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Eduardo-Penedos - PeerSpot reviewer
Telcommunications expert at a tech vendor with 5,001-10,000 employees
Real User
It has nice-looking dashboards and automated reporting
Pros and Cons
  • "The solution has automated reports and workflows. You can configure it to automatically send out reports to the business units responsible for managing cloud costs, so you don't need to log into the tool to get information. Cost Governance's user interface and dashboards are beautiful. The customers love it because it's easy to use. They can run it and get a report an hour later to immediately see the savings."
  • "Azure has a public cloud offering, and it also has a CSP model that allows Microsoft partners to provide Azure as a service to their customers. Cost Governance only works on the standard public cloud, not the CSP model. When I was at my previous company, we frequently got requests for Azure CSP support. We also got some requests for Alibaba Cloud and Oracle Cloud, but Azure CSP was the biggest one."

What is our primary use case?

Cost Governance is a SaaS solution that helps customers optimize public cloud services. Most customers don't have a clear idea about workload sizing. We measure the usage compared to what has been defined and recommend ways to optimize.

You can use Cost Governance to perform cost governance in multi-cloud environments. It supports the three big public cloud providers — Azure, AWS, and Google Cloud Platform — and private clouds for Nutanix environments. 

How has it helped my organization?

Cost Governance helps customers improve cloud performance and save money. Many customers have idle public cloud resources. Maybe someone creates an object and forgets to delete it when they are no longer using it.

The solution detects all the unused resources and recommends removal. It can even remove objects automatically, which translates to huge savings. It can also save you lots of money by suggesting that you use a pre-paid reserved instance instead of buying on-demand cloud resources. 

What is most valuable?

The solution has automated reports and workflows. You can configure it to automatically send out reports to the business units responsible for managing cloud costs, so you don't need to log into the tool to get information. Cost Governance's user interface and dashboards are beautiful. The customers love it because it's easy to use. They can run it and get a report an hour later to immediately see the savings.

What needs improvement?

Azure has a public cloud offering, and it also has a CSP model that allows Microsoft partners to provide Azure as a service to their customers. Cost Governance only works on the standard public cloud, not the CSP model. When I was at my previous company, we frequently got requests for Azure CSP support. We also got some requests for Alibaba Cloud and Oracle Cloud, but Azure CSP was the biggest one.

Buyer's Guide
Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM)
January 2025
Learn what your peers think about Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM). Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: January 2025.
831,158 professionals have used our research since 2012.

For how long have I used the solution?

I start working with Cost Governance (formerly Beam) a little more than a year ago. They don't have that many products because Nutanix is about a decade old. They've only begun to increase the portfolio in recent years. I was a portfolio specialist for a year, so I know most of the core solutions well.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is Software as a Service, so there is nothing to scale. We can target customers with a small cloud footprint or customers that are huge. There is no need to scale anything because it's SaaS.

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

Of course, Cost governance is my first choice because I was selling it. However, I was competing with solutions from VMware and other vendors. At that time, we believed our product was much better, and our customers gave us feedback that this was the best solution.

How was the initial setup?

I rate this solution a 10 out of 10 for ease of deployment. Setting up the solution is straightforward because it's SaaS. You can sign up for a 14-day free trial by going to the website and registering your public account. It takes a couple of hours for Cost Governance to gather information and perform the computations. You don't need a dedicated person to deploy, manage or maintain it. Typically, each organization has someone who oversees public clouds and cost management. 

What was our ROI?

Customers need to consider the total cost of ownership and how much they'll save using this solution. It has some advanced cost comparison features that aren't being utilized by many customers at the moment. You provide a specific workload, and the solution tells you where the workload will be the cheapest in your multi-cloud environment, including the private cloud.

For example, if you want to build an ACM, Cost Governance can say that will be cheaper if you deploy on-prem or in Azure. Most customers are not there yet, but if a customer is in that process, the value for the money will be a perfect 10.

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

I rate Cost Governance an eight out of 10 for pricing. There are different plans, so you can pay monthly or yearly. You can also sign a three-year contract. It's quite flexible.  I can't give it a perfect 10, because customers always want a cheaper solution.  

What other advice do I have?

I rate Nutanix Cost Governance a nine out of 10. I stopped short of rating it 10 because the lack of support for CSP was costing us some sales to big companies that had those types of contacts with Microsoft partners. Cost Governance's one shortcoming is a lack of support for specific environments. When I left the company, they planned to add support for those cloud environments, but I'm not sure if they've been publicly released yet. 

