Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) Reviews

I advise my customers to have a unique management operation center for the three layers. The primary reason is to convert the storage, computation, and hypervisor into one frame. Of course, you have to replicate the data between all the nodes to have redundancy, so you have two or three nodes in case of failure, depending on the resilience you want. I advise my customers to use this kind of technology when they want to focus on their business and don't want to talk about the layers of the subsequent infrastructure that is matched to their business.

The technology has a lot of room for improvement. For example, when they want to segment applications in conjunction with NSX, which VMware uses, Acropolis is not compatible with the competitors. The integration in the security layer is not compatible with NSX for the application segmentation that uses VMware. And the licensing has a lot of room for improvement also.

I've been using Acropolis AOS for about four years.

Acropolis AOS is stable.

This solution works in small companies with 10 users and large enterprises with 100,000. Acropolis can scale vertically and horizontally by adding more CPUs or nodes. It's quite easy to scale, and you have the option to have distributed nodes everywhere around the world that work as one. You can also have a solution for small branch offices with only two nodes for redundancy, and that's good enough to start. You could even deploy it on a ship or a car or whatever unit.

It's quite technical, so IT departments are the main driver of expanding usage. However, it's an easy sell to decision-makers because it tries to abstract the technical things to the business. When a managing director of a company knows about the benefits of this kind of solution, they give the green light and focus their IT department on the technical business requirements, solutions, and innovations layers, instead of managing the technical layers, like network, storage, and computations. 

We have a contract with Nutanix for 24/7 support, and it's excellent. They contact the customers directly when there is a failure or they need to replace a disk. You only take action when you need to evolve the platform, like installing a new model or a patch because you need preventive action. If we need to patch to the latest firmware of the solution, then they call us. However, that's something that is scheduled well ahead of time. For example, we schedule with the customer to install the latest firmware every six months.

I don't have a lot of hands-on experience with Acropolis because I'm a sales executive, but I can say Nutanix solutions are easy to deploy. The only hang-up is compatibility with other solutions like OM, Lenovo, HP, Supermicro, etc., because sometimes the drivers change.

For example, sometimes you could have a different release of the driver that isn't compatible with the latest release of the software, so you need to match the release with the nodes that support the Nutanix software. You could also have problems with the support and matching all the nodes to the software release that makes the work correctly. I've had a lot of problems with customers trying to match the software with the hardware layer. You have to choose the right vendor for the hardware to avoid problems. Otherwise, the setup is straightforward. 

However, you always need someone with technical expertise. We usually handle the deployment ourselves, but we occasionally ask for support when we have to deploy an uncommon configuration, like Oracle. For example, Acropolis has different ways to support Oracle databases, so we sometimes need Nutanix support to configure the Oracle rack.

We only need a small team of around 10 people to deploy and maintain because 

Return on investment happens when the customer realizes relative value. For example, if the customer is comparing cloud computing to an on-premise server, on-premise Nutanix is always going to be more expensive compared to AWS or Azure if you use it in a typical way. You have to consider the hours that the technicians spend maintaining the solution. Also, if the technicians are spending less time, they could start doing things that create more value for the company.

It's not easy to see a return on investment for this kind of solution, but you need to solve this problem at a higher level of management because the IT department is not involved in innovation at the company, so they might feel the solution is doing the job for them.

Also, they might have a personal stake in keeping the solution because they could see a risk to their livelihood if the company decides to switch to the cloud. It's something to sell to the upper management because even the CIO might not see it because they think their position is at risk. These solutions are like a robot that makes everything by themselves. The return on investment is a reduction in the time spent managing the infrastructure, and you could start seeing that time savings in six months to a year.

Many of my customers have issues with Acropolis' licensing model because they are charging the customers based on two things— the CPUs and the capacity in the solid stack disk — and that's a problem. Nutanix's competitors are not licensing that layer, so this is something that they should change. They should abandon this licensing model because it's too complex. Technical support is bundled with the subscription.

I rate Acropolis AOS seven out of 10. 

It is used for local file management.

Right now there is no downtime as such because it's in high HA mode. I can add different types of VM servers on the fly so it helps to rebuild or launch any application within a short period of time.

The features that I have found most valuable include its HA facility, viability, robustness, flexibility, it's time to go live is very short, and it has a friendly user interface.

As far as what could be improved, they have some built-in backup functions already, but any built-in isolation features like vision security features and free LAN features become a security concern. 

Also a few more backup options and IT security functions to isolate different VMs would be good. Better features would include more on the security side, meaning drill down on the VMs. Also, more on the reporting side for more exclusive reports.

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

Nutanix Acropolis AOS is a very stable.

Its scalability is very good. We can scale up to our limitations.

Our entire organization uses this solution. I can't give the exact number, but almost all the people are using it.

