What needs improvement with Nutanix Unified Storage?

The dashboard could be more customizable

I believe that one of the most complicated parts of Nutanix Unified Storage is the configuration of the DNS issue in Active Directory. Sometimes it is a bit complicated to troubleshoot or detect an error when integrating it with Active Directory.

The solution needs to be more open to integration with other vendors. Sometimes, we struggle with the support process. Our skilled engineers must explain our problems to everyone, even though we've already done preliminary investigations. The support team follows standard procedures, which can be painful. We're not a small customer, especially in the life sciences sector, so we'd appreciate more specialized support. I've heard Nutanix Unified Storage has teams dedicated to life sciences and healthcare; we should be part of that.

According to the keynotes announced by Nutanix the previous day or this morning, the data storage for Kubernetes requires improvement as it has a few shortcomings in the area of operations.

I haven't had any issues with the solution so far.

From an improvement perspective, maybe some features can be rolled out in the GUI, especially the ones we can do only in CLI as of now. There are some processes, like if I like to change the data storage to another place, I have to use CLI, and I don't like it since I believe that it could have been simpler in GUI.

It's a little bit slow because there's so much in the underlying layers that even after talking with Nutanix support, I couldn't really grasp it. There's still a little bit of a learning curve, but the support was really helpful.

While Unified Storage has evolved a lot over time, its database handling needs to improve a little. There could be an improvement in terms of costs. It's a little expensive for Brazil but still delivers a lot of performance.

The solution's monitoring and security features could be improved. Nutanix Unified Storage is not easily managed by the command line.

We haven't gotten any bad feedback.

It could be more user-friendly. You can abstract the technical details. If you look at the IP plans and the services running underneath it, it's quite a simple product. As a customer, you get exposed to a lot of the decisions, which is not always necessary. That should be able to exist for some customers who have special needs but in general, the complexity could be lower. It looks scarier than it is.

Some of the new features in the tool cannot be used with just one click, as was possible in the past. The aforementioned area can be considered for improvement in the product. The throughput or latency of Nutanix Unified Storage for data-intensive workloads, such as AI or data analytics, is better in the present compared to the past. In the past, my company faced some small problems with the latency part, but nowadays, it works very well. In terms of the use of detecting and blocking ransomware threats, I would say that my company applies some configurations to all the data so that the other people in the environment involved in the administration part can't delete them. If someone tries to attack and delete some data, then my company has a feature in the tool to enable the protection of data so that no one can delete any data. Implementing Nutanix Unified Storage resulted in a reduction in the number of storage nodes due to increased storage capacity per node. In the past, my company had more servers and appliances, but nowadays, we have reduced the number of appliances in the data center by around six percent. The reduction in storage nodes has affected our company's operation and business in terms of the cost of energy, environment, administration, and contracts for continuing the business in the data center. In terms of the tools used to protect unstructured data, my company replicates the environment in one data center to another and one Nutanix cluster to another Nutanix cluster. It is very important to use the data protection features offered by Nutanix in our company because we can have another point of data in a separate cluster of Nutanix. My company analyzed a traditional architecture, but we saw a better solution in Nutanix because it is small, and we can run the same appliance everywhere. The new solutions that users have been seeing for the past one or two years don't have features available in one click like they were in the past, but they do work, though it is not as easy as it was in the past.

Unfortunately, I do not have information since I did not work directly with the solution. From my point of view, which is indirect, I did not see any relevant defects or needs for marginal improvements. The pricing could be improved.

It is hard to say what can be better because we have been using Nutanix products for 11 years. We have been with Nutanix for a long time, and it is difficult to find flaws. The moment we find something that is not up to our expectations, we raise a request for a new feature or engage with support. We usually get an answer fairly quickly. There is not much we are missing. When it comes to Nutanix Files, one thing that would be great is a slightly easier way of managing snapshots and restore points, especially when a third party is involved. We have a third party for backups. They look after the data that we are managing. At times, it is difficult to discern which recovery point has been generated. In a new iteration, they can perhaps amend that piece of management. It is a tiny detail. It already works, but if they can implement a more straightforward way of managing those recovery points, it will be a good thing.

There is some confusion in the reporting when I have to create the report for statistics. I find it is not so user-friendly. The analysis of data could be improved. We would like to have a better user experience for data analysis.

Perhaps Unified Storage could be improved by including artificial intelligence to make searches more effective. Also, if someone has access who shouldn't, it could automatically update, so I do not need to physically remove permission. The platform could do it automatically. AI could make it more self-service.

We are using it in a very narrow area. I am not sure if there are a lot of enhancements for that. Pricing can always be better.

I have heard that there have been latency problems.

I don't know how the product can be made perfect. Till date, my company has not faced any significant issues with the tool. Considering that my company is already an existing partner of Nutanix, if we plan to scale up, then some improvements are required on the pricing front and the scalability feature offered by the solution.

There are still some gaps in the solution's synchronization that could be improved.

The product does not offer one console. From an improvement perspective, it should offer one console. With Prism Central, Nutanix tried to manage all the stuff, but I believe that it can be made easier.

It is a good solution, but every solution can be better. I would like Nutanix to provide a solution for virtual disks. This is the main problem for which we want a solution.

The analytics part of Nutanix Unified Storage is too big and should be made smaller and less resource-hungry. I don't use the solution's object storage because I find that part too complex.

The solution should include more protocols to access data.

From a management side, the one thing I would prefer is if it were a bit less expensive for smaller enterprises. It's a bit costly. If they provided flexible modules where you could pick and choose features, and only pay for what you use, that would be an improvement.

One thing I'd appreciate is having a desktop application similar to what VMware offered. With VMware, I could download a separate client program onto my computer, allowing me to log in directly rather than accessing the host through a browser.

The graphical user interface could provide more detail. It would be nice if we could click on the service and get some expanded definitions of them. When hiring new people, it's difficult to teach them how everything works, but if they can access everything, they can teach themselves.

The GUI is easy to use, but it's complex to do tasks from the command line. That is one way they could simplify things for the engineers. People tend to use a graphical interface more than the command line interface. If anything goes wrong, we need to do troubleshooting from the CLI. It would be nice if there were more ways to fix issues within the GUI.

Unified Storage failed to fulfill our object storage requirements. The virtual volume has limitations. If I create more than one disk, it encounters limitations. When I mount the volume group to the physical machine, it updates the same disk or partition on the machine, which is not desirable. I was working on a media project that required ten gigabytes of data. I created a volume group of that size, but due to the limitations of the virtual disk, which can be up to 64 terabytes, I had to create a mini disk. Once I mount the disk to the physical machine, it creates a mini virtual disk or mini partition, not just a single partition.

The interface could be improved.

It is challenging to set up group policies regarding user access to the solution. We have to log on to the system for it. Instead, setting them up directly through the system would be easier.

The solution is very expensive. It is very network intensive.

We have some problems with Nutanix Unified Storage's support because they asked us to change our hardware.

Security is an area for improvement. When there are vulnerabilities, there needs to be a faster approval process. The solution needs to automatically target the vulnerabilities and not waste too much time.

There is room for improvement in the solution's customer service.