Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) Reviews

We wanted to optimize our process. We were going into a cloud architecture, so we wanted to see how we could leverage the existing Nutanix framework instead of manually managing the servers. 

We currently have a physical VM set up. We had slowly wanted to migrate to the cloud. Since we are already using Nutanix, my senior architect gave me some access to play around with the solution and explore how we can deploy code as a platform as a service instead of writing our own scratch code. If we want to use it as an independent platform in the future, and as a core developer, I wanted to write code to make sure it is interoperable in any of the cloud services we might use.

The scaling is good. We now have dynamic scaling and other scaling policies set up.

In a physical server, we have to define our items upfront, and then we are stuck. With this solution, we can increase it dynamically and define the threshold, and auto-enhance the features. 

We cannot say the traffic is always the same. Over the weekends, it's slow. Over the weekdays, it's higher. They gave us some configurations so that if it is idle, we run on one part, and if there is more traffic, we can run on multiple parts.

The local automation is good. We've seen a huge improvement in our code. I personally worked with the performance teams to compare the product with old physical VM architecture versus the cloud architecture, and I see the difference. I was not able to break it. It was very scalable. While my physical VM crashed at some point in time, the cloud ran fine.

It offers high availability and consistency. We have a lot of batch jobs running and handling that data, so we need a pretty good service. Instead of horizontally scaling, they are scaling vertically. 

I like Cloud Manager from AWS more based on the handling of the UI. This solution could be more user-friendly. The UI could be better. It would be nice if it offered a simple GUI where we would have one view.

We'd like the solution to be a one-stop shop. We have a requirement of having a single GUI setup. Nutanix is like an ocean. We'd like everything tied all together. 

We've used the solution for a couple of months for running some POCs.

The solution is very scalable, and we like the configuration options. You can pick and choose. You don't just have a standard way of doing things. It's pretty dynamic. 

I have not had a chance to speak with support. Our infrastructure team manages to troubleshoot items. 

Recently, we have had one physical server managed by Nutanix that had a snapshot issue (in that the server was not taking snapshots for two months). It's a production server. They sent us a proactive email. There was pretty smooth communication in that regard. They did have pretty quick support for that issue. They are rebuilding the image and archiving the data based on the fact that there are backup issues. That said, when it comes to production servers, they should have a 24-hour turnaround and not 72 hours. Support in these cases has to happen fast. 

Positive

I previously used AWS Cloud Manager in my previous organization. Currently, based on the sensitivity of the data, we are moving to a hybrid approach. Many are still using physical VMs. In my new organization, a lot of my team is already on Nutanix. We were the first team to head into the cloud, and I was handling the project. 

The setup is pretty quick, like all the clouds. The ease of use could be improved a bit more. There is pretty good documentation that helps make the learning curve smaller. My approach is to go to the documentation first before jumping in. The person I was working with provided good information, and we built our own documentation on top of that as well. 

As an application team, it was easy to implement. Maybe it was easy since we didn't get into too much complexity. The APIs are playing a good role. The configuration is pretty straightforward. 

I did not handle the pricing or licensing aspect of the project. 

I did not evaluate other options. We are only licensed for OpenShift and Nutanix at this point. 

We use OpenShift on top of Nutanix, and all the physical servers are cloud servers, and they are all managed by our team. 

As for the built-in playbooks, I haven't done much exploration. One of my team members did more work in this area. He helped me and did all the configuration. He explained what he was doing. However, I was not involved in the playbook at all. 

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten. It needs to be easier to use. However, it is improving. The market has shifted. A lot of companies are trying to get in. Yet Nutanix is doing a great job in collaborating with so many organizations. It's going to provide us with a one-stop solution that helps us avoid running around between vendors. 

I would advise people to read the documentation. That will definitely help. It's pretty sophisticated. Reading the documentation and following up with Nutanix support will keep you from stumbling into the process blindly. Get in touch with an account manager. They can help you understand the requirements first and then look into your options. If you have an expert that can guide you, you won't be wasting too much time.

We have a group of sister companies with different types of applications, from web-based to server-installed. 

We segment our clusters into different areas for each company to use, from development to staging to production. 

Currently, we mainly use the production area, and our staging is off. With the new NCM, we may use a different hardware or environment. 