Deployment and maintenance hardly require only one technical person, who understands networking and the system. One or two people are enough for implementation.

We do have plans to increase the usage. It is a very comfortable and usable solution.

The technical support is very good. The support and response is good from the technical team.

The initial setup is easy. Not complex.

The deployment was within four-five days. Our deployment strategy was that it is the right move from physical to virtual.

The ROI is very good. We'll see an ROI in two-three years only.

The license is almost three to four lakhs per month, I think.

There are some additional operating system licenses. It depends because we are not using a Microsoft license. We are using a Linux based one, so that determines the license cost.

I evaluated some other VMware options, but cost-wise, Nutanix Acropolis AOS was the best deal.

My advice to anyone considering it is to go with the latest solution and latest software and that you can go with any hardware. There are different vendors now, they know all this stuff, but go with the best, most updated solution.

Its uptime is good, its flexibility and scalability are very good.

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

We have used Nutanix Acropolis for deploying a private cloud. We are using the latest version of Nutanix Acropolis AOS.

The feature that I have found most valuable is its software Move, which we use to migrate virtual info from another platform to the Nutanix platform.

Then you have the Prism Central Core, the user management consoles, for managing most of the VMs. And there are a few options which I bought, including for the reporting.

In terms of what could be improved, they keep updating the product and releasing new features. They are quite up to date with the product. But the fact is that the new features are not free. You need to pay for each feature.

Since it is a high convert solution, we don't need any downtime because all the VMs are being moved to another node. So no downtime is required.

It is very stable and reliable.

Nutanix Acropolis is very easy to scale.

It requires about two people.

We have the technical support. If you pay for maintenance, you have a subscription with maintenance and you get support from them.

We were satisfied with the support. We have been able to resolve any technical issue.

We are still using Palo Alto NG firewall, which we have been using for the last 10 years.

Installing Nutanix Acropolis was quite easy. It took one day.

There was no downtime.

We did not implement with the vendor, but we have a local integrator.

The pricing has been very expensive. Previously, the prices were okay, but now the price has increased since you have to pay additionally for all the features that they are making.

Overall, I would recommend Nutanix Acropolis to other users. On a scale of one to ten, I would give it a nine.

Our primary use case is for moving to HCI architecture. We have plenty of applications which are mainly homegrown in a LAMP environment. We were looking into restructuring our DC and DR environment and moving from the Spark architecture to an Intel-based platform. We started with a sort of POC for some of those applications in the LAMP environment and moved them to HCI architecture, where they have been running for almost two years now. Now we want to move the rest of the applications into similar architecture so it can be auto-scaled. Since we are from a UPT industry, there are certain state-based and country-based regulations that limit our ability to move our data to the cloud. This is why we want an on-premises solution like Nutanix. Right now, Nutanix handles our virtualization and we use Dell for our servers. 

This solution has helped my company move to HCI architecture. 

One of the most valuable features is how well this solution performs. It's stable, aside from some patch issues, but it's great from a virtualization and scalability perspective. 

The patch updates of Nutanix Acropolis could be improved. I'm work on the corporate side, but I get feedback from our IT team that patch updates and other updates are taking a significantly longer time. This definitely needs to be resolved. We are in discussion with Nutanix regarding certain configuration issues we are having, so maybe something can be changed to ease these patch updates. 

We have been using Nutanix Acropolis for almost one and a half years. 

This solution is stable, which is one of the reasons why we are looking to move our entire set of applications into this architecture. There are a couple of issues in terms of patch updates, but overall, the performance is good. Our IT deployment and infrastructure management team is comprised of five or six people, one manager and mostly engineers. 

Since this solution is an HCI platform, it automatically scales. The only problem we are running into is that there is a significant amount of software licensing involved. There are approximately 500 to 1,000 people using this solution because one of our key CRM applications is running on it. 

Technical support is quite good. They are proactive and take initiative when it comes to resolving issues. In India, things like these are handled through local channel partners, so I believe that Nutanix support works hand-in-hand with the local channel partner to resolve our day-to-day issues. 

Installation is pretty straightforward. It was initially done by the vendor, but now we are adding more code and our in-house team handles those installations. 

We initially implemented through a vendor team. 

Our Nutanix license is for five years. There is a support arrangement there, but that aspect is more or less taken care of during the initial installation. 

With HCI architecture, whenever we do any kind of auto scaling or scaling of servers and resources, there is a significant amount of software licensing involved. This is getting a bit problematic for us, so we are looking into some sort of private cloud appliance of Oracle PCA architecture. A lot of applications that we have—ERP as well as custom developed software—have Oracle as the back end. This means that, for HCI, the number of server codes we are using increases each time we add new applications. Oracle licenses are based on code, so the scaling we do significantly impacts our overall TCO. 

