We performed a comparison between Nutanix Acropolis AOS series and VxRail based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Nutanix Acropolis AOS is the solution our users prefer when looking for an HCI solution. It is user-friendly and offers simple operating system features, easy installation, and excellent centralized administration. VxRail users are happier with that solution’s pricing, however.
"StarWind vSAN has allowed us to leverage our server infrastructure more completely without the need to add more hardware."
"The product's core feature of virtualizing our storage is by far the most valuable."
"StarWind is very easy to use, even if you have had no experience using a SAN before."
"It has a nice, simple control panel. You can clearly see the state and health of storage along with the synchronization."
"The fact that the solution is vendor-agnostic allows it to be used with any virtualization vendor while remaining a powerful abstraction over storage."
"Being hardware agnostic is a must and definitely scored points for us."
"The product only requires two VMWare ESXi host servers versus three host servers for VMware's comparable solution."
"Speed and high availability have been the most valuable for us."
"Acropolis has a great interface and lots of management features packaged with it at an affordable price."
"I definitely find the reduced power consumption very valuable."
"The most valuable features of Nutanix Acropolis AOS are storage and hyper-converged. The solution is easy to use and the administration is very good."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"The best feature of Nutanix Acropolis AOS is the central management of all of our resources. Additionally, it is easy to use"
"Nutanix Acropolis AOS is flexible and has helped people to work from home during the pandemic."
"The most valuable feature is Move, which allows you to migrate virtual machines from VM to AHV."
"A lot of features are there, but for us, on the server administration side, creating a clone of the VM is valuable because many times, we have to deploy security patches. For deploying these patches, it helps to have a clone so that if something goes wrong, we can discard that VM and put back the clone VM. That is a very cool feature."
"The solution is stable and reliable. This is one of the main reasons why we purchased this solution."
"It's a good product based on the features. You can upgrade the solution with only one click."
"VxRail can be used for application modernization."
"You don't need to think about compatibility of components."
"The solution is perfect for the lifecycle management of hardware."
"like VxRail because it's fully integrated. The other hyperconverged solutions are also well integrated. They are all highly similar to each other in that regard. But we prefer VxRail for its physical integrations or lifecycle management. It also has vCenter, which integrates the hardware lifecycle management."
"VxRail has improved our organization by providing our admin team with an easy-to-use interface."
"VxRail can manage the whole cluster at the same time, so it's easy to expand. VxRail has more features vSAN ReadyNodes that make it easier to implement from scratch."
"While we had little to no issues in setting up StarWind and received excellent support from the StarWind technicians, we would have appreciated a clearer guideline for a setup with the free version of StarWind Management Console or, in other words - for the setup with the PowerShell."
"To enable the proactive support capability that is part of our support agreement, I would ask that the terms and conditions be revised and made acceptable to corporate security."
"It would be nice to add the ability to use raw partitions instead of file containers."
"I would like additional documentation regarding possible networking configurations with 10GbE switching."
"Currently, the StarWind management console is a bit clunky to navigate and isn't the most user-intuitive interface."
"I wish they would improve the documentation for the beginner level as it's not very clear on the web page."
"An update caused a syncing issue and it took over a month to resolve it"
"I would like to see improvements in the documentation area."
"The name of the solutions offered by Nutanix does not indicate what the tool does."
"As Nutanix Acropolis AOS is on the expensive side, one of its areas for improvement is the price. It would also be better if it can be integrated with other cloud providers, because currently, it's only for private cloud deployment."
"The latency needs improvement"
"It is a CentOS-based operating system, but CentOS releases security patches almost every week or every other week. However, Nutanix releases their upgrade at three or four month intervals. According to my organization's SLA, if a critical patch is released during that time, then I need to implement the patches within 30 days. If it is a standard patch, then I need to patch it within 60 days. Since that is my SLA, I cannot meet my SLA for security because Nutanix will not release the upgrade within these 30 days. Between the critical patch release and the Nutanix release, my customers say they are vulnerable and I am accepting the risk while the SLA is breached."
"There is a need is to be able to consume Nutanix storage from outside the cluster for other, non-Nutanix workloads."