Since moving to Nutanix, the development and support teams prefer it more.Due to differences in hardware and workload deployments.

One of the solution's greatest strengths is its "Single pane of glass" feature, which allows users to access all pertinent data in one location immediately upon logging in. Additionally, the solution's ease of deployment and mobility are notable aspects that I personally find appealing.

During my attendance at Nutanix, I personally discovered a significant benefit. Although we currently operate a separate division for our public cloud infrastructure, we have yet to leverage the potential of integrating it with Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) or Nutanix Clusters (NC). 

What I've learned is that we can seamlessly migrate and manage the details displayed on NCM's dashboards, consolidating everything into a unified environment. 

While we haven't taken advantage of this opportunity yet, I am eager to take full advantage of it in the future.

Our sister company currently uses an outdated database technology, Sybase, which presents challenges in migrating to a newer database. Despite our efforts to encourage them to move to a different database, the company's 25 years of code and data basic make it difficult to do so. 

We are open to any level of support or guidance that can help us manage the Sybase database, even if it's not a fully managed solution. 

Direction on how to scale, improve, and optimize tables and queries within Sybase would be greatly appreciated.

I have been using Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) for less than a year.

The company has been using Nutanix for the past four or five years and has gone through different versions. However, we have been using NCM for about a year to a year and a half.

I am satisfied with the stability of the system. Our engineers have had no issues accessing it and I have not received any reports of bugs or accessibility problems.

This solution effectively addresses our current automation requirements, especially with regard to repetitive tasks that the team needs to learn how to automate. 

As our company expands, we are interested in shifting the bulk of our workloads away from the public cloud and into our private cloud clusters.

Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) offers a lot of automation capabilities that we can take advantage of in the future. While there are already some basic automation features like Nutanix Move, there is significant potential for additional automation within NCM. 

This automation will greatly assist us in scaling our operations without the need for manual repetition. As we continue to explore NCM and prepare for transitioning away from the public cloud, we can leverage a substantial amount of automation to streamline our processes.

The scalability of the system is straightforward, even from a hardware standpoint. 

Simply adding servers to the data center and integrating them into the cluster is a remarkably effortless process. 

I have not come across a solution that offers such ease of scalability.

I have had the opportunity to engage with Nutanix support through various channels, including email, meetings, and post-installation calls. Even when we added two nodes to our infrastructure last year, Nutanix engineers were on-site to install the cluster, and I must say, they provided excellent service.

The support we received from Nutanix through emails has been excellent, with detailed and concise information provided.

Our experiences with Nutanix's account management and technical account management calls in early 2019 were extremely productive. They were highly focused, aiming to gather detailed information about our environment and workloads. This allowed them to effectively assist with scaling out, gaining a thorough understanding of our environment, and troubleshooting as needed. The level of support provided by Nutanix has been consistently outstanding.

Although I am not directly involved, from my observations, everything has been great, including the engineers who assisted us in adding nodes to our cluster. They were very helpful and knowledgeable.

I would rate the technical support a nine and a half out of ten.

On a personal level, I would rate Nutanix at a nine and a half. However, this rating is based on my limited direct involvement and is not a comprehensive assessment from a Nutanix perspective. Taking into account the algorithm used to evaluate performance, my interactions with Nutanix have been highly positive.

I did not participate in the initial setup process.

We have experienced a significant return on investment (ROI) through our implementation of Nutanix. Initially, we started with two Nutanix systems, using them in our staging environment. However, as COVID-19 emerged in 2019, we acquired six additional nodes and deployed them in our production environment. Almost immediately after putting them into operation, we witnessed the tangible value they brought. The returns generated from this implementation have been substantial.

We initiated a gradual migration process, gradually transferring workloads into the Nutanix environment. As our workload demands grew, we reached capacity in the system by the end of last year. To accommodate this expansion, we have already acquired and installed a new cluster. Additionally, we have a dedicated disaster recovery (DR) site, and our objective is to transform this DR site into a fully operational production site by deploying another new cluster there.