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
PeerSpot user
reviewer1372269 - PeerSpot reviewer
Head of Operations at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
one-click self-service means users can serve themselves resources without IT; they have the power in their hands
Pros and Cons
  • "The fact that these are non-technical people — they're experts in their fields but they're definitely not technical — and they can just log in to the portal and select the resource that they believe they need, and manage it themselves, speaks to the ease of use. It shows them their live costs, etc., as they're spending. The fact that they can do that without any problems, or having to engage the IT teams, is a true testament to it. There's no need for any user training at all."
  • "Even though it's a lot easier, it could be a bit slicker for the end-users. The ability to create their own blueprints could be without their having to understand the details of what they're trying to do. If they could just tick this, this, this, and this — whatever they need — and it would go spinning those up, that would be better. Now, we still guide them quite a bit."

What is our primary use case?

We wanted to find a way to start getting our academics used to paying for compute without having to actually pay, but still to do it for real in the cloud. We use the self-service portal within Nutanix for them to deposit some funds, which is a cost charge, not a credit card, and then we say, "Okay, based on that, you have bought X amount of CPUs, Y amount of memory, and Z amount of storage." They can then go in and say, "Okay, well, I know I've got a pool of 10 BCPs for a month. I want to spin up three of them to process this data, which I'll then tear down afterwards."

We use it for our neurological psychology department where they do a lot of brain scans. They want to upload them to a place where they can compute the output of those scans and then they want to tear down their compute afterwards, because they don't need to be running all the time. 

Another area uses it for looking at weather data, which is typically quite a large amount of data. They only need to process once and then they can destroy it because they don't need to look at it again, once they've done analytics on it. 

Those are our typical use cases: to allow our research areas to spin up their resources against a pricing model that they've secured funding for, and not have to engage the IT teams to provide the resources for them. It also allows them not to go beyond their budgets and stay within predefined lanes.

We have it on-premise. We built our own private cloud and we host it on there for our academics to consume and spin up their own resources. We know that we could burst up to Azure, AWS, and GCP, but we don't. We keep it all within our private cloud at the moment.

How has it helped my organization?

It gives the end-users control of what they need. If they have requested a VM with two VCPUs but they actually need four, they have the ability to go in and do that themselves, from the same pool of resources that they've been allocated. It gives them the complete flexibility to do it themselves. If they're working remotely and they access the cluster from, say, Australia on the opposite side of the world from us, to use an extreme example, and they want to do stuff overnight, they don't have to wait for IT to wake up eight o'clock in the morning, or even later. They can do it at whatever time is relevant to them locally.

It's helped us in terms of ease of compliance and simplicity for the researchers in governing their research grants. The grants are usually very strict regarding how money can be spent, to make sure there's no waste allowed and to get the best value out of the grants. Rather than having to spend thousands on something they may only need for very small periods in a month or a year, it allows them to do more research than they could necessarily afford to do if they had to buy the hardware. It really gives them that agility. The capital that the researchers would have had to spend on hardware, to achieve this, is now all part of a central service using hardware that we've already procured.

In addition, because it does allow the end-users to look after their compute themselves, it means that they can work on things together. They don't have to put a request into IT for them to spin up the resource for them. They can dip in, spin it up, and use it straight away, so if they're actually working very closely with somebody, they don't have to wait for IT. That means the collaboration window is going to be a lot slicker. The actual activity can be done at the time it's needed, rather than having to plan way in advance or slow it down because they need some resource and they haven't got the ability to use it. The ultimate message is that they have the power in their hands, which means the collaboration becomes more fluid because they don't need to wait on IT to give them services.

Nutanix Calm's one-click self-service feature means that we don't have to look after it. The end-users can, as I said, serve themselves so they can set the blueprint and spin up some resources. They don't need to wait for IT, which means that we, in IT, can actually focus on adding value by making sure that the clusters are healthy and by looking to help them with some of their requirements. IT doesn't have to be the "organ grinder" and turn that key to keep giving them resources that they need. Because they have that basic control, we can provide them more value.

It allows the research to happen a lot faster, for the researchers to do the work that they need to do and then tear it down. It certainly does support a much faster turnaround time. Typically, in the past, we would allocate up to a week to provide them with a complete resource, depending on what the requirements were and if we had them available or not. With this, it allows them to do it themselves within a matter of minutes. The speed at which they can do research is now a lot greater.

