Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) Reviews, Competitors and Pricing

Technology Consultant, ASEAN at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees

May 10, 2015

Reduces complexity but does not use RAID and there is no RAID Controller.

Nutanix is hyper-converged infrastructure, which is currently a major concern in the world of IT. New players are appearing in hyper-converged infrastructure like Simplivity, VMware EVO: Rail, EMC ScaleIO, and so forth.

Waht is Hyper-Converged?

Hyper-Converged is the solution to combine Computer (Server), Storage and Networks in one solution or in one hardware. This solution will reduce complexity of the management and also the price. So like in Nutanix, the 2 U Server, in which there are four independent servers (nodes), who each have 2 Socket CPU, RAM, 2x10GbE, 2x1GbE, 6 Disks. Bringing the total in 2U Server (Series NX-3450) there are 80 CPU Cores, 2TB RAM (assuming 512GB per node), 8x10GbE and 16TB SATA Row, Row 3.2TB SSD.

Storage in Nutanix (Converged Storage), reduces the complexity of the storage layer, because it does not need LUN, Volume, Zoning, etc as when we configure FC Storage. Storage in Nutanix is NFS, NFS is the benefit of reducing the overhead of the disk groups and LUNs.

Nutanix Architecture

Inside there is a term Nutanix nodes and blocks.Block is a 2U rack mount chassis in which there are four nodes.Hardware Nutanix is OEM Super Micro or Dell.

In each of these nodes are Nutanix Controller VM (CVM). CVM is a storage appliance or controllers which use VMware Direct Path for direct access to the LSI Disk Controller. This is what allows the CVM to control the disks directly without passing through the hypervisor (ESXi or Hyper-V or KVM). Nutanix does not use RAID and no RAID Controller therein. Nutanix Distributed Files System (NDFS) algorithm is owned (proprietary) by Nutanix system for distributing files or replicating data to each Node. NDFS is a similar technology as used by Googles Files System, Facebook and other Web-Scale Technology.

Hypervisor is installed in the SATA DOM (Disk on Motherboard) module. So there is a flash chip in the motherboard 64GB per node (read article unboxing Nutanix). CVM is a VM running on the hypervisor, which has the configuration of 8 vCPUs and 16-24GB RAM.CVM has two vNICs that one vNIC to connect to the production network and one vNIC to connect to a private vSwitch. Private vSwitch VMkernel adapters have and currently do not have physical network adapter (Punic). Private network used for communication from the host to the CVM for mounting NFS datastore of Nutanix Storage Cluster.CVM uses public vNIX for communication between the CVM in other nodes and also for monitoring cluster plus replicate data.

The figure below is a diagram per Node:

And the image below is a diagram per Cluster Nutanix:

And some of the questions often asked are:

What happens when CVM failure in one node? Autopathing will redirect IO to the CVM in other nodes in the same cluster.
What happens when a disk failure on one node?Nutanix Storage Cluster will "sustain" the current single disk failure, and the system will redistribute data through Cluster.When the rebuild or redistribution is complete it will Cluster Healthy back.This process is very fast (ms).
What happens when one node failure?The process is almost the same as point 2, the data will redistribute within the Cluster.Only this process Nutanix uses MapReduce to speed up the process.If we have three nodes in one cluster, then only allowed one node failure.Therefore, at least 3 nodes required to form 1 Nutanix Cluster.

Management Console

Management Console in Nutanix is PRISM.PRISM is a web interface as shown below.

The first time we log in, then the initial menu as shown above.Visible top left is the ESXi hypervisor is installed, if you use Microsoft Windows, the look is Hyper-V.Then also seen versions of ESXi, below is the total storage capacity, a total of VMs (VMs 230), total node (5) and total blocks (2).In the middle column visible performance monitoring IOPS, bandwidth, CPU and Memory.And the rightmost column is the Events and Alerts.

Top left corner there is a drop down menu (Home), then I moved to the Storage menu Diagram View.It will appear as shown below.

Now we move to the VM menu, which will give us the details of the VM is running in the cluster.Seen there total VM, total CPU and Memory.Then there is also a report by IOPS, Latency IO, Memory Usage and CPU Usage.

Then we move to the VM Table, it is seen in detail per-VM, as shown below. If we look at the information that there is, then I think this function together with VMware vCenter Ops, which did not exist just Forecast Analysis. Here we can search the VM and then perform analysis per-VM performance based on CPU, Memory, IOPS, Latency, or Network.

And now we move to the Storage menu Diagram.Seen all information relating to such Usage Storage, IOPS, bandwidth IO, IO Latency. And in the top right corner, there are two menus of "Container" and "Storage Pool".

Storage Pool, is the union of all disks that exist in all Nodes.Container is as Datastore. We can make some Container in 1 Storage Pool.As with traditional storage, we can make some LUNs in 1 Disk Group.

