Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) Reviews

I meet many customers on a weekly basis and there has been always one common question in almost every meeting. Which HCI Solution is the Best for me?

in order to be able to answer this question, I had studied many HCI solutions in the Market and deeply analyzed the Pros & Cons of all major solutions.

The HyperScale Architecture which Nutanix adopted from day one is a game-changer, it enabled my customers to scale with no limits & give them their freedom back by avoiding Hardware & Hypervisors locking.

- Support Calls are being answered directly by L3 Support team who are capable to solve not only Acropolis issue but hypervisor as well. 

- One-Click Updates.

- One Management Console for Cluster Management ( Compute, Storage ) and VMs operations as well.

- Storage Only Nodes.

- Having multiple HW Vendors & Hypervisors in the same Data centre and manage all with one management tool.

having more integrations with security vendors to be able to introduce more Virtual Load Balancers and Virtual Firewalls.

I have been using Nutanix Acropolis for three years.

It's the most stable infrastructure we had ever proposed.

Customers love the Nutanix experience and keep on adding more nodes to cover more business needs.

It's the only solution that can scale properly — there is no limitation on the number of nodes that a customer can have in the same cluster.

Customers can expand at any time the storage layer by adding just storage nodes, which will not only expand the capacity but also will enhance the performance as each node comes with something called a virtual controller. So scalability-wise, we're only expanding the storage with no obligation to pay for additional hypervisors license. 

Their support is amazing. When we open a support ticket, there are always level-three engineers who respond to your calls. What I also love about the support is that whenever we open a call, usually it gets routed to the last engineer who already knows our environment. The support is Amazing.

The initial setup is very easy. It didn't take more than three days to implement this solution.

Never lock your self with a specific vendor.

if you are considering vXRail, for example, you need to pay attention that you will be locked in so financially speaking if you have an expansion, you can do it with Dell only leaving no space for healthy pricing competition & don't be surprised if they don't give you the same initial discount because simply you are already locked in! 

& The same goes for VMware, you would be locked in with VMware only. VMware license nowadays is not cheap, it's costly so eventually, you will find your annual spending are exceeding your budget and you no option but to buy from them.

If you are a new customer to Nutanix start with a Cloud Bundle; they are very cost-effective and they can fit any requirement.

Cisco HyperFlex

Dell vXRail

Hp Simplivity

Always go for AHV Option because VMware is costly, especially if you're considering not only the hypervisor cost but considering vRealize Operations, Automation and NSX on top.

Nutanix will help you to wave out the hypervisor TAX which is not less than 20 % of any infrastructure initial setup cost 

We primarily use Nutanix for virtualization and Kubernetes.

Simplifying storage is a huge benefit, but the real gain is complete integration. Nutanix gives you the ability to benefit from the clustering system. For example, you can "clusterize" your file-sharing VM. 

Karbon is a must-have as it drastically simplifies the deployment of Kubernetes.

In the licensing, it needs to be clear about features because it is not clear whether Flow is integrated or not.

We have been using Nutanix for one year.

Our primary use case for this solution is virtualization.

It consolidates our servers and improves our electricity consumption and cooling as well.

The most valuable feature is the analytics. It gives us a projection of our usage and we can easily justify any request that we have for improvements.

The GUI for this solution needs improvement.

• Data protection in its various flavours.
• Overall performance of the platform.
• Scalability.
• Ease of implementation.
• Great GUI.

We can test even the most storage-performance-hungry workloads on our Nutanix blocks.

Pricing transparency: Software and hardware should be separate items.

I have used it for 12 months.

We have not encountered any deployment issues.

We have not encountered any stability issues.

We have not encountered any scalability issues.

Customer service is a perfect 10.

Technical support is a perfect 10.

We currently use several HCI solutions.

Initial setup was straightforward.

An in-house team implemented it.

Nutanix is a hypervisor for hardware and software that allows users to replace the three-tier environment (storage, network and compute) with a consolidated HCI. We provide our customers with Nutanix as a distributor. 

Our environment is now consolidated into one solution. This makes it easier to get support because we no longer need to go to multiple vendors and can just have one point of contact.

The HCI environment itself is very intuitive. Everything is centralized under one solution. And, they also have a fast server built-in in addition to a network analyzer.

I would like them to update their licensing to provide more features with their basic license.

I have been working with the solution for three months.

I cannot say much, because it's fairly new. But, so far I would say it's good.

I would say any HCI can be easily scaled by adding more nodes.

Technical support could use some improvement.

The initial setup is very straightforward. Installment, configurations, and performing detailed network design takes about three weeks, depending on the complexity.

We assist our customers with the deployment and train their technical professional(s).

They offer multiple tier licensing which means that lower level licensing will have less features. 

I would recommend this solution because I believe that HCI is the way to go as opposed to the three-tier environment. Plus, the solution has excellent architecture that is scalable, reliable, and easy to use.

Sizing your existing environment before moving forward is important because you want to ensure that Nutanix will improve your environment.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

This is a very flexible solution that you are able to run however you want.

This solution offers excellent functionality but could use a stronger interface.

I have been using this solution for the past five years or so.

This is a stable solution that stands out amongst the competition.

This is a scalable solution that can be put on to hardware from any vendor.

We have not calculated exact numbers, though it is safe to say that, like any other hyperconverged solution, it does give back.

This solution is great for people who do not want to go with Acropolis or other VMs. With Nutanix, you are able to put your hypervisor of choice on it and run it the way that you want - it is extremely flexible.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

We are a solution provider and Nutanix is one of the platforms that we implement for our clients.

This operating system includes support for a complete ecosystem.

The ability to integrate with other products is fine.

This is a flexible solution.

The interface is okay.

With some projects that we are deploying, there are errors that arise when adding nodes.

I have been using Nutanix Acropolis AOS for perhaps four years.

The stability is good. This is the number-one product in that regard.

Scalability-wise, it is okay.

It is straightforward to deploy. The documentation available online makes it very clear.

We do see ROI but also experience problems with some deployments.

The local Nutanix representative in our region is not very good, so we are stopping our work with Nutanix products for the moment. We have worked on nice projects together in the past but for now, we are stopping our work with them.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

Acropolis AOS's networking concept is excellent.

I feel like the flow chart and the automated processes have some room for improvement. They're nearly there, and the rest is fine. They've improved a lot over the past few years. 

I've used Acropolis AOS daily for the past three years.

Acropolis AOS is highly stable.

Acropolis AOS is scalable. 

We've seen a return on investment. Hundred percent.

I would rate Acropolis AOS 9.5 out of 10.