Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) Reviews

The Nutanix Prism interface is the most beautiful interface I had ever used in any software. The simplicity and fluency of the HTML 5 interface gives a one-of-a-kind user experience. It provides full visibility into and management of my complete virtual infrastructure. The integration to VMware vCenter gives added value, so you don't have to rely on different interfaces for basic VM management.

As I have been using Nutanix since 2014, I have seen approximately five major release versions. Each release provided improvements in performance and new features enhancements. The best part of it is that you just update to get the new features and improvements.

I would definitely love to see single and two-node cluster setup, as well native network virtualization/micro-segmentation capabilities. These are already announced features and much anticipated. I would also love to get application visibility within the Prism management console with more RBAC capabilities.

Since July, 2014.

So far I have not faced any major issues with stability of the Nutanix platform.

Although I have not scaled my current cluster, as it is enough for my company, as Systems Integrators we have implemented dozens of clusters and scaled without any issues.

One of the best things about Nutanix as a company is it's best of class support. The support model has no support levels and the assigned engineer is an expert not only in Nutanix, but in hypervisors and other components as well. They are correctly called Systems Reliability Engineers (SRE), and deserve an NPS of 90-plus.

Yes, we were using traditional server plus storage infrastructure. As we partnered with Nutanix we decided to evaluate it ourselves before we recommended it to our customers. And it’s worth it.

Foundation of the system initialization is provided by Nutanix. They take care of the complete installation and initial configuration, while you take a sip of coffee.

Although Nutanix cannot be compared directly with any other products on market, it’s worth every penny spent. Most of the features are available in the starter version, and the license can be easily upgraded to activate or deactivate more advanced features without any downtime, cluster evacuation, or rebuild.

Yes, we evaluated a few other hyper-converged platforms, but Nutanix was the obvious choice because of its software-only structure with no dependence on hardware components.

I would highly recommend considering Nutanix for any kind of workload, whether VDI, server virtualization, databases, Exchange or Big Data. I will say Nutanix gives system administrators their lives back; no weekend upgrades or issues. The one-click feature is truly a single-click for any upgrade, including Nutanix AOS, hypervisor, firmware, etc.

Nutanix provides an all-in-one solution for operating our datacenter. Nutanix also provides out-of-the-box redundancy, built in storage savings with compression, deduplication, and erasure coding. All administrative functions are clustered and require no other hardware or software.

Nutanix provides a more agile platform with the ability to spin up and down various workloads on demand, provision developer workstations from a master copy, and protect production workloads with built-in DR sync. Incremental capacity growth helps with budgeting issues as we only buy what we need, when we need it.

There is always room for improvement. One area Nutanix can improve on is DevOps automation. While there is some built-in capability via REST service exposure, a more robust automation controller would be welcome. The recent purchase of Calm.io seems to be a step in this direction.

We have been using Nutanix for just over three years.

We are three years into running Nutanix with zero downtime issues. We have replaced one disk.

Scalability is simple and linear with Nutanix. We have expanded our clusters with additional nodes, and each node provides both capacity and performance. We have also added an all flash cluster to run our heavy I/O workloads.

The initial deployment with Nutanix was quite simple. You just provide IP addresses, pick your virtualization platform (VMWare, Hyper-V, Acropolis) and in about an hour, you have a cluster online and ready to deploy workloads.

I would advise new customers to work with their local reseller and local Nutanix representative and negotiate the best deal they can. I think it helps to keep in mind not only the tangible benefits, but also the intangible benefits. The initial cost can appear to be steep, but when you consider the advantages to IT agility and simplicity, it begins to make more sense.

Before choosing Nutanix, we had looked at a few different options. Option one was to expand current SAN/Servers. We looked at a few others in the early days of “hyper-convergence” such as SimpliVity, Scale Computing, Maxta and Pivot3. The only vendor with a complete solution in our minds was Nutanix.

I would advise anyone looking for a complete in-house, cloud-like solution to consider Nutanix a prime player. The technology is solid, and the support (both sales and technical) are top line.

Prospective customers should use Nutanix sales and technical engineers to get a complete understanding of the product. I personally don’t see a lot of benefit for PoCs. The concept has already been fairly well proven in the IT industry.

