Nutanix AHV Virtualization Reviews

For Nutanix AHV Virtualization, we are using it for virtualization of our environments, VMs, general applications, production, and databases. All these are use cases for us.

I find almost every feature of Nutanix AHV Virtualization useful, as it's a very nice HCI solution from Nutanix. AHV is their native product, so it's very integrated with all the hardware they provide. Integration is very nice with the baseline hardware.

We are using all built-in security features of Nutanix AHV Virtualization, which include encryption. It is very effective in protecting our VMs, and it is very secure.

The impact of AHV, such as micro-segmentation, is very effective for us and it's working as per our requirements. We are very happy with the features.

Role-Based Access is also a very nice feature for us to define to whom to give admin access and to whom to give read-only access. This kind of authentication helps us distribute tasks within the teams.

Using Nutanix AHV Virtualization in a single management pane is very important to me, as it allows us to see everything related to our hardware, software, servers, and VMs from one console. We can reach everything from this one console, which provides a nice inside view for our software, hardware applications, server details, issues, alerts, or any unwanted activity.

We are using the non-disruptive operations feature because Nutanix AHV Virtualization is in our production environment, and this feature helps us perform any activity without any downtime.

In our comparison during migration from another virtualization platform, we found a limitation with Nutanix AHV Virtualization, which is that physical server migration to the AHV environment is not supported.

Server migration from physical to virtual must be supported by Nutanix AHV Virtualization, but it is currently not supported.

Other than the limitation of not supporting physical to virtual migration, everything else looks fine.

I have been working with this product for almost three years.

We have not faced any stability issues with Nutanix AHV Virtualization, and it's working fine. Upgrades and updates occur without any downtime, so it is 100% stable.

Nutanix AHV Virtualization is very much scalable, and we can scale up to 32 nodes easily, which is a huge size.

I have contacted Nutanix support for various cases, and I find the support to be really good and quick. We are getting the correct support personnel, who help us sort out our issues, so the support is very nice.

Positive

I have worked with other vendor solutions such as Dell VxRail, and I've had a good experience with that. It's a similar solution from Dell.

We find a 100% return on investment with Nutanix AHV Virtualization, so there's no question about it. It's purely reasonable.

Regarding the cost, Nutanix AHV Virtualization is not very expensive and not very low-priced. It's reasonable for us, and the budget is there.

We decided to go with Nutanix AHV Virtualization because, overall compared to Dell VxRail, it was a combination of VMware and Dell, whereas in AHV, we found that the hardware, software, and platform are all from Nutanix. Everything comes from Nutanix, which gives us a single point of support, contract, and vendor.

Up to now, Nutanix AHV Virtualization is working very efficiently for us without any issues. It looks fine in our infrastructure, and we have never faced any issues.

For those considering Nutanix AHV Virtualization, I recommend this solution as it is very stable and strong. From the Nutanix side, the support is also very nice, and it serves as an alternative to anything else in the market that offers a similar solution. It provides one support window, one solution, one vendor, and everything is under one umbrella, making it competitive and worth trying. It's very stable. This is the strong point for Nutanix AHV Virtualization.

On a scale of one to ten, I rate Nutanix AHV Virtualization a ten.

My clients typically use Nutanix AHV Virtualization to modernize their existing data center. They were previously using Hyper-V as a hypervisor with their on-prem storage, and we have proposed a deployment plan for this change.

The best features of Nutanix AHV Virtualization are the consolidation of all things, the speed it provides, and the reliability it delivers, with the most beautiful part being its self-healing capability that does not require any additional diagnostics to be performed.

It is always a great deal to work with Nutanix AHV Virtualization because it saves a lot of time and reduces the need for human interventions. It has no dependency on the existing IT staff, and once deployed, it runs reliably without the need for attention.

Commercially, the pricing is out of scope for some small businesses and that can be the area for improvement.

I have approximately six years plus of experience working with the solution.

I rate the stability of Nutanix AHV Virtualization as a perfect 10.

I rate the scalability of Nutanix AHV Virtualization as a perfect 10.

I rate the technical support from Nutanix AHV Virtualization as a perfect 10.

Positive

The initial setup for Nutanix AHV Virtualization is actually quite complex because the clients have their old existing servers that are responsible globally, with presence in locations like Singapore and UAE, hosting private applications and services across global regions. Thus, the migration of all those things poses a challenge.

I have experience working with Nutanix AHV Virtualization.

My relationship with Nutanix is that I am a reseller.

