Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) Reviews

Our clients use Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure for technology refresh, workload consolidation, and data-driven infrastructure.

Our clients run VMware and other enterprise applications on Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure.

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure has helped our clients reduce downtime.

It has helped our clients reduce their data center footprint, increase their performance, and simplify management.

Our clients have migrated their services from different hypervisors to Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure.

Hyperconverged Infrastructure is the most valuable feature of Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure.

The pricing model for software and hardware subscription renewals can be improved.

I have been selling Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure for ten years.

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure is extremely stable.

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure is highly scalable.

The technical support is excellent.

Positive

We previously offered a three-tier architecture but switched to Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure for its reduced data center footprint, improved manageability, and enhanced performance.

Initial deployment is straightforward. We have implemented hundreds of deployments. For example, in one deployment, we consolidated a physical and virtual environment that existed on a three-tier architecture and physical server onto a complete virtualized infrastructure on Nutanix Cloud.

Two people were required for deployment.

Our clients have seen a return on investment using Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure. One of our clients was able to expand his storage without having to purchase an entirely new infrastructure for his new application.

The initial cost is affordable but the renewal fees are high.

We evaluated Cisco HyperFlex, Dell VxRail, and HPE SimpliVity. Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure has better features, local team support, and hardware associations.

I would rate Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure an eight out of ten.

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure's application and database performance is more seamless compared to the traditional solutions.

Our clients value Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure's ability to offer a variety of cloud operating models across on-premises, Edge, and multiple hosted managed and public clouds.

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure requires maintenance.

Upgrading is easy to do. Adding storage on demand is a moderate task.

I have been using Nutanix products, like AOS, HPE, and Prism Central. I am managing a total of seven clusters with Prism Element and one instance with Prism Central.

We did a total deployment to all areas across multiple locations.

My environment is closed. It is not hosted on the internet. It is a dark site. So, if there are any issues, the Nutanix team lacks the ability to remote in because I cannot provide it. 

The Lifecycle Management (LCM) for upgrades is a very fantastic feature that I have observed from Nutanix.

It has centralized management. It is easy for an engineer to manage. More work goes to patching, upgrades, and maintenance. Nutanix is very easy to upgrade. It takes one click. Engineers do not need to spend additional time with Nutanix for upgrades. With one click, it will complete the upgrade and show the results. Other hypervisor solutions are not like this, specifically since you must do all the components one by one.

Nutanix is easy to learn for someone new to the system. It has more flexibility in its handling. If you are familiar with another hypervisor, Nutanix is easy to learn.

There is a cost for us with a Controller VM. For example, if you are purchasing a Nutanix node with 500GB, then 32GB of that node will need to be allocated for Controller VM. Therefore, we need to spend 32GB of RAM for Nutanix, which is not in our production requirements. This is an area that they need to improve.

Most other software comes as an OVF template. These kinds of OVF software templates are only supported in VMware. We technically can customize and use them in Nutanix, but the vendors tell us that there are technical issues that they will not support. So, they either have to improve this or software providers have to provide the proper software for Nutanix supported software.

It is a CentOS-based operating system, but CentOS releases security patches almost every week or every other week. However, Nutanix releases their upgrade at three or four month intervals. According to my organization's SLA, if a critical patch is released during that time, then I need to implement the patches within 30 days. If it is a standard patch, then I need to patch it within 60 days. Since that is my SLA, I cannot meet my SLA for security because Nutanix will not release the upgrade within these 30 days. Between the critical patch release and the Nutanix release, my customers say they are vulnerable and I am accepting the risk while the SLA is breached. Because of this SLA breach, I am rating this solution as eight out of 10.

I have been using it for the last five years.

When we started, it was not that stable. We were facing multiple issues. Now, Nutanix is very stable.

When Nutanix releases their upgrades, I then need to update to the latest upgrade and patch. Once I click the upgrade, it will automatically reboot the AOS one by one. There won't be any service disruption as well.

It is very scalable, especially if you want to expand.

Expansion is very easy. In Nutanix, additional node expansion is very easy. We can spin multiple VMs based on our business requirements very quickly. In this area, it is very good.

There are two engineers managing Nutanix now for four data centers and a lot of customers.

If I am comparing with the other technical support from VMware, the Nutanix server technical support is awesome because they promptly respond. Sometimes, when I call for an engineer, my call will be kept waiting. Other than this, they quickly respond. If the engineers are free, they will attend the call and help us. I would rate them as nine out of 10.

Positive

I was using VMware. However, VMware is more costly since Nutanix has cluster and storage management that creates storage free of cost. In the case of VMware, we need to pay the licensing cost for ESXI as well as purchase a separate license for the vSAN for storage consolidation and the HCI configuration. Nutanix is not like that. If you are buying their node, then you only need to pay for the AOS and Prism licensing costs. Cost-wise, Nutanix is very good.