On one side, we have our production environment, while on the other side, we have our disaster recovery (DR) setup. As we continue to witness the positive impact and returns on investment (ROI), we anticipate further growth in our Nutanix infrastructure. Initially, there was some hesitation and uncertainty, but once we experienced the immediate benefits and ROI, we realized the immense value Nutanix brings to our operations.

Implementing Nutanix brings both cost and time benefits. With an initial investment, the focus shifts toward recovering and maximizing the value of that investment. In contrast, when relying solely on the public cloud, there is a constant ongoing investment and potential challenges in controlling costs. While efforts are made to maintain control, it can still be a never-ending endeavor. However, by adopting Nutanix, engineers can quickly grasp and adapt to the system, making informed decisions and judgment calls more efficiently. This ease of learning and system familiarity empowers them to navigate and optimize the infrastructure with confidence.

With the ease of use and automation provided by Nutanix, our engineers can make informed decisions on workload management such as migration, reduction, or scaling up. This saves them time and provides opportunities for personal and professional development.

We evaluated AWS as a file management system, and it appears to be a possible solution.

When it comes to setup, both AWS and Nutanix offer attractive features from a management perspective. However, AWS can sometimes be a bit confusing, requiring repetitive actions and causing potential challenges. 

On the other hand, Nutanix, particularly with the support of NCM and its accompanying university resources, simplifies the transition from learning to live environments. 

The comprehensive coverage in the university program facilitates easier implementation in the actual environment, further aided by features like the test drive, which allows for experimentation without concerns about breaking anything. This emphasis on ease of use was the primary topic of discussion.

From my personal preference, having everything consolidated in a single pane of glass is important, and Nutanix excels in this aspect. 

While AWS has recently introduced cost statistics upon login, Nutanix had already implemented this feature earlier. 

Not only does Nutanix provide a comprehensive overview, but it also allows for effortless navigation into deeper insights with just a click. In contrast, AWS requires more extensive digging or clicking to access detailed information, making the process less user-friendly compared to Nutanix.

I would rate Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) a ten out of ten.

We provide Test-VMs to users. Currently, we deploy only Windows-VMs from Windows 10 1803 up to 20H2 and Server 2012 R2 to Server 2019. The blueprints consist of a base Windows Image (which is used as a template for the VM to be) and several tasks you can define and use remote PowerShell to get whatever you need to get done, like install additional software, set registry keys - you name it. Each task is then executed in the defined order and results can be reviewed even during execution time. Hardware specs can be made configurable, so users can adjust the amount of RAM or CPU core count but can also be set to static.
We recently set the machines up to configure customary passwords and give users an email notification when the machine is ready to use. Also we differentiate machine networks based on the users department to separate machines.

Previous inquiries took us almost a full day to prepare the VM to the liking of our users. Now, the deployment time is below 15 minutes and users can do it on their own! That leaves us to only update the blueprints if new requirements come in or new Windows Versions are published. As we have now predefined setups the testing team can rely on common ground for their product tests. Development teams can experiment with alpha versions in a secured environment (separate VLANs) without harming production machines.

The self-service for users is key to this solution because the creation is done solely on the users' terms and time. No waiting for IT or such.

Previously written scripts can be checked in a library and be reused for other blueprints.

Blueprints can be made available per project so each user sees only items tailored for their specific use case.
You can also Setup multi-machine blueprints to Support 3-tier applications with reverse proxy, Web Server and database Server, or any other concept there might be.

As always, the Nutanix support team assists with any obstacles you might come across. This led to various enhancements we and all other customers had benefits on.

There is now runbooks to use for things like automatically patch machines.

The list of blueprints and applications could be more configurable so you see all the fields you need and not just some predefined fields which are not customizable now.

There are lots of pre-defined blueprints in the online marketplace but often it is a trial and error to get the pre-defined blueprints to work due to some firewall issues. But that may because of our internal firewall being too restrictive.

More support for VMware environments would be great. Most blueprints are tailored for Nutanix AHV or the cloud providers. Hyper-V is currently not supported.

We have used Calm for over one year now.