The three-tier architecture is not that flexible and quick. Now, I can update or upgrade my whole datacenter with one click, the rest is done by Nutanix. No more reading and studying the HCL lists of controllers or disks. Each performance test with SQL, Exchange, Oracle, or SAP is better than on a three-tier architecture. I have one GUI for everything: for my VMs, my storage and my network.

Scaling is very easy and no limitations are set.

The file services that they also provide need some more features, like on the Windows file server.

I have not encountered any stability issues at all.

I have not encountered any scalability issues at all. It is easier than any other product I know.

The technical support is the best I have ever seen. They act quick and directly via Web session. No more first-level support and so on.

We previously used VMware for virtualization and NetApp for storage. We switched because we need to expand and that is not easy with NetApp. VMware only has the best features in the biggest license, which is expensive.

The setup of Nutanix is done in one hour. They say: “Start small, start quick, and pay as you grow”. That is really very easy.

Pricing is nearly the same, but don´t forget in this price I have included my storage and virtualization costs. And it will be much cheaper in the future.

We checked other options, too, such as EMC, EqualLogic, and Nexenta. But the easiest and the one with the most scalability was Nutanix.

If you have an old three-tier architecture that is more than three years old, check your contracts. Check your applications like Exchange, SQL, Oracle, SAP, or VDI, and if you have problems or you need better performance, then go to Nutanix and start a test with your application. I recommend a try-and-buy solution or go directly into a proof of concept. They will help you out.

It is the most flexible product for the datacenter.

• Ease of installing the hyper-visor
• Out of the box High Availability

• Decreased Rack space/power consumption
• No need for SAN
• IOPs has increased as new nodes are added

None, as I like that Nutanix listen to their customers, and implement new features to improve the kit.

I've used it for six months.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

It's excellent.

It's excellent.

We previously used a huge blade chassis with a SAN. We switched because of a bottleneck in the SAN, and it didn't scale well, as we hit queue depth limits. Some advantages Nutanix has over our old solution are:

• Decreased the datacenter foot print
• No need for hypervisor purchase with the addition of Acropolis
• Reduce costs with regards to virtualisation technologies (i.e. VMware)
• Features are at no extra cost
• Ability to scale virtual hosts fast

It's straightforward.

We did it in-house.

Pricing is a little high but if you really look into what the product provides, the cost saving on setting up infrastructure and maintaining it is greatly reduced. Unlike VMware, features are provided at no extra cost. The support for the product is exceptional! Nutanix are keen to make sure their product excels in all areas.

When you get over the initial shock of the price, and think about what you get you will never go back to the old way of implementing infrastructure.

They have OEM partnerships.  

They've got their own developed OS, which is an advantage, if you can save on some licensing, of course. 

The solution is a bit cheaper. The pricing is pretty good.

The stability is very good.

The solution can scale well.

Technical support is helpful.

The initial setup can be a bit difficult. 

Troubleshooting is a problem. 

There are a lot of updates even though the solution itself is fairly long-lasting.

There are no licensed technicians; you have to reach out to Nutanix directly.

They need a more stable operating system.

The stability is pretty good. It is quite long-lasting, however, they've got a lot of releases and upgrades. You need to perform a lot of upgrades during the support peak, which is something new users should keep in mind.

Scalability is okay. It is really similar to SimpliVity in that it's easy to increase the capacity and all resources.

We've dealt with technical support in the past. They seem helpful. That said, they have got some of the bugs that you need to fix sometimes. In terms of just using it and for normal usage, it's fine after you set it up. 

I've also worked with SimpliVity.

The initial setup can be difficult. It's not exactly straightforward. If you get anything wrong, you need to completely start over and begin again. It's not easy to troubleshoot problems either. 

I'd rate the overall setup process at a two out of five due to the level of difficulty involved. 

For the most part, the pricing is fairly reasonable. It's not overly expensive. 

My advice to other users is that you need to think about what you are going to use and why. If you are just using the normal virtual machines, you could consider other brands. However, if you want to use some special instances with the duplication or whatever, Nutanix is a good option.

I would rate the solution at a six out of ten.

We use Nutanix Acropolis AOS for compute virtualization. The main purpose was to replace FlexPod. The important problem we were trying to solve was to replicate between the two data centers. However, we encountered some issues.

