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Reseller
Good documentation and support, with a strong community that is responsive
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable feature is the one-click to update the firmware and software."
  • "I would like to see official compatibility with Red Hat in the future."

What is our primary use case?

We are a reseller and Nutanix Acropolis AOS is one of the products that I have experience with. I have three nodes, and I am very satisfied with it. I deploy my ERP and my CRM into this infrastructure.

How has it helped my organization?

This solution provides very good opportunities.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature is the one-click to update the firmware and software. This is a very good feature for me.

What needs improvement?

The access speed needs to be improved.

I would like to see official compatibility with Red Hat in the future. This is important because we have a lot of customers who are using Red Hat.

Buyer's Guide
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)
February 2025
Learn what your peers think about Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI). Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: February 2025.
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For how long have I used the solution?

We have been working with this product for approximately a year and a half.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability is very good.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability is wonderful, as it is very easy to increase scale.

Our clients are medium and large-sized companies.

How are customer service and support?

Nutanix technical support is very good. The documentation and the community are also very good. There are a lot of blogs in the network and they respond very quickly when we have a problem.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is very easy. The length of time required for deployment depends on the packages and functionality. In some instances, we have deployed in one minute, whereas in others, it has taken 30 minutes.

What about the implementation team?

We have a team of developers and they are responsible for the deployment we use in the company.

What other advice do I have?

Overall, this is a very good product. I would say that it is a Top of the World solution.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
PeerSpot user
Consultant at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
One interface for complete solution with maximum storage
Pros and Cons
  • "The fact that there is only one interface to deploy a complete solution for maximum storage is fantastic."
  • "They have offered some new features that I have not deployed so I assume that these issues might have been addressed already, but, at my time there was a networking problem."

What is our primary use case?

I used this for training the value-added reseller. I trained the technique on the console terms to be able to pass the NCP exam.

What is most valuable?

The fact that there is only one interface to deploy a complete solution for maximum storage is fantastic.

What needs improvement?

They have offered some new features that I have not deployed so I assume that these issues might have been addressed already, but there was a networking problem. This solution could use network improvements.

I think the next release should include a software improvement, like the ability to deploy with a cloud provider like Amazon or Microsoft Azure. I believe that they are already working on this and I think that the best improvement would be to remove the storage configuration because you don't need to manage or to configure this. By default, it should take all the available storage to present the data. They should create network storage in which the administrator doesn't have to manage or configure this part. They should work on the deployment and storage. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I've used Nutanix for more than five years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability is very good. It was actually the hardware that had some issues and that does not have to do with Nutanix. The hardware manufacturer is behind that. I don't remember having any issues with the stability of the software.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Scalability is very good, I have removed nodes with no problem. It works well when you follow all the best practices of course.

Sometimes during the most important trainings, there were 14 staff members on two internet clusters.

How are customer service and technical support?

I have no idea how customer service is because I've never dealt with them. We managed to solve any problems by ourselves so we didn't call support.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I have used VMware solutions with server and storage on the same switch. It was the same product on the same architecture, so I cannot challenge those architectures. They are one and the same. I used to deploy HP 300 AP, which is the exact same solution from HP with the VSA solution. VMware was embedded, but from my point of view, it was a little bit too difficult compared to Nutanix.

How was the initial setup?

I don't remember how complex the setup was. In terms of deployment time, it depends on the nodes. I bring solutions with ACP on HTTP and it takes about the 45 minutes and once I had the chance to deploy on an all-flash solution and it was very fast.

What about the implementation team?

I did the setup by my self. I had to reimage each of the nodes to be able to produce a definite image.

What other advice do I have?

Follow the best practices and check everything. The network is always the point of failure, and if you don't configure or manage the best ways for the network, it will remind you that you have an issue, or that you don't have well-prepared deployment.