Calm has no issues with stability. But Calm is heavily worked on by Nutanix, so any issues there might be are fast resolved and updates often help to mitigate problems. Given Nutanix unique 1-click-updates nature, updates are just as easy and reliable. It is advisable to wait for 2 - 3 weeks before upgrading to the latest and greatest so can look if any x.y.z.1 hotfix updates are published to avoid .0 glitches. But they are rare with Nutanix in general and Nutanix support is very helpful if you run into any of them. If you're in doubt simply ask support for help to see for yourself and be ready for your chin to hit the floor ;_) . Reading release notes before doing updates helps a lot to figure out what to expect. Another source for guidance is the compatibility matrix to look for any cross-requirements with Prism Central or AOS version of your target cluster (the cluster you deploy the Calm VMs on).

Scalibilty is second name to Nutanix. Scale-out of Nutanix Calm is just another node on the target cluster if things get sluggish.

Since Calm is dependent on Prism Central  you could simply scale-out that too. Nutanix has sizing recommandations for that, conveniently packed at Identify Prism Central requirements - Virtual Ramblings. Up to 25000 VMs should fulfill most requirements.

Nutanix support is outstanding. As stated above, it does not matter which continent you reside.

Nutanix NPS score is 92 -> https://customer.guru/net-promoter-score/nutanix

Our previous solution was hand-crafted VMs which cost IT a whole day or more depending on the requirements. That is why we had to find a more automatic approach. Nutanix Calm broke the duration down to 15 minutes. You even get a notification when the machine is up and running with Name, IP-Address and pre-selected password to get started.

Initial setup is simply activating it in Prism Central and configuring your target cluster which has to be connected to Prism Central as well, of course. So it is pretty straightforward. From there you can use some of the marketplace blueprints to see how it is done or just see on youtube on nutanix university calm - YouTube

We hit up our Nutanix partner for implementation to get up to speed as fast as possible. Implementation was half a day and we went on with setting some machines up. Expertise was great as we new them from the start and they just get what we want. Thanks to

ErikSterck!

This solution is greatly supporting a user-centric IT with less OPEX. Our ROI was covered within 18 month.

Setup can be done with Nutanix documentation by yourself to save up some money. Getting a consultant to support on the first steps has its perks, though. But you can always count on Nutanix Support to help out with questions or contact community. Does not matter if where your location is. We had outstanding support from europe, india and the US support offices.

Licensing should be a no-brainer but since there came up various options you should take a close look on the feature matrix to see what is in it and if you need it. Nutanix Calm has a 25-VM-license per customer for free. You only need to license Prism Central Pro node licenses for the cluster you are running Calm against. Every nutanix partner should be able to assist with this.

Other solutions are rare when considering to what extent Nutanix Calm covers the lifecycle of VMs. To answer the question: no, we did not evaluate other solutions. Calm integrates so nicely into Prism Central that any other solution appeared rather bloated in comparison. Also other solutions have problems with day-two operations (altering configuration).

Take a tour for yourself online: https://www.nutanix.dev/ad/at/

You shoud REALLY try this. It is just 5 minutes of your time!

I use the solution in my company to manage around 27 clusters. It is all a single pane of glass to manage them and monitor them in a way that is not really associated with cross availability but more in the area of whether there are any impacts, alerts, or any such related stuff.

It is difficult to speak about the benefits I have experienced from the use of the solution because the product serves as a central point. Having a centralized single pane of glass is important. 

My company can also see our Pure Storage and ESXi landscape in Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM), even though such products may be third-party or foreign imports. You see everything in one control plane, which greatly adds to our value. The tool's ease of use is good because a lot more people can access Prism Central, allowing all to do simple operations without needing a lot of training, etc. The tool's user interface is intuitive.

The solution's most valuable features revolve around the single pane of glass it provides, which helps me see all my infrastructure and quickly manage VM operations without having to go to individual clusters. Some of the tool's good features are having one central place to monitor for alerts and one central API to interact with other clusters and deploy VMs.

Nutanix Cloud Manage helps our team address our current automation needs while planning for future expansion. Our company uses capacity monitoring, and it is quite valuable to see the growth and a view on resource consumption and get an alert if it predicts some kind of resource shortage coming up maybe. The runway in the tool is really helpful, but anything else apart from it is not there yet in the product.