The solution has enabled us to react faster to the changing needs of the organization, absolutely. That's the main incentive.

What is most valuable?

One of the valuable features for us is the ability for people to reserve some resources and then use them as and when they need them, rather than us having to give them those resources as they request them. It's very much aligned things to a cloud mindset before letting them loose with an actual credit card.

The fact that these are non-technical people — they're experts in their fields but they're definitely not technical — and they can just log in to the portal and select the resource that they believe they need, and manage it themselves, speaks to the ease of use. It shows them their live costs, etc., as they're spending. The fact that they can do that without any problems, or having to engage the IT teams, is a true testament to it. There's no need for any user training at all. It wasn't overly easy back in the early days of Calm to use it. It was a bit "hacky" in terms of the way you had to build the blueprints, but now it's a lot easier to use. It's a very "light touch" IT solution for an IT service that we provide.

What needs improvement?

Even though it's a lot easier, it could be a bit slicker for the end-users. The ability to create their own blueprints could be without their having to understand the details of what they're trying to do. If they could just tick this, this, this, and this — whatever they need — and it would go spinning those up, that would be better. Now, we still guide them quite a bit.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using Nutanix Calm for about two years now.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We haven't had any problems. In two years it's never gone down. Every time we patch it, it patches seamlessly. We've never had any problems with it and we've never had to do anything to try to resolve any problems.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Because it's all based at Nutanix, it's really easy to scale it out. We have increased our capacity on our platform a number of times, and it seamlessly rebalances the clusters as it needs to.

It's purely our researchers who are using it. We don't use it ourselves, as an IT department. We have capacity for 100 active VMs at any time and there are about 300 academics in the department who have access to use it.

How are customer service and technical support?

We haven't used Nutanix technical support for this solution. We have used it for other products, but Calm looks after itself. We have not had any problems with it at all.

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

We didn't have a previous product. We would do it ourselves, which was part of the challenge for us because we couldn't deliver at the speed at which they wanted us to deliver. The researchers were going off and trying to do it themselves within public cloud, and therefore spending and wasting a lot of money which they could have spent in better ways.

We moved to Calm to make it more efficient for the academics. It would give them a bit more power and control, and ultimately we want to be a lot more cloud-orientated. To achieve that, there needs to be a degree of governance. If they are used to that governance in how they operate, then migrating them to a public cloud piece should be easier. They will  be used to being sensible with when their resources are turned on or not.

How was the initial setup?

Everything is very straightforward to set up. It's as few clicks as possible, which works very nicely.

Our deployment was done within about a day. That was two years so it would be hard to put a more specific time on it. It was also a very different product then, as compared to now.

In terms of an implementation strategy, we essentially got the solution because we wanted to help some of the areas that were complaining about our speed of delivery. We only really offered it to those areas. But we've now gone full circle and just committed to some more Calm licenses to grow our capability because of the speed of delivery it gives to our researchers. That's especially true with their being remote. They can then do it all themselves and don't have to engage with IT to help them spin things up. In the past, they just knocked on the door and got some support from the computing team. With people working remotely now, that's obviously a lot harder. It allows us to achieve remote work.

As for maintenance, It's part of the wider stack. When there's an update, we will roll that out. But it's all pretty much one click and away you go. You come back a little bit later and it's done.

What about the implementation team?

We did it ourselves, based on the guidance that they provided to us.

What was our ROI?

We have absolutely seen ROI. It doesn't cost us very much and it makes our academic flows a lot easier and we don't get complaints anymore about not being responsive to their needs.

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

I can't really comment on pricing because, being in the public sector, we get different pricing to what is out there in the world.

But in terms of approach, size it on what your minimum would need to be and then add additional licensing as you need it, rather than trying to go too big, too quickly. The whole point of Nutanix software is that you can grow and size the estate, rather than going instantly to a monolithic solution from day one.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We didn't look at other solutions. We already had Nutanix to provide some research compute for other things, so we went with Calm in addition to the suite that we had at the time.

What other advice do I have?

The biggest lesson I've learned using this solution is how easy it is to empower users to achieve what they need to achieve. Without this, it would be very hard to build the trust up and allow our academics to do what they need to do.