I would rate Nutanix as nine out of ten because there is always room for improvement. From the beginning, they had a start-up position, but now it seems that they are going to move to the dark side of the market on the license end, like VMware. It seems like you will need a license for everything now. In the beginning, you could have everything with one license, but it looks like now you need a license for these features, another license for other features, and for everything that gives improvements to the solutions you have to buy another license for. That is not good from my point of view.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)
February 2025
Learn what your peers think about Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI). Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: February 2025.
838,713 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Direction Générale des Impôts at a sports company with 201-500 employees
Real User
Having everything on one platform reduces time in maintenance for our IT team
Pros and Cons
  • "It is a good solution and it is easy to work on their platform."
  • "If we can have certified compatibility with other companies, such as Oracle, then it would let us know that they function correctly together."

What is our primary use case?

Our primary use case is to support technical applications for our IT team. We are not yet using it for production.

What is most valuable?

I think that the most interesting features are the replication and redundancy.

It is a good solution and it is easy to work on a Nutanix platform.

What needs improvement?

I think that there are several areas that they can improve slightly, including the mail servers, the application servers, and perhaps even the database servers.

If we can have certified compatibility with other companies, such as Oracle, then it would let us know that they function correctly together.

For how long have I used the solution?

Less than one year.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

My impression of the stability is good. At the moment, we haven't had any issues.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I cannot comment about the scalability at this time because I don't know when we are going to generalize the solution. We may be able to say by next year, perhaps.

Our intention is to expand its usage beyond the IT team to other applications.

How are customer service and technical support?

Nutanix technical support is very good.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

Prior to this solution, we used VMware on Intel technology. We also have IBM IT Infrastructure with Power technology. We switched to Nutanix because it is easier to manage and administer the platform, compared to others.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was easy, although we had one problem related to synchronization with the NT servers. We created a technical support ticket, and they helped us to fix the issue. It was very easy.

The deployment took not more than two or three weeks, including the migration of the servers. It is difficult to say because we acquired Nutanix with other solutions, but I think that Nutanix was faster. Not more than two weeks.

Our IT team will be maintaining the solution, and if we ever have an issue then we can call the integrator. If they cannot fix the problem then we will open a ticket to the Nutanix support.

What about the implementation team?

We used an integrator to assist us with the deployment of this solution. They have done a good job.

What was our ROI?

We haven't measured our ROI for the moment, but the fact that everything is in the same solution will make life easier for our IT team. We won't have to call the storage specialist or the network specialist every time we have a problem. Everything is packaged in the same solution, and to update the platform is very easy. This will be our first ROI.

There are a lot of problems that occur. One example is when we update the firmware for a product, it can make life difficult for us. If we have a new disk that is not compatible with the storage then updating the firmware causes other things to malfunction. That is quite difficult for all of us. Overall, I think that we will be reducing the time in maintenance as compared to other platforms.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The licensing cost is on a yearly basis. There are a lot of features included with Nutanix that cost a lot with other companies.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We were given demonstrations of other solutions, but we were satisfied with all of the features that Nutanix offers.

What other advice do I have?

We have recently acquired this solution and have done the training. We are going to be using it to support technical applications before we can generalize it, and use it on a much bigger scale.

Currently, it is not the number of users that we are focused on. It will be for technical applications used only by the IT team, which is approximately seventy people.

At this point, my advice for other people who are implementing this product is that they should trust Nutanix. It is a good solution and it is easy to work on their platform. It is compatible with VMware, and they have their own container, which is free. 

I would rate this product a ten out of ten.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
PeerSpot user
Technical Lead Engineer at a transportation company with 10,001+ employees
Vendor
Through Nutanix Prism software, they even give you the capability of swapping out the ESXi hypervisor with the click of a button.

Originally posted http://tech.zsoldier.com/2015/06/opinion-nutanix-acropolis-and-vmware.html 

I was lucky enough to attend the inaugural Nutanix .NEXT conference in Miami the last 3 days. I learned a lot and met many new faces. Here is the bottom line:

Nutanix has released their flavor of the KVM hypervisor dubbed "Acropolis".

So what does that mean for you VMware shops?

Right now, possibly lower or complete removal of hypervisor licensing costs. However, VMware is a leader for a reason, so you will likely need to augment by using something like VMTurbo to manage and give you smarter DRS like capability plus more. I'll need to read-up on Acropolis feature sets, but the fair comparisons would likely be between the base vSphere ESXi editions (including vCenter) vs Acropolis/Prism and/or the vCloud Suite vs. Acropolis/Prism/VMTurbo combo. It's going to come down to features and price.