"If we can have certified compatibility with other companies, such as Oracle, then it would let us know that they function correctly together."
"This solution would be improved with built-in integration with Rubrik."
"Pricing and varieties of options could be better."
"The initial setup between the different Dell departments is fragmented. The engineers who come to rack/stack and do the initial config should be trained on all the areas and work with the different Dell departments whilst they are onsite to give a smoother install and better experience for customer."
"I would like to see more solutions for satellite capabilities where we can put it into smaller locations and still have the redundancy that we have with a larger cluster."
"It can be a bit complex for engineers who are new to it. There's a learning curve involved. They have to learn to operate it."
"The implementation of a VxRail, it's straightforward, but the ongoing utilization, and integration, are where it can start to become difficult if you're not used to doing it."
"All updates are supposed to be done through VxRail, however, the vCenter actually showed that there was an update it needed. I've just started using the product. I didn't know what I was doing. I actually updated my vCenter and that actually threw the VxRail system offline. We had to spend some time trying to get that working again. If possible, they should make the process a bit more clear so we don't make mistakes like this in the future. There should maybe be some sort of pop-up that can direct you."
"The only issue which is every now and again is that when you log in it will tell you that there's an issue with VxRail when there actually isn't. All that's required is a refresh or reload. The solution itself works but you may get some bad reports every now and again. Probably once every couple of months; there is no effect to the solution's capabilities."
"We'd like to see more automation capabilities in the future."
"When it comes to maintenance, it takes 16 hours to upgrade a 12 node VxRail plus. This could be improved in the system."
More Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) Pricing and Cost Advice →
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) is ranked 3rd in HCI with 194 reviews while VxRail is ranked 1st in HCI with 120 reviews. Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) is rated 8.6, while VxRail is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) writes "A powerful solution with easy deployment, upgrades, and management". On the other hand, the top reviewer of VxRail writes "Offers a hassle-free, complete package, and is energy-efficient". Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) is most compared with VMware vSAN, HPE SimpliVity, VMware vSphere, Dell PowerFlex and Hyper-V, whereas VxRail is most compared with VMware vSAN, Dell PowerFlex, HPE SimpliVity, HPE Hyper Converged and Dell vSAN Ready Nodes. See our Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs. VxRail report.
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"Nutanix node you will be running vSphere on top on the underlining Nutanix software" This description is incorrect.
There is no "layer" between the hardware and the OS which is ESXI hypervisor on both cases.
While both systems do a very good job within the nodal limits for scaling a compute environment - it is the networking layer that has the most impact on GPU sharing across a cluster. From a practical perspective, VxRail nodes will typically offer a discount over native Nutanix nodes. With Nutanix you also need servers, disk, networking and GPU's. VxRail will be more integrated with sized nodes, Dell, Cisco or other networking and often the VSphere 7 licenses can be integrated - achieving a lower net cost.
Testing for optimizations on either VSAN or Nutanix to see which favors a vGPU system would be something I would like to see quantified. My guess is they are network constrained and differences between VxRail and a build your own Nutanix environment will be negligible for the same network. Would be good to confirm if there is an optimal point - say 40Gbps vs 10Gbps or 100Gbps for the inter-GPU message passing.
Best option for vSphere 7 is the VxRail as it designed on VMware technology and built in integrates with vSphere, on a Nutanix node you will be running vSphere on top on the underlining Nutanix software.
Ok, I have no hands-on with vxRail.
But we have vGPU running on Nutanix with ESXi (vsphere). I am not aware of something like vGPU sharing across nodes/hosts. You did not mention which solution you have in mind as you would be about to choose in the process.
We have Citrix XenDesktop running. It works really smoothly most of the time. We only encountered a lagging problem once every few weeks which we are yet to solve. Perhaps something running in the back of our net.
With Nutanix you would have a solid base to work with.
You did not mention what automation is to be used. You could use something like Nutanix Calm as an automation solution.
further reading: Citrix XenApp and XenDesktop on Nutanix
Dev-Test: Cloud Development Environment & Testing Solutions | Nutanix
Let me know which platform you have in mind to narrow down suggestions.