In our case, Calm doesn't help us to implement standardization across our organization because the research is usually quite specific. The types of VMs that they would spin up would all be slightly different. Some might have much bigger storage requirements, some might have higher RAM requirements, and some might need to be quite low compute but for longer periods. It does tend to vary quite a lot. But on the flip side, it allows them to all work the same way so they're not going off and burning money in public cloud environments.

When we first got it, it probably would have been a five out of 10 because it wasn't the easiest to build the initial blueprints. Now, we're certainly up to an eight. There's always room for improvement with something like this.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Private Cloud
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM)
January 2025
Learn what your peers think about Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM). Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: January 2025.
831,158 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Senior Systems Engineer at a tech vendor with 201-500 employees
Real User
Provides a great deal of detail, improving our processes for determining where problems lie, in near real-time
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable feature for me is being able to find a machine, regardless of which cluster it's located in, as quickly as possible, and being able to work on it. A lot of times we are called upon to troubleshoot an issue. That usually means there's a problem that needs quick attention. Being able to find machines, ascertain their status, and do so in a timely manner, are processes that are very critical to our business needs."
  • "The integration with Splunk is a little lacking, and this is something that we've worked on with Nutanix quite extensively in the last year or two. It didn't really have a good integration. They built some dashboards, where they were trying to kind of recreate Prism. Prism is its own utility; it works well for what it does. But it doesn't provide us quite the detail that we are looking for or the historical data that we were after. So we had to build our own custom apps for Splunk."

What is our primary use case?

I'm one of the administrators in our data centers. My title is Site Reliability Engineer, so my use case is that of a user and getting it to administer machines and monitor application performance.

The purpose for Nutanix, in general, was to reduce our footprint within our data centers, to scale down to a single point for all of our compute and storage, which it does very well. We're using Prism Pro to access all of the different clusters; we're able to get to them through one interface.

How has it helped my organization?

Based on information that we're able to derive from the application, we have utilized another monitoring tool, Splunk, and we're able to retrieve data on a frequent basis. We are able to find information about different VMs, or historical data regarding the process of those machines. That has been greatly beneficial for us to determine problems with our application; when machines move if there's an HA event and what those machines are; if there's a failure, what machines were involved in the problem, and where they're migrating to. It gives us a great deal of detail and it has helped improve our processes to determine where problems lie, where machines are going and what's happening with them, in near real-time. It's helped our troubleshooting process a great deal to have that information at our fingertips.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature for me is being able to find a machine, regardless of which cluster it's located in, as quickly as possible, and being able to work on it. A lot of times we are called upon to troubleshoot an issue. That usually means there's a problem that needs quick attention. Being able to find machines, ascertain their status, and do so in a timely manner, are processes that are very critical to our business needs.

What needs improvement?

I've used other products that are similar in nature and they can be very complex, but they have good documentation to back it up. Nutanix is no exception to that. Their documentation is quite extensive but can be challenging to read if you don't know the product firsthand. Still, it is very good at describing the features and functionality that you're looking for. But something to improve upon might be the ease of access to documentation, and helping users understand which information is going to provide the detail they need to complete their job.

The integration with Splunk is a little lacking, and this is something that we've worked on with Nutanix quite extensively in the last year or two. It didn't really have a good integration. They built some dashboards, where they were trying to kind of recreate Prism. Prism is its own utility; it works well for what it does. But it doesn't provide us quite the detail that we are looking for or the historical data that we were after. So we had to build our own custom apps for Splunk. Since doing that, we have been working with Nutanix to try and improve, to some extent, what they put out for the public. But in general, we've done some of our own customizing of our own dashboards. 

So the integration itself has not been great, but the work that we have done on our own towards Splunk has been really good. On the plus side for Nutanix is that the API calls it has that allow you to retrieve information about their product are incredible. The amount of data that you can retrieve is immense. The downside would be how to best utilize that data once you have it. That's where it's lacking, and I know that they're taking strides to improve that.

The types of data I'm referring to are CPU statistics, memory usage; when there's an HA event; where machines were located and where they're being moved to. At times, if a node fails or goes down for any reason, or there's a memory failure, it has to live-migrate those machines somewhere else. Being able to identify what those machines are, where they're going, and what impact that has to the infrastructure, is a real help to someone like me. That helps me to know what the impact is going to be to our clients and how quickly we can get the system back up to a stable and fully functional state. If we had a problem with the server, being able to look back in historical data and determine what led up to that event is another use for the data. We have roadmapping graphs that show growth in storage and CPU usage, for predicting when we need to purchase more. There's quite a lot of information there that we use to help with our job.