Comparing Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) versus other cloud management solutions for setup, learning curve, and ease of use, I would say that Nutanix's learning curve is quite small, and the ease of use is quite high. The aforementioned area consists of the biggest advantage associated with the tool, especially since you don't have to have a degree in Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) to be able to use it and get started or get a feel for it. The tool is quite easy to use. When deciding on a cloud management solution, the tool's setup, learning curve, and ease of use were not major but maybe small factors why my company chose Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM). My company chose Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) because of the natural progression of our company's engagement with Nutanix. My company also uses Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) with Prism Central.

The product can be improved in terms of stability. The update process has to be more tough, meaning it should be more bulletproof. The switch to the CMSP should have been more thought out, tested, and validated by Nutanix. More frequent updates would be good in the tool. Better role-based access control would be good for the tool. Better documented APIs that can be used across all Nutanix products can be a good improvement. It would be good if you could have multiple Prism Central and combine them at a centralized point. From an improvement perspective, the tool should offer a real high availability platform because it serves as a central point, and you need it.

The stability of Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) is an area of concern where improvements are required.

I have been using Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) for six years. My company is a customer of Nutanix.

Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) used to be a very stable product in the past. The versions released by the product before 2023 were great, but after that, I see that there is a big technical gap in the tool.

It is not kind of a scalable solution for now. The product could be used to scale up in the same cluster, but it was not something that our company wanted. My organization wanted to scale across clusters. For now, as far as I know, the tool's scalability part cannot be considered as a feature, but it may have new functionalities coming up in the future.

The solution's technical support is great. I rate the technical support a nine out of ten.

Positive

There weren't many solutions that my company used to use in the past, apart from maybe a few products for the central management of infrastructure components like a vCenter traditionally, and now we use it in parallel to Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) and not replacing it with any other tool.

Six years ago, the product's initial setup phase was easy, and since then, my company has been running the same installation process. With day-2 operations, like upgrades, which were normally easy, I see how a lot of the features have changed presently, including the whole architecture underneath, and because of this, my company has faced some challenges with the product.

There is no strategy required to deploy the project since it is very intuitive.

The solution is deployed on an on-premises model.

My company uses the product in different locations and data centers.

My company did not seek help from an integrator, reseller, or consultant.

The ROI I have experienced from the use of the solution stems from the fact that it is easy to use, and the entry border of the tool is quite low, so a lot of new people can easily use it. With the tool, you have one single pane of glass across multiple infrastructures.

Nutanix changes its licensing models frequently, and it is difficult to figure out how and what is included in which package. The problem lies with how frequently the prices and licensing models are changed and the names provided for the packages. As per the main focus of our company, I would say that having Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) is the cherry on top for us.

I have not evaluated The other products in the market offering the same features as Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM).

In terms of the importance of faster outcomes for our organization from the use of the tool, I would say that fast is not always best, but if you have a very good process in place, fast is good as long as you follow the process.

The use of Nutanix Cloud Manager or NCM's built-in playbooks has not freed up time for our IT team to focus on other tasks or projects. I know on paper and maybe for management, the tool's ability to have built-in playbooks and how it frees up time for the IT team so that they can focus on other projects sounds interesting, but at the end of the day, you don't want a lot of those things to be completely automated unless you have very strict quotas in place which also needs good housekeeping. In a historically growing environment, following the aforementioned areas is not always possible, so you may not want such automation happening, but what is nice about it is that I can forward all the alerts that are generated in Prism Central using a webhook to any kind of messaging kind of application, which removes the barrier of having to check on it. It is quite nice that with the playbooks, I have some low-code way of having some kind of automation going.

Considering the versions of the product before 2023, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

Considering the versions of the product after 2023, I rate the solution a five or six out of ten.

I am not using the cloud manager myself. Instead, I am responsible for deploying and implementing it on behalf of my clients. My role solely involves deploying the manager.

From my company's perspective, our main use case for Nutanix revolves around Citrix. We use it for Citrix Cloud, Citrix on-premises, and sometimes for data center modernization. However, the main reason our customers continue to use Nutanix is its multi-cloud visibility and its ease of VM management.

One or two of our customers utilize the built-in playbooks depending on their level of maturity and available resources. The automation goals of these playbooks are important, but the extent to which they are adopted depends on the customer's IT team and their level of readiness.

We have just begun implementing this, so we don't have any feedback yet on how much time it will save on their projects using playbooks.

