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IBM SoftLayer vs Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 1, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM SoftLayer
Ranking in Public Cloud Storage Services
21st
Average Rating
8.6
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS)
Ranking in Public Cloud Storage Services
6th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
72
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (6th), Software Defined Storage (SDS) (4th), File and Object Storage (4th), NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Public Cloud Storage Services category, the mindshare of IBM SoftLayer is 0.2%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) is 1.4%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Public Cloud Storage Services
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer1032702 - PeerSpot reviewer
Stable with excellent speed and agility
The most valuable aspect of the solution is simply to have the ability to host in a cloud form and out of the data center - the IBM big iron solution. It's the speed and the agility that really sell SoftLayer. The ELT versus ETL extract, transform and load versus extract, load, and then transform, the ELT method is what really sells SoftLayer. The ability to extract act from your current location, load into your future location, with limited change, and then be able to take the transfer actions slowly and methodically after you're in your new location is the part that really makes this awesome. The stability and scalability are quite good.
Juan-Contreras - PeerSpot reviewer
Ensures streamlined management, simplified infrastructure, and efficient data handling
It has effectively managed our unstructured data, including audio and video files. We've experienced smooth operations without any complaints regarding uploading or downloading videos. While video usage isn't as frequent, we primarily utilize it for downloading videos related to specific incidents for administrators or our police department. We've encountered no issues uploading files of any kind. Transitioning from VMware to Nutanix has highlighted the overall flexibility of Nutanix's platform. Unlike VMware's three-tier system, Nutanix simplifies the learning curve by streamlining operations. The update process, in particular, has been favorable, with no critical issues encountered. The resiliency of Nutanix hasn't been thoroughly tested in our environment so far. However, I routinely check fault tolerance settings to ensure they meet our requirements. During the update process, I've observed critical errors occur as hosts restart, but Nutanix's self-healing mechanism handles these issues seamlessly. The benefit of using Nutanix is evident in several ways. Firstly, we've effectively compressed our storage while significantly expanding our overall storage pool. Previously, our service had a capacity of twenty-five terabytes, but with Nutanix, we've scaled up to a hundred and twenty terabytes physically and approximately fifty terabytes logically. This expansion has been accompanied by noticeable improvements in performance, particularly with reduced latency and IOPS well within the boundaries of our equipment. All our resources are centralized in a single location for managing and running storage: our data center. We operate three Nutanix nodes within this center, effectively managing everything from one central location. We don't have any other locations outside of our data center running a Nutanix cluster. Nutanix's capability to eliminate silos within our organization's storage infrastructure was discussed during our recent call with the engineer. Although we haven't explored this feature extensively yet, there's a forthcoming project where we anticipate leveraging it.One thing I'd appreciate is having a desktop application similar to what VMware offered. With VMware, I could download a separate client program onto my computer, allowing me to log in directly rather than accessing the host through a browser.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The ELT versus ETL extract, transform and load versus extract, load, and then transform, the ELT method is what really sells SoftLayer."
"The stability is the solution's most valuable aspect for our organization."
"The solution's most valuable feature is the Prism Central centralized management console."
"We can utilize mixed storage block-sized objects and combine various databases within a unified interface."
"The management interface is great and you have handy access to several details about your file shares."
"They have well-documented best practices and the interface is good."
"It is a highly scalable solution."
"Nutanix Unified Storage is easy to use. New employees are able to come up to speed fairly quickly with regard to the day-to-day administration processes."
"The solution is simple and robust."
"The scalability, ease of use, and technical support are the most valuable features of Nutanix Unified Storage."
 

Cons

"For us, the versioning was an issue."
"The interface is hard to use for us. It should be simplified."
"The product needs to work a bit more on its ransomware detection capabilities."
"The solution is very expensive."
"While Unified Storage has evolved a lot over time, its database handling needs to improve a little. There could be an improvement in terms of costs. It's a little expensive for Brazil but still delivers a lot of performance."
"Perhaps Unified Storage could be improved by including artificial intelligence to make searches more effective. Also, if someone has access who shouldn't, it could automatically update, so I do not need to physically remove permission. The platform could do it automatically. AI could make it more self-service."
"For me, personally, it's a little bit slow because there's so much stuff in the underlying layers that even after talking with Nutanix support, I couldn't really grasp it."
"Managing other storage infrastructure on Nutanix Files Storage is an area for improvement. In particular, I want to add other forms of storage from different vendors not currently in Nutanix Files Storage, to the file server, for better management."
"We would love to see the analytics and ransomware protection extended beyond just file servers to virtual machines, but they have a different product that covers that."
"The biggest thing for me, which is a pet peeve of mine, is the integration with the hardware platforms."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"Its pricing is good to okay. It is not super inexpensive, but it is still competitive. Everything could always be lower."
"The solution's pricing is fair."
"Nutanix is very competitive."
"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 a good value, especially the support. Nutanix has a highly competent team. The after-sales support is excellent."
"The solution is highly-priced."
"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."
"My company is in Brazil, and making the payments in dollars is tough for our organization."
"The price of the license is expensive when comparing it to traditional storage."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Computer Software Company
32%
Educational Organization
23%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
4%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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What do you like most about Nutanix Unified Storage?
Nutanix has excellent product documentation available on their portals, written in simple, easy-to-understand language.
 

Also Known As

CloudLayer
Nutanix Files Storage, Nutanix Volumes Block Storage, Nutanix Objects Storage
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Whogohost Ltd., Skypicker, Infinity Computers and Communications Company, Grace Co. Ltd., Keyword, Uvionics Tech, Tennis Australia, immixGroup, Salesbox, Cxense ASA, Avnet Inc., Komsomolskaya Pravda, Seekr
JetBlue, International Speedway Corporation, Volkswagen SAIC, Brighton and Hove City Council, Foresters Financial, Janus International Group, Cloud Comrade, Serco
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM SoftLayer vs. Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
845,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.