Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) Reviews

In most of the cases, the clients use the solution as a file server or database with data and another solution. Mostly, there is hyperconversion with Acropolis and its hypervisor.

My experience with the Nutanix Acropolis is good from both a reseller and end-user experience.

The automation is excellent.

The product offers a quality hypervisor.

The solution offers very good customization.

The administration with the prem solution is very good.

Overall, it's quite a comprehensive solution.

The user experience is very good.

The product has a very nice user interface.

It's easy to use and has a very smooth onboarding process.

We find the performance to be excellent on this solution.

The cost of the solution is too expensive. There are other options, such as VMware, that are offered for less money. In Latin America, it seems to be overpriced for the market.

We've been using the solution for one year at this point. It hasn't been too long.

We've found the stability to be excellent. There aren't any issues around its reliability. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's not buggy at all.

Nutanix scales better than VMware, however, the pricing is an issue. As you scale, it costs more.

Typically, the customers that use Nutanix are larger organizations as the cost is quite high and an SME would not necessarily be able to afford it.

The technical support is very good. We're quite satisfied with the level of service we receive.

We also find that the documentation is very good and quite easy to understand, which helps with the usability of the product.

We also deal with VMware. There's some competition between the two as VMware is less expensive. 

The initial setup is not complex at all. it's very easy and straightforward. The onboarding process is also nice and simple. We've had a good experience.

Between VMware and Nutanix, the price of VMware is lower. In comparison, Nutanix is pricey. 

I work for a distributor of Nutanix that also handles VMware. However, I market the Nutanix solutions primarily. We're resellers and we're a partner of Nutanix. We use both on-premises and cloud deployment versions. We tend to use Google and Amazon clouds when we use cloud deployments.

The platform is very easy to use and the administration functionality is good. Even in relation to VMware, which is cheaper, I like Nutanix best. It's easy to learn and the processes of configuration and onboarding are fantastic.

Overall, I would rate the solution eight out of ten.

Our primary use case for Nutanix is removing the classic 3-tier architecture and switching to hyper-convergence. 

Migrating from the 3-tier architecture to HCI helped us to free up rack space, remove the old hardware, and run systems on the new platform. 

There was a four-rack, and now there are ten units of hardware. It's really cool and fantastic.

It is now managed from one interface, covered by technical support and it's homogenous. If you need to expand a cluster or storage then all you need is just add new nodes. You don't need to buy new storage, you don't need to expand your SAN, and so on.

Now, all of the systems run on the same hardware with the same software, which can be managed from a single pane of glass. All you need to know is AOS. You don't need to learn about storage, SAN, or virtualization. It's easier to start with Nutanix than start with classic architecture.

The software features which really can improve the organization are deduplication and compression. These really can help to save a lot of space. On the non-homogenous systems, we achieved approximately 2:1 space savings, which is great.

We really love the Lifecycle manager and one-click upgrades. All you need to do is run the upgrade procedure and watch it go.

You don't need to update firmware, software, hypervisors, and so on by yourself. LCM can do it for you. It really can save a lot of time. LCM will install only compatible firmware and software, so you can't install (for example) unsupported firmware and break down your system.

LCM is a really cool feature and one of the best in the market. I have never seen anything like this before. 

I think there is a lot that Nutanix can improve in AOS, in particular, moving tasks such as creating trunked networks and managing nodes from the CLI to Prism Element.

I would like to see more information in Prism Element about how Curator works. 

There is a lot of functionality in Prism Central, but sometimes you want to see those features in Prism Element. One of them is RBAC. If we have one small cluster, and we need RBAC, we must install Prism Central. This is an inconvenience and I hope to see this feature in Prism Element in the next releases of AOS. 

We are using Nutanix solutions based on AOS since 2017. 

Nutanix AOS is a very stable system. You can lose drives or nodes, depending on your replication factor, and you will not lose your data. 

It's very easy to scale. You just add new nodes, increase compute, and increase storage at the same time.

Nutanix has one of the best technical support groups I've ever seen.

They answer fast and they solve problems fast. They don't ask you a lot of unnecessary questions; rather, they just do the work.

Previously, we used different solutions from different vendors. We needed to put it all together, and Nutanix helped us.

Setting up a new cluster is easy and the documentation covers this process.

They are very highly qualified specialists. 

We did not evaluate other options before choosing Nutanix. 

My advice is that deduplication and compression can save money, so use it. 

I had a customer that was a bank. The bank needed to deploy eight nodes at one site and eight nodes at another. Nutanix was great. We consolidated the whole infrastructure because they had heard about the solution and they bought it straight off the top, and they believed in it. 

The most valuable feature would be the ease of deployment. That is the most significant feature for me because I've worked with multiple vendors and it's always been very complicated to install the software and get everything running. It has better software to get everything up and running.

It has a simple interface.

They should lower the price. If they did they would fall into a more competitive market because the price does scare a lot of potential customers away when they get the quote. Otherwise, I never had to call tech support. I actually met up with one of their consultants just three days before I went for deployment. It was the very first time I'd actually tested the software, and that was enough for me to go to the site and get all the work done.