We only sell and deployed Nutanix. We don't sell anything else. Because we trust the value of the product and we don't have to manage other products and Nutanix is the best way to satisfy the customers.

Because of its easy deployment, sellability, and fast implementation, Nutanix is a preferred choice. It has excellent performance for workloads and is easy to migrate and move workloads. Additionally, it's simple to convert existing VMware Nutanix clusters to a Nutanix infrastructure, making DR and security easier. Overall, it provides a well-organized and seamless experience.

The most valuable features of this solution are visibility, the single console, capacity planning, the VM efficiencies. We have a recovery plan, security, policies policy security. That's why we implement it with your customers.

I believe that Nutanix Central has the potential to enhance the features and management capabilities of the platform. In my opinion, Nutanix Central will be instrumental in further improving this aspect.

I don't anticipate needing any additional features in this area. While I may require new features such as load balancing with Nutanix Flow networking, I don't believe I'll need them from NCM.

Over the past year, we have seen several improvements in Nutanix Cloud Manager, including new dashboards for security and disaster recovery. Additionally, a new dashboard has been introduced.

There are some load-balancing features that are currently missing in the flow network security and could potentially be added in the future.

I have been working with Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) for nine years.

The stability is good.

We have not had any problems with NCM.

The goal is to optimize what they currently have and detect any anomalies, particularly in terms of security, for future expansion. This is why they are using it.

Perhaps it would be better if NCM could be optimized to consume fewer resources.

The support team for Nutanix is exceptional. 

The support provided by Nutanix is the best I have ever experienced. 

Whenever we open a case, the solution is provided quickly with excellent quality. The support team is composed of knowledgeable individuals who can address issues effectively.

I would rate the technical support a ten out of ten.

Previously, I worked with vRealize Operation Automation.

In my opinion, VMware is not as user-friendly as NCM, which is why I did not choose it for our project.

I think NCM is a valuable tool and can provide evidence of its usefulness, but sometimes the decision not to use it comes down to budget constraints.

We don't handle the deployment process ourselves, but it really depends on the specific use case. For many of our customers, their use case revolves around Citrix. As a result, some customers don't require Nutanix Central, since they only run Virtual Delivery Agents (VDA) on the cluster. Therefore, the decision to use Nutanix Central or other tools really depends on the specific requirements of the customer's use case.

The default deployment is okay.

We have experienced a positive return on investment due to the VM efficiency that Nutanix provides. It has allowed us to optimize our infrastructure and reduce the number of on-desk nodes. This has enabled us to redirect the budget towards other solutions or add more nodes and features.

In my opinion, the pricing is reasonable.

The pricing for NCM is appealing when selling to cloud vendors. I believe that the starter level should be included by default in the package. 

This would enable us to offer more features to customers who may not have the budget to purchase NCM separately. By having basic features included in the package, it would be easier to sell additional features and the full stack to customers.

When we discovered Nutanix and NCM, we were amazed by the simplicity and user-friendliness, and it felt like a revelation. The WOW effect was so strong that we didn't even consider looking for another product.

My main advice to future customers is to be cautious about the resource consumption of NCM and carefully consider where to host the NCM installations.

I would rate Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) a ten out of ten.

I have about 85 virtual machines that rotate between cloud and on-premises. I use the tool for databases, applications, and service communications. I use the solution for my complete infrastructure. Since I work in a Casino, we have a lot of work on the databases with respect to our gaming applications and their servers. Our applications also run on workstations. Therefore, I use the Nutanix platform to store all our applications. I use it for file servers, email servers, DHCP, DNS servers, and domain controllers.

I like the solution's duplication feature. For example, there is a file created by an employee from the finance department. However, there are other employees working on that file, say from the surveillance department and gaming department. It’s about five people who work on that same file. So, Nutanix cross-checks all five versions and saves them as a single file. It saves document space by consolidating all five documents into one.

I also like the fact that the solution manages itself. It has one interface where you can basically see all your servers. So, you can manage your servers and see whether you are falling short on space or disc usage. Also, in case your RAM only uses four Gigabytes of memory instead of eight, you can extend out the over-provisioned mail and save your cluster for four Gigs of RAM.