Interestingly here is Nutanix without RAID but using NDFS, no volume or LUNs. For example, we will create one Container, then I click menu in the top right corner Container, the menu will appear below.

Interestingly, we we would like to mount the new container to multiple hosts / nodes, we just need to do the check as shown below.Imagine if we use the SAN, must do Zoning first, then setting WWN ID to each of the hosts, and so on.

And we can compress or dedup the container that we have made, and only one click then completed as shown below. Interesting is it not it?

And no less, that is build-in replication. We can do replication N-Way means can perform replication to 3rd place (A-> B-> C) upto 6th place (A-> B-> C-> D-> E-> F). Which greatly facilitates that we can do per-VM based and fixed per block-level replication. Imagine in traditional storage, replication must be done LUN to LUN.So if there are 50-VM per LUN, then total all 50 VM will be replicated to the LUN in the DR Site.Replication in Nutanix, can be integrated with VMware SRM.

Likewise reviews Nutanix, although not as complete but could be an additional complete our knowledge. And we will come back to a Nutanix detailed discussion at a later time.

Thanks to Nutanix for allowing me to "box-test" Nutanix lab in Singapore.
I would like to thank the team for greater Nutanix Reviews their help in providing the access to Reviews their lab and willingness to answer questions during our process.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

Ozgur Ekinci

Enterprise Solutions Executive (AWS Certified Solutions Architect) at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

Feb 18, 2022

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Simple to manage, excellent support, and highly reliable

Pros and Cons

"The most valuable features of Nutanix Acropolis AOS are ease of management, hyper-convergence platform, and it has robust operations."

"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."

What is our primary use case?

We are a cloud provider and we are giving cloud services via Nutanix Acropolis AOS, such as core virtual services. This is why we implemented Nutanix Acropolis AOS into our data center.

How has it helped my organization?

Nutanix Acropolis AOS has improved our organization because of the ease of management. We don't have to deal with any other solutions besides Nutanix Acropolis AOS. If it was a three-tiered architecture, we would have to struggle with the HBA cards from the upgrade, storage area, networks, switches, and other hardware. We only need to deal with the physical servers and the Nutanix on top of it. This is why it's very easy to manage, and that is saving us a lot of time for our technical operations.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable features of Nutanix Acropolis AOS are ease of management, hyper-convergence platform, and it has robust operations.

What needs improvement?

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.

Nutanix could integrate all of its solutions into one package to allow one implementation, such as Nutanix Acropolis AOS and the other related ecosystem solutions. You should be able to integrate them all in one step. The current method is to first install Nutanix Acropolis AOS then you need to install Prism, Era, and Flow. I would like to see a setup that implements all of those Nutanix tools at once.

For how long have I used the solution?

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

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability of Nutanix Acropolis AOS is very high. We have only had one or two problems in our cluster over the past two years. The problems that we did have were solved very quickly by Nutanix and by our technical service engineers together. I would say that it's robust and problem-free.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

In our cluster, we have more than 50 servers and as the cluster gets larger, there are some stability issues sometimes, but they are not critical. They can improve on the scalability because when one or two servers are down in our cluster, Nutanix Acropolis AOS struggles to balance the load to the other server clusters and it can take some time. In the time it is attempting to balance the clusters some of our customers are affected by the delay problem. It is not critical, but it could be made better to avoid this in the future.

We have approximately 16 people that are using this solution in my company on a daily basis.

How are customer service and support?

The technical support is very good, they solved some problems we had and they worked with our team well.

The team from Nutanix focuses on the problem and they don't let us go before the problem has been solved. They are very interested in problematic cases and their resolutions.

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

I have used VMware and Hyper-V. We have different customers using these other solutions.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup of Nutanix Acropolis AOS is straightforward. The whole process took no more than one day.

We have added a couple of servers each month onto our platform and it's very straightforward.

What about the implementation team?

We have a department in my company that handles the implementation and maintenance of Nutanix Acropolis AOS. We have 15 technicians but we only have two that handle this solution.

What was our ROI?

We have seen a return on investment because it's a robust platform. We do not have to deal with Nutanix Acropolis AOS related problems every day or from time to time. It gives a return on investment within a year or two.

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

When we purchase a new physical server or a couple of physical servers into our cluster, we always purchase it with Nutanix licensing. We are receiving the license from Nutanix directly and not from the vendor. In the way we're dealing, with the licenses it is a bit costly for us but as the company is getting larger, day by day or year by year, those licensing costs become lower each time for us. We are purchasing the licenses for three years for some of our clusters and for some others for five-year licenses and the licenses are still costly. We have good discounts for the licenses, but it is still expensive.

What other advice do I have?

My advice to those wanting to implement Nutanix Acropolis AOS is to know the solution well before they do the implementation. They will have to receive some training about Nutanix Acropolis AOS. It's not easy to implement, but once you get used to it, it is very easy to do the implementation in the later phases. I would recommend people to get the training it is important.