There's one area in which they should make the software simpler with the deployment. If they can make it just a few steps easier, it will be unbeatable. I'm technically experienced so it was simple, but others who aren't as experienced might struggle. If they can simplify the software slightly for the installation, that would make all the difference.

Stability is unquestionable, it's seamless. It's 100% uptime.

The way this device can continue scaling is mind-blowing. I did 1/50th of what it can grow up to and the fact that it can do compression and has all of this amazing software, you don't need it to scale that high. You can just quote for a small solution and it will be significant, which is where they enter the market.

We haven't had any issues that required technical support but I would say that the technical resource who taught us the software and told us how to plug it in and how to install it was amazing. He knew absolutely everything. He had an answer for every question.

The initial setup was very straightforward. I've only been in enterprise as a technical consultant and presales for eight years, which is not so much time relative to a lot of people. The initial setup was simple for me. I never ran into anything that was too complicated. I didn't spend that much time learning the software. I just decoded twice with one of the representatives and that was as much as I needed.

They gave one week to deploy to allow enough leeway for complications, delay and whatsoever. I was finished in three business days. That goes from unboxing each and every device, racking, inspecting and setting it up to walking out of your environment and telling the customer they can take over.

We only require two staff members for the deployment and maintenance, a technical colleague and me.

I would advise someone considering this solution to go with it. We deal with multiple vendors. We're actually partners with a lot of vendors. Most of the enterprise vendors are in the top 10 but I'll say that this is the best that I've worked with.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.  

• Service portal
• Self-service restore
• Single pane of glass for management.

We are a Managed Service Provider and these capabilities make our platform agile and easy to use for our customers.

• Less IT admin
• More performance
• More resiliency
• More protection of data (lots of storage SnapShots with no performance impact)

In order to replace massively Install base of VMware vSphere, they need to expand their ecosystem with ISVs (i.e. F5, PaloAlto, Citrix, TrendMicro etc.) in order to provide a wider range of solutions running as a virtual appliance (vApp), just like VMware did years ago. There is currently an ecosystem, but I think it is around 30-40 providers.

So they should expand the eco-system for Virtual Appliances with Acropolis. Network Segmentation is also a must with AHV.

We have used the solution for about 18 months.

We have not encountered any issues with stability.

We have not encountered any issues with scalability.

Technical support is the best.

We previously used legacy infrastructures: EMC, NetApp, and IBM.

The initial setup takes about one hour and then you are done.

I don't have anything special to advise about licensing and pricing.

We evaluated VMware vSAN.

Don't be afraid of Acropolis Hypervisor. It is stable and powerful, just as vSphere is.

It has built-in advanced analytics and powerful operations, Self Service Portal and components for DevOps included, managed by a single pane of glass (Prism) via HTML5 and it is free of charge – This is why Nutanix is so advanced and revolutionary.

1. Ease of administration
2. Monitoring and alerting features through Prism Web UI
3. Acceleration of non-persistent VDI through the shadow clone feature
4. Localization of I/O makes boot and login storms a thing of the past

Rather than spend valuable consulting days setting up a SAN and carving out LUNs, setting up the hosts, etc., I am now able to quickly configure a Nutanix Cluster in minutes. I use the majority of my consulting time fine tuning the VDI and SBC deployment’s performance and policies which is the most valuable to the client.

I've been using Nutanix VCP NOS for two years.

On one particular deployment, I found two issues with hardware; a bad disk drive, and a bad motherboard. Luckily, Nutanix support contacted me because they received the alerts at the same time I did and we were able to triage and replace the defective hardware prior to the roll-out.

Something to consider when designing Rackspace for Nutanix blocks, and other SuperMicro server hardware, is that you are effectively adding four computer nodes into a 2U space. When you stack multiple blocks together in a rack, the density of heat is considerable when compared to typical server hardware in the very same amount of space. If you do the design without appropriate cooling, yes, you will have issues with stability.

Quite the opposite, really, this is the first time when scalability is not an issue. Adding another Nutanix node to a Cluster adds storage, memory and compute very easily. Nutanix scales very linearly, like some other converged solutions. Because it scales so linearly, it is important to choose your Nutanix model wisely so that you scale appropriately for the workload you are throwing at it.

Customer service is fantastic.

Prior to Nutanix, we, like everyone else, pieced together our solution using HP Proliant servers, and NetApp SAN storage. Between ordering, qualifying, unboxing, setup and configuration, the amount of time required to get the client up and running was huge. We had to have experts on shared storage and networking; a lot of time was spent doing tasks that didn’t directly translate into value for our clients. Switching to Nutanix flipped the value proposition around, and suddenly one technical person qualified in Nutanix was all that was needed. Our time to deployment was much faster, and both ours and our client’s costs went down.

Setup is very straightforward. Once racked and cabled, all I need is an IPv6 capable machine with a web browser. The Nutanix wizard guides me through the setup and configuration of the cluster in minutes.

I am the consultant providing the services.