The solution also helps you save costs. In case your servers use less space, you can cut down your hard drive by 100 Gigabytes which you can provision for another server or create another server on the cloud.

While using Nutanix, we need to switch off the VM in case we are doing an update. We have to turn off the VM if we are updating the memory or hard disk space. In a normal scenario, we switch off the VM, update it and then update the RAM. Once updated, we need to switch on the machine and wait for the RAM to initialize. The same goes for hard drives as well.

I would like them to improve the solution so that we can operate it live without switching off the VM. Switching off the VM causes downtime. It would be great to log back without switching off the VM and affecting the services.

I have been using this solution for four years.

The solution is stable.

Nutanix is a scalable solution.

I contact customer service and support at least two times a month. Their services are quite excellent since their response time is exactly the same as the SLA provider.

I have used Hyper-V before Nutanix. 

The solution was very easy to install. We had only three nodes to install since we moved from Hyper-V. The deployment process took us around four days to complete since we had to recreate the VMs on the Nutanix platform and move them over from Hyper-V. We created a VM called Nutanix Move on our Nutanix environment. Nutanix Move enables you to take a machine from the Hyper-V environment and convert it to the OS used in the Nutanix platform. I had 85 machines and downtime was an issue while deploying the solution. I had to do the switching over mostly during the night or early hours of the morning.

However, the process was quick. We recreated about 20 VMs a day which is quite impressive.

The pricing is lower compared to Hyper-V.

I would give a ten out of ten for the solution. Nutanix has saved our company from doing multiple general server checks which used to take around three to four hours in our old environment. Nutanix gets the checks done within 20 mins at the most. The solution's capabilities are endless. It is a stable product that will sustain your environment. It is really good and works like magic. Apart from Nutanix's pricing aspect, our company decided to use the solution because of technological advancement.

Our first use case is for ransomware. We have two more use cases that we identified. The second one is going to be for DR, and the third one is going to be for capacity.

Currently, we do ransomware on-prem. We use a shared cluster in our disaster recovery site. With Nutanix Cloud Manager, we hope to use the NC2 clusters in Azure and move all the ransomware activities from on-prem to the cloud.

We are an insurance company. Data security is our top priority. We take ransomware very seriously. We always want to be careful and make sure that our data is secure, whether it's on-prem or in the cloud. We go through ransom activities at least once a month on-prem, and that's what we hope to do with Nutanix Cloud Manager as well. We hope to continue to provide data security to our business and to our customers.

We use Nutanix Cloud Manager's built-in playbooks. They absolutely freed up our team's time to focus on other tasks or projects. We were looking to use these playbooks for a while. From an automation perspective and from a day-to-day management perspective, creating these playbooks definitely freed up our engineers to focus on more strategic tasks and more solutions than day-to-day activities. They saved about 40% of their time. As we move forward and use more playbooks, we see more and more time freed up. It freed up at least six to seven percent of our engineers' time.

The ability to do Layer 2 stretching across data centers is valuable. The migration of VMs from one location to the other is also valuable.

There should be more APIs to integrate with different vendors and to integrate with the existing solutions that we use on-prem.

I've been using this solution for about a year.

We had some hiccups with Nutanix Cloud Manager, our on-prem networking solutions, and all that, but as we went on, we overcame all those issues. There has been no showstopper whatsoever. All the issues that we came across were just small things that we had to work through. Nutanix's support has been very helpful. They worked with us all the way to help us overcome all these issues, and so far, it has been great.

We are looking forward to it. We only have a small NCM platform built, but as we move forward, we look forward to using it for other use cases. We definitely want to explore expanding our NCM presence in Azure or in AWS.

Their support was excellent. I'd rate them a nine out of ten.

Positive

We used Azure's cloud-native management. We still use it to some point to manage our Azure entities in the public cloud. Other than that, we haven't used any solution.

The setup was easy. We had help from Nutanix support, which was excellent. We got wonderful support from people who gave us a hand along the way. It wasn't very difficult, and within two or three days, we were fully functional to some extent. As far as the ease of use goes, our engineers love it. They use it every single day. I've not heard any complaints from our users. The user experience that we always look for has been great so far.