One thing I would really like for them to do is to correlate multiple machines together, multiple VMs, and get a bigger picture of CPU usage or memory usage. That's a real challenge in Prism Pro that we overcome utilizing Splunk. That might be something they could work on, but we found ways of utilizing the data that they provide already through REST or API calls and having access to it through a Splunk interface.

I've been wanting them to improve and mature their Prism interface. With our utilization of Splunk, I found that we tie those together pretty well. Having them revamp the entire product to try and make it better would be a real challenge.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Nutanix, in general, and subsequently Prism Pro, for the past three years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

By and large the stability of Prism Pro is very good. 

I do feel that we seem to run into a lot of problems with memory DIMMs within the Nutanix servers. Maybe they're overly cautious, but we do seem to get frequent failures for nodes that are removed for possible memory issues, or just the possibility that there could be a memory issue. If overly cautious is a downside, they're overly cautious. But if that means that our systems perform well and we don't get errors of data corruption, then it's all for the better. 

Their systems are very resilient and their uptime is very good, as they automatically live-migrate machines off to different nodes in the same cluster. They do that very well.

Having the cluster live outweighs having a single node fail, and that's the whole point of having multiple nodes. From that standpoint, the last time we had a system down because of the Nutanix was probably two years ago. And the cause was a network issue, which was something outside of their control. One cluster could not talk to another cluster and it went into a panic state and started shutting down VMs. It wasn't that Nutanix went offline. We had a network issue. They went into a protective mode to protect the data. That may be leaning towards the overly cautious, but we had zero corruption with any of our actual VMs. It did bring our application down, but everything was functional once we got the network issues worked out.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability is fantastic. Anytime you need more hardware, you just throw it in and it consumes it and starts working with it. 

The only downside is the size of the clusters. As you start growing out towards 20 or more nodes, it becomes unwieldy and slows down the administrative processes. Users and administrators have to be aware that they have to scale out their clusters in addition to scaling out nodes when they have to increase capacity. That just goes along with understanding how the systems work and where their peak performance is at, and making sure that you build out correctly.

We have about 20 users of Prism Pro and they range from automation technicians to engineers to site reliability engineers, to those who actually administer the system. We have two staff for deployment and maintenance of Nutanix. Their roles are to maintain and upgrade and monitor the Nutanix infrastructure.

Our shop is 100 percent Nutanix. We do have some bare-metal servers that have functions for other applications, but all of our compute runs on Nutanix. So our use of it is rather extensive. We utilize it in all of our data centers exclusively.

How are customer service and technical support?

Their support is second to none. Anytime you have an issue, they know what they're doing. They get the right people involved and your issues are taken care of in a very timely manner. Their support is fantastic. I hate giving people a 10 out of 10, because I think there's always room for improvement, but their support is really close to a 10. They're responsive and knowledgeable. And when they don't know the answer, they quickly get to someone who does.

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

Previously, we were running on Hyper-V from Microsoft. We found that it didn't suit our needs. We needed the compute, the storage, and everything under one roof, which Nutanix provides for us. Also, Nutanix's solution is more elegant than Hyper-V because you're able to bring multiple servers together into a cluster and maintain your VMs in a cluster of servers. That's as opposed to a single point of failure with one server or one array or the like.

How was the initial setup?

I wasn't deeply involved with the initial setup, but I think that it was fairly simple. I do know that anytime we need to add more infrastructure, the integration with additional nodes or adding a new chassis is extremely simple and well laid-out. They excel at that.

What about the implementation team?

We did work with an integrator and we had two sales engineers from Nutanix who assisted with that process. They were fantastic. Nutanix is a great team to work with.

What was our ROI?

I'm not privy to the numbers, but I think our ROI is quite high for Nutanix.

The contributing factor is, being able to have all of our infrastructure in one location. We use Nutanix not just for the software, the hypervisor, but for the entire solution. We're utilizing their chassis and their nodes. Having that all in one place, and being able to just add more hardware as we grow our infrastructure, is incredibly useful. It allows us to grow as we need and when we need. That alone allows us to dictate what drives our costs — when we need compute, how much compute we need — and allows us to stay ahead of our growing client base. 

In addition to that, their uptime allows us to have the performance and reliability that our customers demand.

