Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) Reviews

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.

Our primary use case of Acropolis was for pre-sales on architecting the solution. The company was partners with Nutanix and I'm a business development consultant. 

I found the most important feature to be the flexibility that the solution offers in adding nodes to the clusters. Nutanix provides a level of scalability and flexibility that you don't get with any other solution on the market. 

I'd like to see more integration with other vendors and integration with public clouds. The feature is there but it could be improved. 

I worked with this solution up until a couple of months ago and I used it for three years. 

The solution is stable. 

The solution is scalable, it's a key feature. 

The technical support is not great, but it's good. The main problem is the time it takes to connect with the person you need to speak to.

The initial setup is quite easy. 

I rate this solution nine out of 10. 

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.

• One-click updates
• Auto-/self-healing

We had a real disaster back in 2014. Our customer data centre was hit by a flood that was about two meters. When the water level approached the data centre, we triggered the DR features. Once DR completely had taken place, we unmounted the production unit from the rack server and kept the 2U unit in a safe place.

They need to add features for software-defined networking and network security. The multi-tenant features need to add charge back/metering.

I have been using it since 2013.

We are currently maintaining Nutanix 2 cluster NX3350, 1 cluster 2 NX6235, 1 cluster NX 1460 and NX 3450; NOS Version 4.3 and AOS 4.6.

We encountered stability issues during NOS 3.0, but it was not a big issue as we get support from Nutanix.

I have not encountered any scalability issues.

Technical support is 10/10.

I previously used a three-tier design for virtualization. Managing three types of hardware vendors (server, SAN switch & SAN Storage) is troublesome.

Initial setup was complex. Our costumer has multiple clusters for production, development & testing. Each of them were use a different network segment. They also use multitenancy features to serve other departments.

Nutanix licensing and pricing is premium compared to other hyperconverged infrastructure vendors.

Before choosing this product, we evaluated VMware vSAN.

Leveraging the Nutanix Acropolis would save on hypervisor licensing.

With Nutanix, you can't mix up the OEM hardware with other vendors such as Dell or Lenovo. There are more issues on the commercial side. When it comes to support, a mixed cluster will create haywire between those hardware vendors.

My rating reflects comparing the experience of managing a three-tier architecture for visualization with a hyperconverged solution.

We primarily use the solution for our clients. 

The solution has a strong foundation.

The support of the infrastructure is very good.

It offers very useful data protection. It's one of the best features. 

We've had very few problems converting this solution with the iOS or virtual iOS. 

The stability is pretty good.

When we have issues with the solution, they tend to be around networking. 

When we tried to upgrade the LCM, we had issues around the process. When we refreshed the CVM of VM and restart the upgrade, the CVM would not start again. We needed to see the logs to see if we could figure out what happened and if there was something we could do.

We'd like to see a bit more integration with certain products, for example, Qlik, among others. 

I've been using this solution for five years now. 

I like the level of stability we get. It's a good product in that sense. 

In some cases, the setup could be more simple. However, it's important to view the network process surrounding the customers as this is the first problem we face when we try to implement for the first time. Once you've gotten past the initial process, the other processes are simpler. 

We have two to four people that can implement the solution.

While all versions start as on-premises, and we mostly use on=premises, we do have one deployment on the cloud.

I'd advise potential new users to get a little bit of training before starting.

I would rate the solution at a ten out of ten. It's been very good so far in terms of the level of capabilities on offer.