Learning is wonderful. There's so much available on Nutanix's portal in terms of the KB articles, knowledge base, user guides, and admin guides for Nutanix Cloud Manager. To have all that available to our engineers online is a great help.

I'm sure we will see an ROI. We've only been doing it for a year. It takes time, but I'm very confident that as we grow and mature, we will definitely see some positive returns.

When we started to look at Nutanix Cloud Manager, the cost was a major factor. Management comes into play. Hosting on-prem is getting expensive. We did find a lot of cost benefits to using the NCM and NC2 clusters in Azure. Being a Microsoft partner, we always get a big discount. When we use Nutanix Cloud Manager in Azure or AWS, there is an ease of management. We have a single pane of glass to look through and manage our on-prem entities and Nutanix Cloud Manager. It becomes very easy.

The pricing was very good. We were very pleased with what we were offered by our account manager. Because of that, we expanded Nutanix Cloud Manager, and we hope to expand even more. Right now, we are in Azure, and as we build up more and more within the NCM platform, we hope to expand into AWS as well.

We chose Nutanix Cloud Manager because of the pricing. Also, the features and the capabilities that it offers within the Nutanix ecosystem were very attractive. We've been using Nutanix on-prem for almost six years, and to be able to extend them on the cloud was a no-brainer.

We use Calm for on-prem automation, and we are looking to use Calm for our cloud automation as well. We have PoC flow for Microsec on-prem, and we hope to extend that out to the cloud as well as we segregate the traffic between on-prem and cloud entities.

Nutanix Cloud Manager is very easy to use. Our users and engineers have become very knowledgeable in a very short time, and as far as the cost goes, it has been very effective.

We only started using it about a year ago, and there's a lot more we need to use Nutanix Cloud Manager for. We haven't fully explored all its capabilities from an automation, AI, or machine learning perspective. We hope to use all the built-in features within Nutanix Cloud Manager.

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

We have Cloud Manager deployed across multiple departments, and each has an individual cluster. NCM manages all of those clusters from a single bandwidth source. About 60 people at our company use the solution.

Cloud Manager is a resilient solution with high availability and uptime. It also speeds up our rollout if we want to provision virtual machines or containers for development. It gives us visibility into Nutanix and VMware from a single pane of glass. This capability is crucial during the reporting phase.

It's also instrumental during capacity planning. Cloud Manager helps you take inventory of your existing resources so you can augment them before they run out. Capacity forecasting and reporting are some of the best features.

Cloud Manager decreased our continuous validation time by about 15 percent because many of these operations are prebuilt out of the box. The built-in playbooks come in handy during scheduled activities. We can write playbooks and execute them at a scheduled time. For example, if I want to perform an activity over the weekend when I'm not in the office, I can run the playbook to trigger it. The playbooks reduce the time spent on these tasks by 30 to 40 percent.

The Nutanix stack is hyper-converged. I don't need to buy expensive SAN storage because it's integrated into the hardware appliance. That's the best part. We get excellent latency by leveraging local storage.

NCM's analytics could be better because we're not getting an accurate analysis of our virtual machines, and we're over-provisioning some of them. 

I have used Cloud Manager for more than seven years.

Cloud Manager is a highly stable product, and clients can request custom enhancements based on their specific needs. You can ask Nutanix's engineering team to build a custom solution for a customer.

Cloud Manager scales linearly with the best performance. There's something called Controller Virtual machine available on every node. When you scale the solution, it never affects your performance.

I rate Nutanix's support a ten out of ten. Nutanix has the best support of any solution I've used.

Positive

We previously relied on VMware tools like vCenter and vROps for reporting. Now, we are 70 to 80 percent reliant on NCM. Nutanix is easier to manage and use. It has a short learning curve if you come from a VMware background. I was already well-versed in VMware, so the learning curve was short. 

Deploying Cloud Manager was extremely straightforward. You can typically finish the deployment and put it into production in a day and a half.

Cloud Manager is fairly priced. I like the pricing model, which includes multiple tiers. It all depends on the customers' use cases. Each customer might have a different opinion about the features NCM offers. We match our customers' expectations with what NCM offers. That might change from customer to customer. NCM is more appropriate for enterprises than small or medium-sized businesses.

I rate Nutanix Cloud Manager a nine out of ten.