplification, by allowing us to save hours for our providers in the storage area for our administrators while also covering a reduction in incidents.

I don't have any idea about Nutanix Data Lens, but in the future, I am interested in working with the cybersecurity team to have a look at the tool's PoC phase, if possible. I think it could be a good use case for us.

I rate the tool an eight out of ten.

We have a local data center here that isn't connected to the Internet because of the nature of our organization. It does not have any external communications. Last year, we had a disaster when we ran out of storage space in the clusters assigned to the storage containers. We had around 10 TB allocated for files across five clusters. One of our clusters was hosting critical files, so we had to rate the machine consumption from that cluster, and it can expire because the application that the customer was working on was transferring pictures with enormous sizes. 

We realized that we also had the file license, so why don't we go ahead and use it? We contacted Nutanix, and the managers and system engineers suggested we have meetings. We discussed it and then started providing these storage services. Soon, we will expand with node storage, and that will be another option. We're currently looking at best practices because I think there is a limit on the file sizes. We cannot go beyond 10 TB.

The Nutanix solution has improved the overall performance of our infrastructure operations. Nutanix unifies our block file and object storage. It's like a separate service we can provide for the critical applications we are running, but I can ensure each application is secure against ransomware or other vulnerabilities. I will recommend my team to go further with the block and object storage.

I like Nutanix Prism Central. The primary benefit is that we can manage everything from the same page. It also gives you the data in graph form on the main page, so you can keep a close eye on what is happening. You can watch for high utilization and see the disks and reports in the central console. It's a resilient and highly stable application 

The modernized infrastructure and data services feature is the most beneficial to me as an administrator. We derive business value in terms of storage because we have the option of using Windows Firewall.

Nutanix Unified Storage allows us to consolidate our data platform within the Nutanix cluster itself without using external storage. You can work with all types of unstructured data seamlessly with Unified Storage. There should be no problem with that. There are no issues with audio, video, uploads, downloads, etc. 

It's a flexible solution. This is what I understood as I was reviewing the documentation today. Nutanix is trying to simplify storage and has many options for scalability. 

The GUI is easy to use, but it's complex to do tasks from the command line. That is one way they could simplify things for the engineers. People tend to use a graphical interface more than the command line interface. If anything goes wrong, we need to do troubleshooting from the CLI. It would be nice if there were more ways to fix issues within the GUI. 

Nutanix is highly stable. 

Scaling can be a challenge. Once you order a block with a specific size, it will need to be changed to a different node to scale up. We have to expand the cluster and have the nodes ready to increase the storage size. We cannot go ahead and add an extra hard disk if the slots are full.

I rate Nutanix support nine out of 10. 

Positive

We previously used VMware. Nutanix is faster, but the two solutions offer the same level of security.

A typical deployment could probably be completed in a day or two, but our data site required a lot of approvals and an on-site review by our engineer, so our deployment time was around a week. One person is enough to deploy the solution. It doesn't require much maintenance if the clusters are upgraded correctly. 

Switching to Nutanix Unified Storage reduced the total cost of ownership by nearly 50 percent. You can go on the Nutanix website and see a cost comparison of how much you can save over three to five years. 

Nutanix is priced a bit higher than some of its competitors. A lot of Chinese companies like Huawei are entering the Saudi Arabian market trying to provide similar solutions for a lower price. It offers good value, especially the support. Nutanix has a highly competent team. The after-sales support is excellent. 

I rate Nutanix Unified Storage nine out of 10. 

Nutanix Unified Storage is our primary storage solution, and I primarily use its volumes to provide additional disk space for machines. These volumes are shared between vision machines and technical servers. However, for some projects, this solution was discontinued. I currently have all of my additional systems running on bare-metal machines, which fully utilize the available hardware and provide ample storage capacity. To accommodate this, I've repurposed the volumes to share them over the network and connect them to the bare-metal hosts and storage systems. This approach has proven to be highly effective for multiple companies I've worked with.

Another use case for Nutanix Unified Storage is sharing storage through the SMB and NFS protocols. This has been particularly beneficial in my work, as it allows both Windows and Linux machines to access shared files seamlessly. This is a valuable feature for large-scale projects.

Nutanix Unified Storage also offers object storage, which I have used in large-scale environments. However, I have not been entirely satisfied with the available options. Therefore, I have opted to use AWS object storage instead. Currently, I do not utilize Nutanix object storage internally due to ongoing limitations. A year ago, I attempted to integrate object storage into my workflows, but it fell short of my requirements. Consequently, I reverted to the AWS system. Overall, I am pleased with the file storage and volume options provided by Nutanix Unified Storage, as they have significantly enhanced my productivity in various tasks and projects.

I previously worked at a hospital where I utilized Nutanix Unified Storage to facilitate data sharing and capture from the laboratory. I developed a shared design using Nutanix Unified Storage over the network infrastructure. This design enabled seamless data transfer whenever a machine-generated a test result. Upon receiving a blood sample, the machine, connected to a printer, would automatically print the blood test results and the blood type. Additionally, a copy of these results was generated and shared via the Nutanix Unified Storage platform. Using the 'fixable to call' function, I mounted the shared file to the machine, enabling the automatic printing of one hard copy and the simultaneous sharing of a soft copy. This allowed lab technicians or lab doctors to conveniently send the test results to the attending physician at the clinic or directly to the patient.

Nutanix Unified Storage has proven to be flexible to meet our needs.

Unified Storage is good at unifying our organization's block files.

Implementing Unified Storage has streamlined the way I manage and execute tasks across our multiple branches. Unified Storage has enabled me to consolidate data, effortlessly mount it to machines, and share files and folders with colleagues in different locations.

Unified Storage's ability to remove silos is good.

The integrations between Unified Storage, Kubernetes Engine, and the database service are complete. We have not encountered any incompatibility issues.

The Nutanix block files are the most valuable feature.

Unified Storage failed to fulfill our object storage requirements.

The virtual volume has limitations. If I create more than one disk, it encounters limitations. When I mount the volume group to the physical machine, it updates the same disk or partition on the machine, which is not desirable. I was working on a media project that required ten gigabytes of data. I created a volume group of that size, but due to the limitations of the virtual disk, which can be up to 64 terabytes, I had to create a mini disk. Once I mount the disk to the physical machine, it creates a mini virtual disk or mini partition, not just a single partition.

I have been using Nutanix Unified Storage for five years.

Nutanix Unified Storage is stable.

The technical support is one of the best support services we have used.

Positive

I previously used VMware in another organization.

The initial deployment is straightforward and I can do it myself.

I would rate Nutanix Unified Storage ten out of ten.

The security of Unified Storage is comparable to that of other SDS solutions, and we have not encountered any security concerns.

Our positive experience with Unified Storage has prompted us to further invest in Nutanix products to establish our private cloud with on-premises data centers.

I would recommend Nutanix Unified Storage for anyone researching enterprise data storage solutions.