Share your experience using BMC Helix Cloud Cost [EOL]

My main use cases for Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) involve managing infrastructure and looking at dashboarding performances.

I am currently using Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) to manage my infrastructure.

The specific functionalities I am utilizing with Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) include offsite replications, between site replication, load balancing, and regular management creations.

We haven't started with self-service, Intelligent Operations, or cost governance yet; we haven't looked at that too much.

What I find most valuable about Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) is the single pane of glass.

A single pane of glass means one place to go look at everything.

The biggest benefit Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) has provided my company is a more overall encompassing area where I can go look at and review workloads and get an early jump on any indications of problems.

The biggest case and need regarding full stack visibility for operations to create a single pane for the entire virtual infrastructure, including both Nutanix and non-Nutanix environments, is monitoring, alerts, and reporting.

It makes it easier than having to find the individual servers, and I can have an executive summary for myself.

It cuts down the number of tools that we have to use or go to, allowing us to see anything else that's going on while we're managing our infrastructure, providing a single place where we could start consolidating.

I don't know yet how Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) can be improved; I'm still new enough into it and still reviewing it.

For the use case that I use Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) for, it works fine and great; I don't have a specific improvement aside from general feedback.

Better AI would be a feature I would want to see in the next update.

I've been using Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) for about a year.

The stability and reliability of Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) have been excellent; we've never had a problem, and we were pleasantly surprised with how well the image upgrades went.

Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) has not had any issues scaling with the growing needs of my company; it's been fine.

I don't know that we're big enough to see that kind of scalability or improvement with self-service because we're such a small shop, but it is nice not having to call an engineer.

The customer service and technical support I've received have been phenomenal.

I would rate the customer service a 10, absolutely.

Positive

Having come from a VMware shop straight over to pure Nutanix, I find Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) to be more intuitive.

The biggest differences between VMware, Cisco, and Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) is the UI; I feel the UI is more intuitive across the board with Nutanix, and that is the biggest difference.

The initial setup of Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) was seamless and perfect.

Nutanix sent their partner to help cut us over and assist with the transition, which was flawless.

We actually saw a decrease in our budgeting and cost management coming from VMware over to Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM), with a year-over-year decrease of about 10% to 15%.

For me, the biggest return on investment when using Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) is product stability, having everything in an all-in-one package with cloud availability there and not having to manage multiple tools.

I've seen more efficient IT management from using Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM), with efficiency improvements increased by about 10 to 15%.

Better pricing would help improve Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM).

Having come from a competitor, I appreciate the pricing model of Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM); it's very easy to understand, so I wouldn't change anything.

I didn't consider another solution before adopting Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM).

NCM Security Central has helped my team have visibility into our security posture across our infrastructure.

We're just now exploring low-code automation driving remediations, such as Xplay or Crossplay, since we've only had Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) for about a year.

The cost governance feature gives me a projected path, allowing me to get ahead of potential cost escalations and understand why they may be happening. I can better manage my budgeting standpoint for the next year and stay on top of those costs.

It's another tool for managing multi-cloud costs; I use it in the same aspect as everything else, as a report I can review to future plan my organization's costs.

Overall, I would rate Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) a nine.

My main use case for Apptio Costing is to bring cost transparency to the forefront and deliver a modern, streamlined way to realize the true value of IT costs and investments by understanding consumption and unit cost and aligning them to business priorities.

It provides a single source of truth for IT costs and helps eliminate guesswork, reduce waste, and guide more informed decisions.

A quick specific example of how I use Apptio Costing in my day-to-day work is that it has helped us improve accountability, optimize resources, and demonstrate the ROI of IT initiatives while aiming to set a solid foundation for IT financial management with deeper insights.

Apptio Costing has positively impacted my organization as this tool has been a true game-changer because the CFO of our organization trusts the budgets as he is able to see the details, avoiding arbitrary cuts to the budget and enabling us to repurpose staff from one department to another with a better handle on our vacancies against the budget.

We have taken on the IT budgets of six newly acquired locations because they know that we have the tools to adapt and can take on this work without issue or hassle, leading to more than doubling the IT budget from over $80 million to $300 million in the time we've had the product.

Apptio Costing enabled us to handle the IT budgets of those six new locations by allowing us to forecast a multi-year, multi-location budget of a $225 million project effectively in PFP and ended up significantly under budget when it was finished, thus avoiding the need to go back to the board to approve more funds for the project.

The best features that Apptio Costing offers include reducing the total cost of ownership associated with large applications in any organization while providing a business-centric view of technology with insights that help our IT organization unlock and shift resources.

It understands any business unit expense from the app, product, or service down to the general ledger and allocates costs based on consumption metrics, enabling precise resource allocation and budget optimization.

All the features of Apptio Costing are great and helpful, as it helps organizations classify, categorize, and consolidate IT spend, ensuring investments are directed to the highest value-add opportunities.

In addition to the features, cost recovery, where Apptio Costing determines the proper billing amount from each business unit using business rules, and unit rate billing, where it exposes the drivers business units can use to mitigate cost and reinvest in high-value IT activities, also stand out.

To improve Apptio Costing, a fixed asset data input needs to allow for more details such as quantities by line item, not by total amount, and I would appreciate access to more of our plans, as we have to achieve or purge prior monthly plans in order to keep the system running faster for our users.

It is worth mentioning that Apptio Costing does not have historical balance sheets.

I have been using Apptio Costing for the past five years.

Apptio Costing is very stable.

Apptio Costing's scalability is very good as it grows with my organization's needs, and I can handle it seamlessly and perfectly.

The customer support for Apptio Costing is very great as they are supportive and responsive 24/7.

I would rate the customer support on a scale of one to ten as eight out of ten.

Positive

Before switching to Apptio Costing, I previously used Microsoft Power BI, but I switched because it was not that leveraging, was a bit costly, and was not easy to use.

Apptio Costing was deployed in our organization using a public cloud.

I have seen a return on investment, as identifying ownership gaps in technology and applications has been easy while providing IT leaders with operational details tied to the financials, such as how much we are spending on projects versus what we think we are spending.

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing has been that the price is relatively cost-effective, and I do not have a problem with that.

The setting is a bit straightforward when you are able to ingest everything and learn about everything; the setting becomes simple.

Before choosing Apptio Costing, I also evaluated Workiva.

The advice I would give to others looking into using Apptio Costing is that it is suited for IT finance leaders to plan, forecast, and budget, as well as automate some monthly close tasks to save time and cost. On the other hand, it is not suited to replace accounting functions software.

My company has a business relationship with the vendor as customers.

I have additional thoughts about Apptio Costing, as we are striving for a thirty to forty percent reduction in application run cost in 2026, and if we hit this, it will be a major component to making that happen.

I would rate this review an eight out of ten overall.