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

It's cost-effective. It's not necessarily cheap, but it's also not inordinately expensive. It comes down to how much you use it to offset some of the costs. If you're all-in with Nutanix, and you have a lot of nodes, it drives down the cost.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

I know Hyper-V was a consideration. We may have also considered VMware.

What other advice do I have?

Do your homework and make sure to get some engineers involved at Nutanix who can assist you. You'll run into issues that they can help steer you around. Nutanix is willing to help if you are willing to ask. The system is not without its complexities. It has a lot of features and there are a lot of things that you can do with it. If you engage the professionals at Nutanix, they can steer you in the right direction. You should utilize them.

Prism Pro can be quite complex, if you want it to be. At its heart there are a lot of features available. If you utilize it for simple purposes, then you can get simple answers. The ease of use really depends on what level of technicality you want to have with it. But in general, the interface is well laid-out. There's a little bit of a learning curve in making sure you're going to the right location and knowing what you're trying to locate. But otherwise, I feel that the interface is well laid-out and intuitive to use.

Some other things they've done recently, like having events tied back to documentation, which is something that they are working on right now, have been great.

The biggest lesson I've learned from using the solution is that you get what you pay for. Nutanix has been a great company to work with. As I said, their support is fantastic. If you're going to use someone for your critical business needs, make sure that it's a company that's going to stand behind you and help make your job better and easier.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
PeerSpot user
Sr. Network Systems Administrator at Moda Health
Real User
Top 20
Intelligently optimizes capacity, proactively detects performance anomalies, and enables our Infrastructure team to automate operations tasks with ease and confidence
Pros and Cons
  • "utanix Prism Pro provides robust upgrading Nutanix clusters mechanism that has long been a delightful experience delivered via one-click upgrades. The one-click process hides a lot of complexity by using advanced automation and consumer-grade design experience."
  • "LCM could be our second favorite feature right up there with One-Click Upgrades if it worked as smoothly but We have had a few issues with LCM but those appear to have been related to OEM hardware vendor not in sync with Nutanix software, not sure how this could be improved in the future."

What is our primary use case?

Our organization is utilizing Nutanix Hyperconverged Infrastructure for the majority of our infrastructure applications software, systems software, print processing software, and web application software as well as all of our core it infrastructure applicaitons and processes including alerting, monitoring, logging. Our only exceptions are currently our large data base implementations and our accounting edi batch processing solutions which are said to require ultra low latency and high performance network and storage.

How has it helped my organization?

Nutanix Prism Pro has improved the quality and efficiency of our organization's infrastructure team operations throughout our entire datacenter. Nutanix Prism Pro is powered by machine learning and task automation and it intelligently optimizes capacity, proactively detects performance anomalies, and enables our infrastructure team to automate operations tasks with ease and confidence, recapturing valuable time we can utilize elsewhere within our organization. Traditional Infrastructure Team Operations Management tools were built for traditional static infrastructure. These tools often overwhelm infrastructure teams with overly obnoxious alerts. In dynamic and scalable modern data centers with high performance and diverse workloads, infrastructure teams need simplicity and accuracy to achieve high productivity. Prism Pro automagically mines large volumes of system data to generate actionable insights and enables our infrastructure team to automate remediation of everyday tasks for performance management and capacity optimization.

What is most valuable?

ONE-CLICK UPGRADES! - Nutanix Prism Pro provides robust upgrading Nutanix clusters mechanism that has long been a delightful experience delivered via one-click upgrades. The one-click process hides a lot of complexity by using advanced automation and consumer-grade design experience. Historically, each cluster had to be upgraded one at a time. While the process itself was simple, this constraint still extended the length of time required to complete upgrades for multi-cluster environments.

Advance Search- Nutanix prism Pro offers to search Nutanix infra related entities as a content format. For example, it shows for VMs who is using memory equal to or greater than 10GB,VM memory =< 10GB. This is a very advanced feature that helps to get deeper details of Nutanix cluster entities.

What needs improvement?

The Life Cycle Manager tracks software and firmware versions of all entities in the cluster, integrated both on Prism Element and Prism Central.
LCM consists of a framework and a set of modules for inventory and update.
LCM supports software updates for all platforms that use Nutanix software.
LCM supports firmware updates for specific platforms.
From Prism Element, you can use LCM to update AHV, NCC, Foundation, BIOS, BMC, DATA Drives, HBA Controllers, SATADOMs, and M.2 Drives (G6 and later). From Prism Central, you can update Calm, Epsilon, Karbon, and Objects. When you run a firmware upgrade on multiple nodes, the LCM updates one node at a time to prevent any downtime in your cluster. Before the upgrade starts, all the VMs on that node are migrated to another host and the node enters maintenance mode. Always make sure that your cluster can tolerate a node failure by having the data resiliency status as “OK” in Prism Element.