Currently, Nutanix AHV Virtualization has all that it needs and does not require anything more than this.

AI in Nutanix AHV Virtualization is a great development and will be very helpful for the future of Nutanix.

Based on my experience, I would recommend Nutanix AHV Virtualization to other people, as we have it as a focus technology in our firm and always keep Nutanix at the top of our priorities when approaching solutions for our customers in terms of HCI and virtualization.

I rate Nutanix AHV Virtualization a 10 out of 10.

Positive

We are offering Nutanix AHV Virtualization to customers who are looking for an HCI solution on platforms that have a mixed kind of servers, such as Cisco, Dell, or HP.

AHV supports the data center consolidation efforts by allowing lots of customers who are using SQL and Oracle to effectively use the HCI solution without issues in their environment, as we have deployed the database services into the same environment.

AHV handles disaster recovery and business continuity by allowing us to put the node cluster at the DR site, making it easy to replicate the entire workload from DC to DR without any third-party replication software.

The most effective feature for managing the VMs using Nutanix AHV Virtualization is MT Cloud, which allows us to move the VM from on-premises workloads to cloud or from cloud to on-premises.

Nutanix AHV Virtualization provides measurable benefits in terms of time-saving and cost-saving because it is hardware-independent, allowing customers to choose from various hardware suppliers such as Cisco, HP, or Lenovo.

The scalability of Nutanix AHV Virtualization benefits the IT infrastructure for customers by eliminating daily activities, allowing us to deploy the cluster and forget about stability. If future stability is required, we simply add nodes without any hassle, making it a hassle-free environment.

I have some suggestions for improvement. We deployed the Nutanix cluster just a few weeks ago and faced challenges discovering the cluster, particularly with Windows servers. I installed a Linux VM to discover the recently added nodes, and my suggestion is that we need to make it more compatible with Windows as well.

Apart from Windows compatibility, I want to emphasize the need to improve compatibility, as Linux is fine, but we sometimes face challenges when running commands with Windows operating systems, which causes delays in committing jobs.

Nutanix AHV Virtualization is CLI-based, and improvements in GUI, making it more user-friendly, are necessary as we have faced issues committing changes through GUI.

I have been working with Nutanix AHV Virtualization for the last two years.

The initial setup process and deployment of Nutanix AHV Virtualization are straightforward; there are no major challenges. However, the discovery of nodes poses some challenges for IT personnel, but any IT professional with a bit of experience can easily deploy the entire cluster.

There is no maintenance required for Nutanix AHV Virtualization.

Nutanix AHV Virtualization is scalable.

I evaluate Nutanix technical support as very good. When we raise a ticket, they come back with a solution in minimal time, so there are no challenges with the support as of now.

Positive

As of now, we do not have any AI-driven initiatives or workloads tested in our environment, but we did test ChatGPT on Box in a test environment.

I don't think there are additional features or functionalities needed in the next releases of Nutanix AHV Virtualization, as most of the things are already covered.

When comparing Nutanix AHV Virtualization to VMware, the key difference we notice is the costing; the license is a little more expensive than VMware. To capture a larger market share, we need to make it cheaper than other solutions.

I recommend that customers see demos of Nutanix AHV Virtualization if they are not currently using it and check its compatibility with their systems.

On a scale of one to ten, I rate Nutanix AHV Virtualization a nine.

We are working on on-premises cloud projects. For these projects, we needed to choose a virtualization option like VMware, Microsoft Hyper V, or Nutanix AHV. Nutanix AHV was chosen because it provides a cost-effective solution compared to other options without incurring license costs for the hypervisor. We are primarily using it for Singapore government projects, where reducing deployment costs is crucial.

Nutanix AHV's most valuable feature is the one-click upgrade capability. It allows for seamless upgrades without any downtime for the workload, as all necessary processes are handled automatically in the background. This feature makes managing the virtual environment easy for the administrators. AHV provides cost savings by eliminating the need for license costs and simplifies maintenance activities, making it a very user-friendly solution.

One issue we encountered is with third-party vendors who provide customized images in OVF format, a VMware virtualization format. When we customize these images for Nutanix AHV, some vendors refuse to support them, stating they've been altered. 

Another area for improvement is in the patching process. Nutanix releases product patches every three months, while the underlying systems like the backend operating system receive weekly updates, causing a gap. This delay in patching creates risk, especially for government projects that require timely updates.

I have been working with Nutanix AHV Virtualization for six to seven years.

