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Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs Oracle Sun ZFS Storage Appliance comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructur...
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
196
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (3rd), HCI (3rd), Software Defined Data Center (SDDC) (1st), Hybrid Cloud Computing Platforms (4th)
Oracle Sun ZFS Storage Appl...
Average Rating
7.6
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Storage Solutions solutions, they serve different purposes. Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) is designed for HCI and holds a mindshare of 8.0%, down 8.7% compared to last year.
Oracle Sun ZFS Storage Appliance, on the other hand, focuses on Modular SAN (Storage Area Network), holds 3.8% mindshare, down 4.7% since last year.
HCI
Modular SAN (Storage Area Network)
 

Featured Reviews

Sisir Ghosh - PeerSpot reviewer
Scales easily, helps with consolidation, and enables us to clone a VM
Usually, there are separate administration teams that take care of servers, but in our organization, servers are usually looked after by the application owner. However, the application owners cannot reinstall the software, OS, and other things. That only aligns with the role of the HCI administrator. If these rights can be provided, it will be very easy. Previously, it was there, but after certain updates, we found that they have withdrawn those services. For example, you requested a VM, and based on the business use case, I approved it and gave you a bare-metal server. Now you are the owner of that particular VM, so whatever you need, you should be able to do over there, but currently, you have to request me for the installation of the OS that you need, and I have to do it. It is an overhead for the HCI administrator. If that can be offloaded to the VM owners, that will be much easier for us. I have already shared this feedback with Nutanix.
RM
A stable unified storage system that enables quick access to data
The main thing Oracle can improve is the cost. It would be better if Oracle opened up the system to enable integration with other vendors. Whether it's the database, application server, or storage appliance, they should make it easy to integrate them. They need to open up more to ensure that it can work in any environment and IT ecosystem.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure has a simple, user-friendly GUI, and I also like the remote recovery capabilities. It provides a single platform for managing databases."
"Data locality provides super-fast data access and ultra-low latency."
"The fact that there is only one interface to deploy a complete solution for maximum storage is fantastic."
"One of the most valuable features is how well this solution performs. It's stable, aside from some patch issues, but it's great from a virtualization and scalability perspective."
"A great feature involves real-time hardware changes."
"We like that the size of the box is 1U or 2U only, and all the servers are fit into that box. The ease of operation is there. All the servers and the SAN storage are inside the box."
"It is very easy to clone systems using the solution."
"I can use VMware or Hyper-V license, if I already have. But if I use a similar solution as Nutanix Acropolis hypervisor (AHV) that comes embedded in Nutanix solution, I can manage all my virtual environments with everything I need without spend more money on licenses."
"I like its storage capacity, quick access to the data, speed, and overall storage management."
 

Cons

"I'm not very technical, so I don't know if there are any features that are really lacking. Our customers seem pleased with it, and I haven't heard of any downsides."
"There are other services that Nutanix has that could be improved, but I'm not very familiar with the other services of Nutanix, such as Era and Flow. However, they seem a bit hard for us to implement and integrate with the Nutanix Acropolis AOS and other Nutanix tools. We would not dare to implement those other Nutanix solutions into Nutanix Acropolis AOS right now. The implementation of that tool could be the problem, I am a bit hesitant to implement the other tools into Nutanix Acropolis AOS."
"The scalability of Nutanix Acropolis AOS needs improvement."
"Benchmark testing indicated that workloads did slightly better on our Vblock by a few percentage"
"Nutanix Acropolis AOS could improve by having an auto-update feature. At this time I have to update each system manually. However, I bought the standard license and I did not buy the maximum license they have available. There could be a certain license that does the updates automatically."
"We could always use a performance upgrade, or simplified management."
"Pricing and varieties of options could be better."
"It would be fantastic if there was a built-in layer, in Nutanix, that acted like a cloud interface. So far, we need to integrate a cloud interface on top of Nutanix for billing the usage for specific customers' domains. It would be great if a cloud gateway was built-in, inside Nutanix."
"The main thing Oracle can improve is the cost. It would be better if Oracle opened up the system to enable integration with other vendors. Whether it's the database, application server, or storage appliance, they should make it easy to integrate them. They need to open up more to ensure that it can work in any environment and IT ecosystem."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is quite expensive."
"The price of the solution is expensive. However, the price to performance is good. The cost for development and installation is very low."
"Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure could be cheaper. It's costly to upgrade the solution. There are no additional costs aside from the license."
"Setup cost is minor, pricing is quite a bit (we have a 7-node-cluster for about 450K EUR with 2 vGPU-nodes for Citrix) but that includes hardware, software, and support."
"The basic license that comes with the box allows basic virtualization features but advanced automation features would require an upgrade of licenses."
"Our Nutanix license is for five years. There is a support arrangement there, but that aspect is more or less taken care of during the initial installation. With HCI architecture, whenever we do any kind of auto scaling or scaling of servers and resources, there is a significant amount of software licensing involved."
"The pricing is very competitive when compared with other vendors. As long as Nutanix goes forward with the same price and same type of offering, it will definitely have a large number of customers adopting the same solution very soon."
"If they could further reduce the cost, that would be great. I would like to see the cost be less than the equivalent three-tier architecture."
"The price could be better. We have many competing products now like Huawei and Dell EMC, and these are slightly cheaper."
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Comparison Review

it_user244362 - PeerSpot reviewer
Aug 30, 2015
Nutanix vs. VMware EVO:RAIL vs. FlexPod
Originally posted at www.storagegaga.com/dont-get-too-drunk-on-hyper-converged/ I hate the fact that I am bursting the big bubble brewing about Hyper Convergence (HC). I urge all to look past the hot air and hype frenzy that are going on, because in the end, the HC platforms have to be aligned…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
34%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Construction Company
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is the biggest difference between Nutanix Acropolis and VMware vSphere?
We found the reduced power consumption with Nutanix Acropolis AOS a very attractive feature. We also like the interface that allows you to talk directly to your VM from the present software. We fou...
How do I choose between Cisco Hyperflex HX Series and Nutanix Acropolis AOS?
Cisco HyperFlex HS series vs Nutanix Acropolis AOS Cisco HyperFlex gives extended hyper-convergence functions from core to edge and multi-cloud environments. It helps IT and OT teams deploy hyper...
Which would you choose - Nutanix Acropolis AOS or VMware vSAN?
We found the reduced power consumption with Nutanix Acropolis AOS a very attractive feature. We also like the interface that allows you to talk directly to your VM from the present software. We fou...
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Also Known As

Nutanix Acropolis AOS, Nutanix AOS, Nutanix Acropolis
Sun ZFS Storage Appliance
 

Learn More

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

St. Lukes Health System, the City of Seattle, Yahoo! Japan, Sligro, Empire Life, Hyundai AUS, and many others.
Translational Genomics Research Institute, Nara Institute of Science and Technology, CyberSolutions Inc., Y-Telecom, First Alliance Bank Zambia Limited, AZ Sint-Jan Brugge-Oostende, Mutlinet Pakistan, TDC A/S, Digi-Key Corporation, Thurgau Cantonal Bank
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, VMware, Nutanix and others in HCI. Updated: December 2024.
824,067 professionals have used our research since 2012.