LCM could be our second favorite feature right up there with One-Click Upgrades if it worked as smoothly but We have had a few issues with LCM but those appear to have been related to OEM hardware vendor not in sync with Nutanix software, not sure how this could be improved in the future.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been utilizing Nutanix for fifteen months.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We have found Nutanix solution to be very stable; we have never experienced any downtime with these solutions and aside from a few LCM hiccoughs we have never had any performance impacts utilizing this solution.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We have found Nutanix solution to be highly scalable; the Shared Nothing Distributed Architecture works well for our implementation.

How are customer service and technical support?

Nutanix support has definitely been best in class there has been more than one occasion where we have contacted for support with an issue and tech/engineer has noted unrelated issues and insisted on resolving either during the session or at our earliest convenience.

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

Previously we utilized traditional hardware-software infrastructure solutions Nutanix is our first hyperconverged infrastructure solution.

How was the initial setup?

I was not involved in the initial rollout of our first cluster sets but continued rollouts of new clusters has been straightforward.

What about the implementation team?

Our implementation efforts have generally been a joint effort between vendor team and our in-house IT personnel the level of expertise has been quite good although there have been some communication breakdowns along the way.

What was our ROI?

Unfortunately I can not provide exact ROI calculations but we continue to invest in converting our traditional infrastructure to Nutanix HCI.

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

Unless your organizaiton is in a very limited niche don't pay the hypervisor tax it just isn't worth it.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

I was not involved in the initial shortlisting of HCI vendor solutions.

What other advice do I have?

Our organization has been pleased with the Nutanix HCI solution overall. The majority of our issues have been related to non-Nutanix hardware underlying the entire solutions so if We had it to do over again We would probably choose to go with Nutanix hardware.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
reviewer2597016 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr System Engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Real User
Top 20
Reduces management overhead, allowing the end users to directly access features but could be more flexible
Pros and Cons
  • "Nutanix Cloud Manager is a stable product compared to other vendors."
  • "The product could be more flexible with plugins. Quick resolution of disconnection issues and errors in plugins is crucial."

What is our primary use case?

The primary use case for Nutanix Cloud Manager is to distribute the workload for the infrastructure. It is used for virtualization and integrates with the front end to provide cloud features as a private cloud to the development and operations team, leading to less management overhead for the administrator team.

How has it helped my organization?

Nutanix Cloud Manager is a stable product compared to other vendors. It is beneficial for integrating with the front end to provide cloud features as a private cloud to development and operations teams. This reduces management overhead for the administrator team, allowing the end users to directly access features and reducing integration time.

What is most valuable?

The file server is the best feature because it supports different vendors such as Microsoft Hyper-V and VMware without locking with a specific vendor. Nutanix is a stable product with fewer limitations compared to competitors like VxRail. It is beneficial for integrating with the front end to provide cloud features as a private cloud to development and operations teams. This reduces management overhead for the administrator team.

What needs improvement?

The product could be more flexible with plugins. Quick resolution of disconnection issues and errors in plugins is crucial. Sometimes plugins are not working well, and the resolution time is too long.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Nutanix Cloud Manager for around two years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is a stable product. Bugs, glitches, and downtime are minimal. I would rate the stability a nine out of ten.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Scalability is good, and I would rate it a ten.

How are customer service and support?

Technical support is good. I would rate it nine out of ten.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

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

I used VMware VCF before, but it was not as flexible compared to Nutanix.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was moderate. It required some understanding of clustering, so while it was doable, it was not very easy for every user to undertake.

What about the implementation team?

The deployment involved around ten people.

What was our ROI?

Setting up Nutanix Cloud Manager has saved a significant amount of time. Compared to VMware, the setup time was reduced by about twenty percent.

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

The pricing is moderate. It is not cheap or expensive.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

I used VMware VCF before, but it was not as flexible as Nutanix. I also considered VxRail.

What other advice do I have?