I rate Nutanix AHV an eight for stability. While it performs well, issues such as patch delays and the OVF format challenge affect its stability rating. However, on the whole, it is a stable product when compared to competitors.

Nutanix AHV is highly scalable. We can scale our systems easily without any downtime, making it a highly effective solution for dynamic environments.

Technical support is very prompt and effective. We receive immediate responses, which is critical, especially when working in the data sector.

Positive

Before Nutanix, we considered other virtualization options like VMware and Microsoft Hyper-V. Nutanix was selected due to its cost-effectiveness and the absence of license costs.

The initial setup process for Nutanix AHV was straightforward. With minimal equipment, we could quickly build and deploy the necessary infrastructure.

Nutanix offers a lower price compared to other solutions. This has been advantageous as it does not require additional licensing costs for the hypervisor, contributing to overall cost savings.

Previously, we evaluated VMware and Microsoft Hyper V before choosing Nutanix AHV.

I would rate Nutanix AHV an eight out of ten overall. 

The management of the system is easy, and it provides significant cost benefits by eliminating hypervisor licensing costs. 

I recommend Nutanix AHV Virtualization, especially for those looking to deploy their workloads in an on-premises cloud.

I have used it to host a virtualized environment.

It quickly takes snapshots. Moreover, the technology behind the backups is very efficient, enabling a reliable virtual environment.

The graphical user interface has too many menus that are not particularly useful. These menus often show options like host, memory, and disk, however, they fail to provide insight into what's happening. A streamlined interface would be beneficial.

I have been using Nutanix AHV Virtualization for two to three days.

The solution is very stable, except the updates can sometimes be buggy, especially when data is bundled with the hardware and operating system.

Nutanix AHV Virtualization is very scalable.

Customer service is excellent, worthy of a nine or ten out of ten. They provide prompt and quality responses.

Positive

We previously used VxRail. We switched from VxRail to Nutanix.

The initial setup was quite easy. It involved importing VMs from another hypervisor, and it was completed in under a week.

Two people were involved—the specialist from the company we purchased from and myself.

The setup cost for four nodes was about $200,000 (in US currency). The pricing was reasonable compared to other competitors, though the storage was expensive.

I advise verifying solutions through a proof of concept in your own environment before making a decision. I rate the overall solution as eight out of ten.

Many customers use the solution. One of the customers, I think, uses 4,000 virtual machines. Virtual machines are used for administration, applications, and many other things. We can slide them into three environments, including the test environment, the pre-production environment and production environment.

The solution's most valuable features stem from the fact that I use many things, including NSX-T and NSX-P, which are new for virtualization. It started in 2022. NSX-T and NSX-P are different from NSX-v. NSX-v is dedicated to vCenter, and NSX-P is for Nutanix or VMware.

It is difficult to give an explanation about why I find NSX-P to be useful because VMware changed the category when Cisco bought it. I think Nutanix told its customers that the best way to go around it was based on the licensing system, and it is better than VMware's very expensive licenses.

For the moment, the graphic user interface is not good, and it needs to be improved.

In terms of the additional features or capabilities needed in the tool, we need some tricks in the tool for monitoring, and in areas like artificial intelligence and observability, we need to reduce the noise from the monitoring causes globally.

I have been using Nutanix AHV Virtualization since 2015, so it has been nine years. I am an integrator. I work as a part of our company's pre-sales department, so I explain the soluton's technicalities to our customers based on their needs. I use Nutanix AHV Virtualization Version 5.0.

It is a stable solution. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.

It is a scalable solution. Scalability depends on if you install the tool on an on-premises or cloud model. In the cloud, it is a very scalable tool, and it is unlimited. On an on-premise model, the tool's scalability is always limited. Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a nine or ten out of ten if it is deployed on the cloud. Scalability-wise, I rate the solution as one out of ten if it is deployed on an on-premises model, as the space is limited.

It is very difficult to say if the tool's on-premises customers would want the product to offer them high scalability because if you buy five TB, there is no option to expand unless you buy five TB terabytes again. Sometimes, we have to put some configuration, including deduplication or compression. There are some concerns about the tool's performance.

Currently, one of the customers that uses the solution has 25 users. Small, medium, or enterprise businesses use the tool.

I am a pre-sales person who hears what the customer wants, and I design the solution accordingly before proposing it to them.

I rate the product's initial setup phase as a seven out of ten if one is difficult and ten is an easy setup. For an IT person like myself, I can rate it as a ten, but for someone who does not know the tool, it's better to keep it at an average of seven.