I'm thinking personally that it "MIGHT" be cheaper to go an Acropolis/Prism/VMTurbo route strictly from a licensing perspective, but have yet to price everything out. Taking VMTurbo out, I think would most certainly save from a licensing perspective. The argument may be hardware vendor lock-in, but that is slowly dissolving w/ Nutanix I think.

Through Nutanix Prism software, they even give you the capability of swapping out the ESXi hypervisor w/ the click of a button. VM's will be migrated to the different hypervisor too, albeit they will be shutdown for the migration process, but looks to be completely automated.

Kinda curious if that is a two way street though. Meaning, could I change from Acropolis to Hyper-V or back to ESXi?
[Update: Right now, it's a one-way street. Other things to consider, no cloud stack for Prism/Acropolis to speak of currently. Still early, but worth keeping an eye on.]

Regardless, all this means, it's an exciting time to be in the infrastructure space. Hopefully this pushes VMware in the direction of making vSAN a part of the vCloud Suite AND not charging a premium for the 'all-flash' edition of vSAN. Quite honestly, VERY STUPID move on VMware's part. it's only shown in that article, so I'm hoping they reverse that idea. I'm already paying a premium on SSD's and they want me to pay more for licensing!? Get real.

Right now, technology-wise, I feel Nutanix 'appears' to have the simplicity side of things going for them. VMware, it's unfortunately quite complicated, but very feature-rich. The bigger thing that Nutanix will have to worry about though is public cloud adoption. Yes, they can utilize it too, but will I care? If I use the public cloud 'efficiently and correctly', on-premise becomes a small pie.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Chris Childerhose - PeerSpot reviewer
Chris ChilderhoseLead Infrastructure Architect at ThinkON
ExpertTop 5Real User

Interesting article. AHV appears to be picking up steam with Nutanix and for some businesses eliminating costly licensing may be the option to go with. We are looking at Nutanix now to see how it fits in our future plans and infrastructure.

reviewer1432809 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT administrator at a consultancy with 51-200 employees
Real User
Beneficial dashboard information, helpful support teams, and easy management
Pros and Cons
  • "The dashboard of Nutanix Acropolis AOS allows for simple management. The dashboard has all the information online about what's going on at any given time."
  • "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."

What is our primary use case?

We use Nutanix Acropolis AOS for many reasons, such as data protection, application, and file services. My customers are mainly in Israel and are mostly government.

How has it helped my organization?

This solution improves management and maintenance.

What is most valuable?

The dashboard of Nutanix Acropolis AOS allows for simple management. The dashboard has all the information online about what's going on at any given time.

What needs improvement?

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.

For how long have I used the solution?

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

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I have found Nutanix Acropolis AOS to be very reliable and stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution is scalable.

 The people that I'm serving are approximately 23,000 people and I have 300 to 400 users that are using the servers and are connecting to my domain.

How are customer service and support?

The technical support is wonderful. They have helped me during deployment and are available when needed.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I previously used VMware. I did not have a problem with VMware, but when I did research I found that Nutanix Acropolis AOS would be a better product for our needs.

How was the initial setup?

Nutanix Acropolis AOS is very easy to migrate. You can migrate from other storage into Nutanix with ease. I deployed VMware to Nutanix Acropolis AOS and I did not have a problem.

The deployment time can vary depending on how large the server is and what kind of storage is being used. The full process did not take long.

What about the implementation team?

We use the help of the Nutanix team for the implementation.

My operation is not very big and I only use one helper for the support of this solution.

What was our ROI?

We have experienced a good overall ROI with the use of Nutanix Acropolis AOS. I have approximately 400 users and I have 26 servers on Nutanix Acropolis AOS and I manage it myself. There are substantial cost savings.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

We have a three-year license for the use of this solution.

For small businesses, the Nutanix basic standard license is really good and I'm very satisfied with this solution.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We tested this solution against VMware and Nimbus.

What other advice do I have?