I would give Nutanix Cloud Manager a seven out of ten. The complete solution is overall good, but some improvement is required, especially with the flexibility of plugins and disconnection issues.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Hybrid Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Other
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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PeerSpot user
reviewer2183781 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Specialist at a manufacturing company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Real User
Provides great automation features that help automate critical processes
Pros and Cons
  • "It is a stable solution."
  • "They should include more use cases for automation in administering the environment."

What is our primary use case?

We use the solution to automate the business processes for our customers.

How has it helped my organization?

For our customers, the solution is an added value to their environment. It helps them automate critical processes instead of doing them manually.

What is most valuable?

The solution provides the best automation features.

What needs improvement?

They should include more use cases for automation in administering the environment.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using the solution for two years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is a stable solution.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is a scalable solution.

How are customer service and support?

The support team’s response time is good. Although, it depends on the criticality of the issue.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

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

We have used PowerShell and Orchestrator before. In comparison, NCM provides better integration.

How was the initial setup?

The solution's initial setup is straightforward. There is a lot of documentation and webinars on Nutanix's portal to learn the implementation process.

What was our ROI?

The solution generates a return on investment. There is no need to appoint a resource as it automates the processes.

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

The solution is expensive.

What other advice do I have?

NCM provides faster automation than manual operations. Its maintenance is less time-consuming due to the high availability of its infrastructure. In addition, it saves a lot of time as there is no need to generate reports and alerts. We can just read the insights data on the dashboard. It helps our executives to concentrate more on projects instead of operations.

I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
PeerSpot user
reviewer2183826 - PeerSpot reviewer
CIO at a government with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Top 20
A sustainable solution with a straightforward initial setup
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable feature of Nutanix Cloud Manager is the flexibility we're finding in expanding our technology and our support."
  • "Nutanix Cloud Manager could partner with more partners to bring technologies that align with the area's policies and business needs."

What is our primary use case?

We are an education institute, and we use Nutanix Cloud Manager to manage student applications, employee applications, and for other educational purposes.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature of Nutanix Cloud Manager is the flexibility we're finding in expanding our technology and our support. We can't mess with the student's data, and we need to protect the data of many students within our data centers to ensure continuous business. One of the benefits of using NCM is the ecosystems we have within the organization and other organizations.

What needs improvement?

Nutanix Cloud Manager could partner with more partners to bring technologies that align with the area's policies and business needs.

For how long have I used the solution?

We've been using Nutanix Cloud Manager for six to seven years now.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Nutanix Cloud Manager is a stable solution.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Nutanix Cloud Manager is a scalable solution. We are using six nodes and planning to add more features like the video in the future.

How are customer service and support?

Nutanix Cloud Manager's technical support is reachable and solves the problem in a matter of seconds.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

How was the initial setup?

From the documents I'm reviewing, Nutanix Cloud Manager's initial setup was a straightforward process. There were no issues in the solution's implementation.

What was our ROI?

We're seeing a return on investment from Nutanix Cloud Manager, but since ours is an educational business, there's not much to assess.

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

Nutanix Cloud Manager's pricing is fair at the moment. However, its pricing should be reassessed, and different pricing categories should be set for different business needs.

What other advice do I have?

When we approached Nutanix Cloud Manager, they presented the technology well. We chose Nutanix Cloud Manager because we found it could be sustainable for the future. Users should consider Nutanix Cloud Manager's use cases and opt for the solution depending on their type of business.

Overall, I rate Nutanix Cloud Manager a ten out of ten.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
System Architect at Imam University
Real User
Helps me with essential knowledge and planning for projects
Pros and Cons
  • "It is a scalable solution."
  • "The solution's virtualization could be even better."

What is our primary use case?

We use the solution for virtualization purposes.

How has it helped my organization?

The solution saves around 15% of standard time for our organization.

What is most valuable?

The solution is easy to use and has a very supportive team. It helps me with essential knowledge and planning for projects.

What needs improvement?

The solution's virtualization could be even better. They should improve the upgrade and patch engine features.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using the solution for two years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is a stable solution. Although, one of its nodes might break if you don't follow the proper upgrading and patching steps.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is a scalable solution. Our enterprise has three clusters dedicated to it.

How are customer service and support?

The solution's technical support is good. However, it is complicated to communicate with the customer service team for the contract renewal process.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

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

We switched to Nutanix because of its flexible pricing model compared to other vendors.

What was our ROI?

The solution generates a high return on investment.

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

The solution's price is reasonable.

What other advice do I have?

I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: January 2025
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.