It is very straightforward because there is a foundation option. From the foundation, we mount the devices on the rack and get the network to be connected. That is it. Then, we can use the foundation to configure and push the AOS and the hypervisor. The cluster spins up very quickly. It seems like everything is in a single window. 

Within one day, we can configure a complete cluster. It might not even take a day, but four to five hours to configure it.

Only two people were involved in the deployment. Once it is mounted on the server rack, then it is easy to manage. 

Mounting is a physical activity that took two people. For installation and configuration, we needed only one person. 

AHV is free of cost. If we went for VMware and other hypervisors, we would need to pay for the hypervisor license. Whereas, Nutanix is providing the AHV license for free.

Cost-wise, it is very good. It is like the hypervisor cost is not there. We only need to pay for the system and AOS licenses. 

Updating or configuring the licensing is very easy. We can take the licensed file and use it to update the portal. You download it, then upload it to the cluster. So, the management is very easy.

We only compared VMware and Nutanix, who are the best players in the virtualization area.

We already bought three Lenovo nodes and Nutanix licenses. We are going to expand the solution next month in October.

For most organizations, the first agenda is to look at the cost. If you are comparing Nutanix with any other solutions, Nutanix will be one of the best options. It is very stable now. You can reduce the manpower needed because even a single engineer can manage the maintenance.

Overall, I can rate it as eight out of 10 since there are few limitations.

They have OEM partnerships.  

They've got their own developed OS, which is an advantage, if you can save on some licensing, of course. 

The solution is a bit cheaper. The pricing is pretty good.

The stability is very good.

The solution can scale well.

Technical support is helpful.

The initial setup can be a bit difficult. 

Troubleshooting is a problem. 

There are a lot of updates even though the solution itself is fairly long-lasting.

There are no licensed technicians; you have to reach out to Nutanix directly.

They need a more stable operating system.

The stability is pretty good. It is quite long-lasting, however, they've got a lot of releases and upgrades. You need to perform a lot of upgrades during the support peak, which is something new users should keep in mind.

Scalability is okay. It is really similar to SimpliVity in that it's easy to increase the capacity and all resources.

We've dealt with technical support in the past. They seem helpful. That said, they have got some of the bugs that you need to fix sometimes. In terms of just using it and for normal usage, it's fine after you set it up. 

I've also worked with SimpliVity.

The initial setup can be difficult. It's not exactly straightforward. If you get anything wrong, you need to completely start over and begin again. It's not easy to troubleshoot problems either. 

I'd rate the overall setup process at a two out of five due to the level of difficulty involved. 

For the most part, the pricing is fairly reasonable. It's not overly expensive. 

My advice to other users is that you need to think about what you are going to use and why. If you are just using the normal virtual machines, you could consider other brands. However, if you want to use some special instances with the duplication or whatever, Nutanix is a good option.

I would rate the solution at a six out of ten.

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.

The solution allows us to make use of high IOPS requirements.

We used to go with a traditional architecture, storage and server. Now, with Nutanix, we have 30,000 IOPS, up from 1,000. 

A great feature involves real-time hardware changes. There is no need to shut down any VM during the hardware changes.

The solution does not lend support when we connect with a few dongle licenses. There is a need to make use of certain third-party USB switches through which we can have USB access. USB dongle-based licenses do not allow us to directly locate the USB ports on Nutanix. Other than this, I have no complaints.

We have been using Nutanix Acropolis AOS for the last four years.

The solution is certainly stable. 

The solution is scalable. 

I do not recall contacting Nutanix's support within the past four years. Nutanix sends us daily alerts and messages. A year-and-a-half ago I encountered a RAM failure, but there was no need for me to log a case with Nutanix, as the call was automatically logged and an engineer was sent to deal with the problem. 

We previously made use of Scale Computing and HPE SimpliVity.

The initial setup was quick. Previously, the operations involved three days of downtime but, with the solution, the initial migration from traditional architecture to Nutanix lasted three hours, instead of three days. It was so much quicker. 

We handled the implementation on our own. 

The pricing is quite good in comparison with HPE SimpliVity, Nutanix Scale, and even traditional architecture. We found Nutanix's pricing to be the best. We did not incur license fees as we did with HPE Simplivity's VMware licenses, so this kept the costs down. 

I rate Nutanix Acropolis AOS as a nine out of ten. 

The converged storage infrastructure is a great benefit that removes the necessity of a separate storage network.

The web-based management portal (Prism) is very robust and easy to understand.

There is very little to manually configure, for the Nutanix or (in our case) VMware OS, once the scripted installation has completed.

Very knowledgeable support engineers.