I would recommend this solution to others because of the great service and reliability. I have used VMware but I prefer Nutanix Acropolis AOS.

I rate Nutanix Acropolis AOS an eight out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Other
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
reviewer1279107 - PeerSpot reviewer
Pre sales manager at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Real User
Surpasses others when it comes to hybrid cloud Infrastructure
Pros and Cons
  • "You can be sure that whatever you patch is already compatible with the current firmware and the current version of the Acropolis that you're using."
  • "There is a feature that exists used for disaster recovery, but it requires an extra license. It should be included with the regular normal standard license."

What is our primary use case?

I work for a reseller, a consultancy firm. We have successfully onboarded three customers to Nutanix. Nutanix is the solution that I prefer. I deploy the solution for customers and assist them when they encounter any issues. The feedback provided by our customers has been nothing but excellent. 

Some of our customers use Nutanix due to its ease of management across their data centers and also, the cloud experience it offers. The Business continuity functionality embedded in Nutanix is priceless. From putting your VMs in a protection domain to setting up an RPO which can be as low as 10mins for synchronous environments, you are able to seamlessly perform planned and unplanned failover in a time-efficient manner. 

The Nutanix Database as a service is another use case that our customers have found very interesting and useful in their environment. With their DBaaS solution, you are able to provision databases within minutes and patch databases faster without bothering about compatibilities issues as to how some environments are. 

What is most valuable?

Database as a service (ERA). The value of Nutanix AOS embedded in ERA can be seen In the course of doing some cumbersome  database operations, such as database provisioning, snapshots and patches. The solution gives our customers the ability to provision databases faster and perform patching. With Nutanix, I have seen a database instance that took less than 15 minutes to provision as compared to the normal one that actually takes 30 minutes or more.

For their Time machine which is also a great feature of their DBaaS Solution, you are able to recover DBs quickly even with less backups and hence, this saves you money from a storage perspective.  

In terms of scalability, customers can scale in/out utilizing a plug and play approach. When there's need for compute or/and storage, you can acquire a compute-only node or a storage-only node and insert it like you would in a blade chassis. 

What needs improvement?

I think nothing for now.. I and my clients are enjoying the services provided by Nutanix thus far.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been working with Nutanix Acropolis for two years.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We have never had an issue with the scalability of Nutanix Acropolis because it is plug and play. Their architecture utilizes that of a public cloud. If you already have a Nutanix cluster, and you get a new node, you can easily add it to the cluster 

How are customer service and support?

I am the product manager for Nutanix in my company. Time to time, customers call to commend the support service from Nutanix and has been reported as the best support across all their other products in their organizations 

How was the initial setup?

Nutanix has the simplest deployment no matter the type of environment you are setting up. 

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

If a customer has been using VMware, the difference in pricing is lower. However, Nutanix is not "cheap" as they would say in the news.

What other advice do I have?

I would recommend this solution to other companies, they are the best. Nutanix has surpassed others when it comes to hyper-converged infrastructure and hybrid cloud infrastructure.  If customers are looking for a solution that is easy to learn, intuitive and not complicated, Nutanix is what you want. 

I would rate Nutanix Acropolis AOS a 9 out of 10.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
PeerSpot user
Farhan Parkar - PeerSpot reviewer
Product Consultant (Presales) at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
Real User
Beautiful interface with full visibility into and management of my complete virtual infrastructure

What is most valuable?

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.

How has it helped my organization?

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.

What needs improvement?

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.

For how long have I used the solution?

Since July, 2014.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

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

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

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.

How are customer service and technical support?

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.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

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.

How was the initial setup?

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.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

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.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

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.

What other advice do I have?

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.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: We are Elite partners, as well as consulting partners.
PeerSpot user

Felt good on support front

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PeerSpot user
Unix Systems and Storage Manager with 1,001-5,000 employees
Vendor
Provides redundancy, storage with compression, deduplication, and erasure coding.

What is most valuable?

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.

How has it helped my organization?

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.

What needs improvement?

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.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using Nutanix for just over three years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

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

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

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.

How was the initial setup?

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.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

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.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

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.

What other advice do I have?

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.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: We're partners.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: February 2025
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.