I rate Nutanix Acropolis AOS an eight out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner

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it_user244362

Managing Consultant with 51-200 employees

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 and congruent to the organization’s data architecture and business plans.

The announcement of Gartner’s latest Magic Quadrant on Integrated Systems (read hyper convergence) has put Nutanix as the leader of the pack as of August 2015. Clearly, many of us get caught up because it is the “greatest feeling in the world”. However, this faux feeling is not reality because there are many factors that made the pack leaders in the Magic Quadrant (MQ).

First of all, the MQ is about market perception. There is no doubt that the pack leaders in the Leaders Quadrant have earned their right to be there. Each company’s revenue, market share, gross margin, company’s profitability have helped put each as leaders in the pack. However, it is also measured by branding, marketing, market perception and acceptance and other intangible factors.

Secondly, VMware EVO: Rail has split the market when EMC has 3 HC solutions in VCE, ScaleIO and EVO: Rail. Cisco wanted to do their own HC piece in Whiptail (between the 2014 MQ and 2015 MQ reports), and closed down Whiptail when their new CEO came on board. NetApp chose EVO: Rail and also has the ever popular FlexPod. That is why you see that in this latest MQ report, NetApp and Cisco are interpreted independently whereas in last year’s report, it was Cisco/NetApp. Market forces changed, and perception changed.

The most glaring gap of the Gartner MQ is, it does not measure how good each technology is against the competitors, and therefore, boxes like Nutanix and Simplivity, and also the motley crew of so-called EVO:Rail partners, are simply betting on how good they pitch to get into the MQ Leaders Quadrant as part of their agenda.

It is not common that a vendor would do a bake-off against a competitor because one might fall flat on his/her face if they lose the bake-off. Recently we witnessed the big shouting match between Nutanix and VMware, each trying to out-boast the other with claims and counter claims of how good their performance was. Here is VMware’s Chuck Hollis’ piece and here is Nutanix’s piece (part 4 anyway). It was hounding the blogosphere with so much *bleep* that it felt like a game of Kabaddi. (Look up the game of Kabaddi).

The dare, double-dare and triple-dare went on for a few weeks between VMware and Nutanix until Storage Review, an online “independent” storage articles and news aggregator, probably got sick of this undignified spat. Storage Review ran the Nutanix’s tests (and blogged about it) and came up with some unexpected results. Nutanix got disillusioned and started to dictate what should be in the performance tests and went through some “innocent” and “hilarious” acts to justify the results. You can read about them here. Page 2 of that article started the “We ask you not to …” comments to Storage Review, which I thought was really funny.

That’s just it. The Hyper Converged vendors spend a lot of the resource and marketing on hypping up performance, and little of everything else. It is true that storage performance is needed for 25-30% of the active data. However, in any organization, we know very well that 70-75% of the data in the entire data lifecycle is non-active, Tier-3 or archived data. Hyper Converged systems and platforms ignore this passive data space. They do not play with inactive data landscape because the $/GB or $/TB is too expensive.

Furthermore, if we look at the entire HC thingy more close, it is just Software-Defined because it is just a wonderful piece of proprietary software running on an ODM (original design manufacturer) x86 platform. EMC VSPEX is rumoured to be running on the Quanta systems and Nutanix on Supermicro. Why do we need to pay a premium price for a piece of whitebox hardware?

We must overcome the hype and read beyond the messages that vendors, partners who tend to oversell their technology. We must look at what is required in our business, in our operations and look at our data requirements. I constantly share that we must look at our data landscape and use the 7 points that I always use to consider a technology – Availability, Performance, Protection, Accessibility, Management, Security and Compliance. Is the HC technology and the solution relevant to your organization’s business?

So, if you want to Hyper Converged, please Hyper Converge responsibly. Your data landscape architecture will thank you for it.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

it_user307227Solutions Architect at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

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Jan 6, 2016

Brian - I think your analogy of buying a car is perfect..... for the average driver. I run all season tires on 2 of my 3 vehicles - they perform *adequately* in *most* conditions. However, when I want to drive in harsh conditions, or at a higher performance level, I equip my car with tires that are designed for the conditions. Thus while I happily drive in the blizzard, I pass the GLKs, the Jeeps, etc., because my winter tires are designed for the cold and the snow, while they are sitting in the ditch spinning with their OEM tires.

I'd like to thank you for pointing out that Nutanix is geared to the "get in and drive" consumer, rather than those who know and understand their processing needs. For those of us who still need a higher performing system, we will continue to assess, design, and implement systems that meet and exceed those needs.

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it_user292980

Solution Consultant at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees

Aug 19, 2015

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It controls data sets and metadata well with local read/write access and real-time distribution to other hosts, but it slows down in systems with large block sizes in random write.