For us, the Nutanix 3060 was a fantastic solution because it was an exact fit for the purpose of refreshing our hypervisor (VMware) infrastructure. For example, our existing VMware licensing allowed for a total of 8 sockets, which fit perfectly since the 3060 consists of (4) nodes with (2) sockets each. Our fiscal planning called for the replacement of two of our hypervisor hosts and an HP P2000 G3 SAN however, we were able to justify a Nutanix 3060 appliance due to the hyper-converged features. We also went from a 1G iSCSI storage network to 10G and we didn't need to purchase a 10G switch for the storage traffic since we connected the 10G nics in the Nutanix nodes directly to our end-of-rack switches. The simplification, cost-savings, and across the board performance increase made the Nutanix a great decision.

The Nutanix uses controller VMs for disk I/O, metadata, etc. and they can consume significant resources so be sure to account for the additional CPU and memory the controllers will need. There is one controller VM per node so Nutanix and/or your reseller can help you calculate what additional resources you'll need.

The Nutanix OS (NOS) is proprietary so, out of the box, you will need a Nutanix Support Engineer's (SE) help to configure the appliance. This doesn't take long and I haven't needed to make any adjustments since the configuration was performed.

We have (2) 10G ports per node (you can have 4) so all of the network, vMotion, storage, etc. traffic goes through the same nic. This hasn't been an issue for us and the 10G nics handle all the traffic quite well with no bottlenecks. In fact, we are still seeing 0ms read and write latency with 40% resource utilization.

Our Nutanix has been in production for 1 month.

There was some sort of communication breakdown with the Nutanix SE and our reseller. I mentioned before the installation is done with a Nutanix SE due to the proprietary installation but I was not made aware of this until after I tried to perform the installation myself. Once I became aware (after reading a lot of documentation) and contacted Nutanix Support, the engineer who helped me was extremely knowledgeable and got the installation back on track.

No stability issues.

No, however we do not have any short-term plans to scale out beyond our current Nutanix appliance.

I have not needed to contact customer service.

Outstanding on every level.

We were using HP servers, switches, and SANs for our hypervisor solution. The hyper-converged infrastructure became a more attractive option since there is less to manage separately. The management portal (Prism) manages everything centrally and can be configured for your SNMP solution.

The initial setup is somewhat complex and needs to be coordinated with a support engineer. Given the amount of proprietary technology (NOS, features, and Nutanix has their own optional hypervisor solution (Acropolis)), it isn't surprising nor a frustration.

As I mentioned previously, the installation was done by me with the help of a Nutanix SE.

This is a pricey solution considering it's essentially a fork lift upgrade but the features, redundancy, and performance made it the most attractive solution for us.

We looked at Simplivity as well but decided on the Nutanix because it was a better fit for our VMware licensing. We were able to simply replace (4) of our existing VMware hosts with (4) Nutanix nodes in a single appliance.

I use the virtualized component of Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure to host some of my applications. We also use it for disaster recovery and replication. We're using Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure to run our CRM software, HR solutions, and databases.

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure has reduced our infrastructure management costs. The solution helps us eliminate downtime. We haven't had any downtime in the past two years—even during the updates. Upgrades are smooth and easy, but we still need to plan ahead because there is a reduced workload while the updates are happening. 

The solution helped us consolidate applications because we were previously using a three-tier architecture with different sets of servers, storage, and networking. Now everything is on Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure. We also save on rack space and power cooling. We are in the process of modernizing other applications and setting up DRs. 

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure has a simple, user-friendly GUI, and I also like the remote recovery capabilities. It provides a single platform for managing databases. They have Nutanix-validated designs for databases that optimize them for performance. They have some guidelines and designs for best practices. It has helped us improve the performance of transactions.

In a hybrid cloud setup, we should be able to port our floors from on-premises to the public cloud and from the public cloud to on-premises.

I have used Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure for two years.

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure is reliable. 

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure is a scalable solution, but our organization won't have any need to scale for another two years or so. It's easy to add computing power and storage on demand. 

I rate Nutanix support an eight out of ten. 

Positive

We also use VxRail.

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure is deployed on-premises in Mumbai. The Nutanix professional services team deployed the solution. The deployment was straightforward but required some upfront planning. We need to design a solution for our environment. We completed the deployment in under a week. It took us one week to plan and another to execute. Only one person is required to administer and maintain the platform. 

We have calculated that we will see an ROI within three years of implementing Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure. 

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure could be cheaper. It's costly to upgrade the solution. There are no additional costs aside from the license. 

I rate Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure an eight out of ten. Initial planning is critical when you deploy a solution like this. You need to plan in terms of capacity, sizing, and environment. It's essential to understand your requirements. With appropriate planning, you won't face problems in the future.