I have been using Nutanix Acropolis AOS for approximately two years.

Nutanix Acropolis AOS has very good stability.

The scalability of the solution had some issues because there were many VMs and the replication ran into some bottlenecks. It was an issue that was known to Nutanix and it was not disclosed to the customer.

The support is very good, responsive, and helpful. Even with the issue we had,  where they did not disclose beforehand, they were very quick and helpful with fixing it.

I have used HPE SimpliVity previously and Nutanix Acropolis AOS is better.

We had a service provider do the implementation of the solution for us. They were able to do it quickly.

The amount of people needed for the deployment and maintenance depends on the size of the implementation. We had 30 or 40 hardware systems and they're servicing them with a team of six people.

Nutanix Acropolis AOS is affordable, it has good value. The final price depends a lot on the hardware used, it's an appliance in the end. Whether you use HPE as the hardware vendor or Supermicro as the hardware vendor, it really depends on what hardware is used which is the main cost.

I rate Nutanix Acropolis AOS a seven out of ten.

The features that I have found most valuable are the user-friendliness of that hypervisor. Also, people who are not agnostic about the hardware can go with Nutanix. It has a user-friendly dashboard and interface.

Pros, it's an OEM kind of a hypervisor. It can fit to any size. Pros are that any enterprise company can fit in with it, and that budgets are also not heavy on their pockets. So, these are the pros of Nutanix.

In terms of what can be improved, their local people in this region are not good, to be frank. They don't support any inquiry. They don't support anything we need, especially for projects. So either we need to bypass them or we need to get support from the other regions.

I would say that applies from the sales cycle to the support.

The sales cycles is a very closed group kind of thing. Cons, region-wise, sometimes it's a monopoly. And the pricing factor is there. Plus, they are not open and transparent.

Procurement can be an issue as well.

Plus I don't see any updates happening in this region in terms of what's cooking in the head offices. It should be updated and alerted to the partners. For example, recently Nutanix has done many things in its acquisitions. What new features are going to be added? Certainly partners and other people should have a right to know. And they may gain advantage, an edge, over the other products when they are pitching this.

As for what I would like to see in future releases, maybe the cloud things which were very recently added. What is the roadmap for the cloud and what are there exactly? These things are very new to Nutanix now. That should be more transparent. What is their good part, like Azure or AWS? I would like to know these things. They just need better documentation in general.

I began using Nutanix Acropolis AOS about five or six years ago.

Their stability depends on how agnostic they are. It depends on if I'm using super micro hardware or it depends on if I'm using HPE. So, it's stable. I don't think we are having any issues. It is mostly a stable product. The main issue with stability would be related to the hardware, not to the actual solution.

Scalability depends on the customer. If the customer is savvy they can just add maybe SSDs or something which the KC doesn't support, or something which is out of the box from the hardware which was procured previously. Then we would face issues in the scalability. Or maybe a limit to that addition which was purchased some time back.

We don't require support, as we have in house expertise.

The initial setup is straightforward. We have worked on many products, including VMware and others. It is not complex. I would even say the portal is not so complex.

I would say that it's a simple to use product. It fits all sizes and it is budget-friendly.

One thing to keep in mind is that only experts can use it. It has to be in the proper hands, instead of going to XYZ people just for some cost savings. So lift-and-shift and migrations might be tricky, because it is not like a VMware.

On a scale of one to ten, I would give Nutanix Acropolis AOS a nine.

• Prism 
• One-Click

Now, we can worry less about the technology and focus on other business value initiatives.

A fantastic product that could spend a bit more time in QA between releases.

Five years.

None.

Compatibility issue with Nutanix and Zerto.

None.

Customer Service:

10 out of 10.

Technical Support:

10 out of 10.

We switched from a legacy 3-2-1 solution to HCI due to its ease of use and scalability.

Very straightforward; no issues.

We implemented through a vendor team, although the setup was so easy that we could have handled the process in-house.

We have realized a 3:1 ROI.

The upfront cost can be higher than traditional solutions, but the ROI can be quickly realized for most organizations.

SimpliVity and Dell EqualLogic.

A great product from a great company with world class support.