If you decide to deploy Nutanix in your organization, choose the team wisely. We were fortunate to have our own CTO, Mark Knouse, be awarded the NTC title. As Nutanix aggressively adds new features and ways to buy into the platform, and the Nutanix community grows, having a trusted team with NTCs that works directly with Nutanix with ensure your deployment is a success.

The primary use case for Nutanix Acropolis AOS is as a platform with storage options for customers who are in need of such solutions.

Regarding Nutanix AOS, fault tolerance is great. Nutanix makes managing repositories easier once customers are trained.

Nutanix marketing strategy needs improvement, particularly in Myanmar. There needs to be more events and initiatives to familiarize customers with Nutanix.

I am familiar with Nutanix Acropolis AOS, having used it with some enterprise setups, but it's not clear for how long.

The technical support by Nutanix is rated highly. It's mentioned that support is fast when customers encounter trouble.

Positive

Further emphasis on Nutanix marketing is recommended, including holding events in Myanmar.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

Everything here is virtual. We have virtual desktops, virtual servers, and two Nutanix clusters. We also use Nutanix files, so we don't have any Windows files here anymore.

The interface is very good. Before we used this solution, we had separate storage and switches, but with the hyper convert, it's all in one. I'm very happy with Nutanix.

The price could be lower.

I have been using Nutanix for eight years.

The solution is very stable.

It's very easy to add additional hosts, so scaling out is very easy with Nutanix.

Customer service and support is very good. We don't need it that much because usually everything works fine, but if there is something, they react very quickly. We also have post enabled, which means that if there is a hardware issue or some other issue, there is a case automatically created and they contact us.

The solution is quite expensive.

I would give this solution 10 out of 10.

I would use Nutanix, especially if you have a virtual desktop infrastructure and you want good, stable performance. Before using this solution, we had performance issues with our virtual desktop environment and now our virtual desktops work very well, as if we were working on laptops or desktops.

We deployed Nutanix Acropolis for a school system in a recent use case. One of our clients uses Nutanix for three campus sites. They've implemented multi-site replication, so there is protection on the data center end. Another client is a hospital that uses Nutanix HCI for its medical systems, like PACS imaging servers. We also have clients in financial services and banking.

In addition to the hyper-converged infrastructure, most of our clients are pleased with Acropolis' built-in replication in terms of the DR setup. Our clients also like Prism Central's advanced management and analytics, and many find Nutanix Flow and playbooks incredibly useful.

Nutanix could streamline Acropolis' advanced management to keep pace with its competitors. For example, in VMware vSphere ESXi Hypervisor, you can directly put a host into maintenance mode via the GUI. However, it takes several steps to do this with Nutanix Acropolis, and you need to use the command-line interface for most of the steps.

We also faced another challenge in version 5.15. It wasn't easy to upgrade the firmware. You need to set permissions in your cluster to download it from the Nutanix repository and do it offline. After that, you need to create a dark-site web server and put all the repositories or installers to update there. However, I think they enabled upload mode in the new release, so you can download the firmware directly from the website and manually upload it. I haven't tried it yet, but that should be available in the latest version, according to the press release. 

I also think Nutanix Flow has some room for improvement. It currently only protects east-west traffic — like a mini firewall. You should be able to set a security policy that will let you disallow some ports and subnets. That's the only feature that Nutanix Flow lacks right now. Competing products like VMware NSX and Sangfor are more robust in security at the networking level. I think that's the crucial part, given the security concerns we face. It's not only on Layer 2 but down to Layer 3 and the routing aspects of networking.

We're a Nutanix partner in the Philippines, and we've been working with Acropolis for around five years. We started in 2017.

In terms of stability and performance, Acropolis is excellent. We've never gotten any negative feedback from our users. 

We've deployed Acropolis for clients of all sizes, but most are small or medium-sized businesses. Some are on the enterprise level. We have some major banks or financial service clients who also acquire Nutanix. 

We offer different levels of support to our clients. When they experience a problem, they go directly to us. If we can answer the question, it's all good. However, we sometimes face a hardware or software issue, so we need to open a case with Nutanix or the hardware vendor.

Nutanix support is excellent. Their support engineers are well trained. But the resolution speed often comes down to the communication between Nutanix and their OEM partner. For example, if Nutanix support finds a problem with the hardware, they need to report it to the OEM vendor, so that can take time. But in terms of experience and skills, the Nutanix support specialists are outstanding.

Deploying Acropolis is straightforward. I can implement it by myself in one day. 
After installation, we do some preventative maintenance, like checking the hardware and upgrading the firmware and software for the hypervisor as well as the OEM hardware, whether it's Dell, Supermicro, or Lenovo.

Acropolis is priced similarly to competing solutions. In my experience, as long as we have properly sized workloads on the Nutanix cluster, Nutanix's price can even be lower than other HCI brands. Some of the features are licensed separately from Nutanix Acropolis AOS. For example, Flow has a separate license. Nutanix Files and Objects are licensed per terabyte.

If you are thinking about implementing Acropolis, my advice would be to properly size your workload and forecast performance utilization so your sizing will be accurate and you can predict the cost.

I rate Nutanix Acropolis AOS nine out of 10.