I rate this solution an eight out of ten. I recommend this solution to others, however, if you have Oracle Database or Oracle licensing in general, then you need to think about how many licenses will be required—based on that, your overall TCO may increase significantly. Otherwise, in terms of virtualization, scaling, etc., everything is fine. 

My primary use case is to deliver cloud services. This is for our cloud infrastructure. Nutanix is deployed on-premises, but I have six locations that I manage remotely, so it's like they're cloud-based. 

Nutanix has improved my company because it's 100% stable and the simplicity of management is amazing. It's my favorite product. We set it up here in Israel, then remote technicians in Africa just plug in the cables, start it up, and everything is running.

One of the most valuable features is the One-Click Upgrade. When I need to update the system, I do it with one click. This product is amazing because everything is easy to manage, from network management to snapshots. 

Nutanix needs to improve network features like Passthrough – SR-IOV. It could be improved by supporting SR-IOV, if they had that support, I would not have needed to implement the VMWare vSAN.

SR-IOV give the ability for a VM to use the physical NIC as its own NIC with all the network featuers on that NIC.

I have been using this solution for five years. 

This solution is very stable. I'm 100% satisfied with the stability. 

For maintenance, one person is enough. If you're looking at an IT environment, the same person who does the Active Directory can manage Nutanix as well. You don't need to hire a person who specializes in Nutanix. 

The scalability of this solution is linear. We have already done two or three scales in two of our locations. We just send two nodes to each location, they connect it, we run Auto-discover, and boom, it's configured. 

At my company, there are many people using our cloud products running on Nutanix. In Ghana there are more than 10,000 users; in Uganda, it's around 30,000 people; in Israel, it's about 200 people; but in London, there are around 20 million people using it. Because we provide cloud services to mobile network operators, each mobile network operator has millions of users and to manage the traffic, we use Nutanix. 

Currently, we have five clusters, twenty-four nodes, and we have plans to increase next year. 

I have a direct phone number that I call and someone immediately answers—you can't get better support than this. I've never needed real support, only clarification on how to use it better. For example, we wanted to do an upgrade and we were on an old version in one of the clusters, so we contacted them for guidance. There were a few steps on the upgrade, so we asked to make sure we were doing it correctly. We got an immediate answer, ran the upgrade, and everything was okay. Their support is great. 

The initial setup is very simple. You turn on the servers, enter the IP configuration, and that's it. You're good to go. The whole deployment—fixing the cables, mounting the equipment under the rack, setting up the cluster—is simple and once the equipment is plugged in, it's up in 15 minutes. 

I implemented through an in-house team. I didn't need any external support. For deployment, I did it all by myself five years ago, but today there are two people to manage the full IT. These two people also run Nutanix. 

I'm a telecom, so I don't see a direct ROI on the IT. I use Nutanix to run a product that brings me money, so the return on investment takes a few months. For example, I have to buy a server (VMware), pay out, I run some virtual machines to run the product, and from that income I calculate ROI. It's not regular IT, so you can't compare it with other scenarios. 

I purchase a license for this product every five years. At the beginning of our work, we purchased the Ultimate edition that included everything. Over the years, they developed some features that require licenses, like Nutanix Flow. But we keep purchasing our five-year license with all the features included. 

I use VMware vSAN as well. I outsourced a team of five to help me configure the servers. I'm not sure if it's better or not because we just started the new cluster of VMware vSAN, but I needed to pay for their knowledge. One product that we are implementing requires the use of VMware. That one product is the reason why we implemented VMware. 

I would rate Nutanix Acropolis a ten out of ten. It's an amazing product. If you are looking into implementing Nutanix, I recommend going to their website (my.nutanix.com) and enjoying the information there. 

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.

This solution improves management and maintenance.

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.

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

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

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.

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

Positive

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

We tested this solution against VMware and Nimbus.

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.

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. 

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. 

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

I have been working with Nutanix Acropolis for two years.

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 

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 

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

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.

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.

I have been using Nutanix Acropolis AOS for approximately three years. However, I believe Nutanix Acropolis AOS is used in combination with Oracle solutions.

I have used Nutanix Acropolis AOS for approximately four years.

Nutanix Acropolis AOS is stable. We didn't receive any concerns regarding any problems, The customers have no concerns about the reliability.

The solution is scalable, we can scale it up when needed.

The technical support from Nutanix Acropolis AOS is very good.

The initial setup of Nutanix Acropolis AOS is simple.

We have a team that does the implementation of the solution for our customers, it is better to have professionals handle the process.

The return on investment of Nutanix Acropolis AOS is better than other solutions. Other solutions have higher overall costs, such as support or renewals.

Our customers are on three years license to use Nutanix Acropolis AOS. The price of the solution includes all features and support.

I rate Nutanix Acropolis AOS a ten out of ten.