The product's initial setup phase was much easier than that of VMware.

Depending on the customers, the solution can be deployed on the cloud or on an on-premises model. I have done both deployments on a 50-50 basis.

The solution can be deployed in six months if I include areas from design, discussion, and implementation.

It's really difficult to describe how to set up the tool. For example, you have to have physical servers of not less than three. You can have two physical servers, but the load balancing won't be good enough. After you create the data storage, you create the VMs, and after that, you configure the networks. You have to dedicate some amount of storage to the server.

Compared to the licensing methodology opted by VMware, Nutanix offers a better licensing model.

If one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the price as two out of ten. There are no additional costs attached to the tool.

The most valuable aspects of managing virtual infrastructure are the tool's automation, artificial intelligence, and the hyperconverged system.

When it comes to the hyperconverged part, it is easier to configure in Nutanix than it is in VMware. The hyperconverged part is very friendly and configurable.

Others planning to use the tool should have good knowledge of the license that they need. If you know exactly the license that you will consume, it's easy to understand the price and get some advantages out of it.

I rate the tool a nine out of ten.

We are a service provider managing 80+ customers, around one million virtual desktops.

Since we are part of the virtual desk practice, all our customers use AHV specifically for virtual desktops.

Nutanix AHV is primarily managed through the Prism management interface. We use Prism Central, the centralized management console for AHV clusters. It allows administrators to manage multiple clusters from a single interface and provides a unified view of the entire infrastructure.

Prism Element is the local management interface for individual Nutanix AHV clusters.

Nutanix AHV supports virtualization management tools, allowing administrators to create, deploy, configure, and manage VMs across the infrastructure.

It also offers storage management through Prism, enabling administrators to manage storage resources within the AHV environment.

For network management, Nutanix integrates with Prism to provide capabilities including network configuration, virtual networking (VLAN), and firewall policies.

Additionally, Nutanix AHV includes built-in automation and orchestration capabilities through Prism, benefiting administrators by automating common management tasks, workflows, and policies.

We also leverage role-based access control (RBAC), which offers RBAC functionality to control access to management features and resources within the AHV environment.

Nutanix & AI:

While Nutanix AHV doesn't have native AI integration as a hypervisor platform, Nutanix as a company provides solutions that integrate AI capabilities with its infrastructure offerings.

Nutanix uses AI for workload optimization and offers Xi Beam, a cloud-based AI service that can be integrated with Nutanix APIs and environments. It supports virtualization with AI training, hosting AI workloads and data science applications using software. Additionally, it offers AI-driven automation through its Calm automation and orchestration platform for data management.

Nutanix is also developing AI-powered support, using machine learning algorithms to analyze telemetry data from AHV clusters and proactively identify potential issues. This helps streamline troubleshooting, reduce downtime, and optimize the performance of Nutanix environments.

Although AHV has many advantages, some drawbacks need to be mentioned. Compared to established hypervisors like VMware ESXi or Microsoft Hyper-V, AHV has a limited ecosystem and smaller community support. 

It may lack some advanced features and integrations available in other hypervisors, depending on the specific use case. 

Additionally, due to its smaller market share, there can be compatibility issues with certain third-party applications or hardware components, and limited support for legacy systems.

I have been using it for more than seven years. 

In general, I consider AHV a stable and reliable hypervisor for virtualized environments. The product has matured significantly, and its tight integration with the Nutanix hyperconverged infrastructure platform contributes to its stability. 

It also benefits from simplified management, with Prism serving as a centralized management interface for AHV clusters.

In general, AHV is a stable and reliable solution.

AHV has linear scalability, designed to scale linearly as you add more nodes to the Nutanix cluster, allowing us to add more virtual desktops. It also has modular scalability, meaning we can add resources like compute, storage, and networking independently based on specific requirements. 

Additionally, it offers cloud-like scalability, similar to public cloud services, enabling seamless expansion and contraction of resources based on changing business needs.

While community and support might be growing compared to more mature hypervisors, a lot of information is available, and vendor support from Nutanix is strong. Nutanix works closely with hardware vendors, software partners, and technology alliances to ensure compatibility, interoperability, and performance.

Positive

I have experience with Microsoft Hyper-V, VMware, and Citrix. 

Nutanix AHV is growing in the market, while Hyper-V and VMware are widely used, and XenServer is moderately used.

Regarding integration with infrastructure, Nutanix has a better edge due to its integration with the Nutanix API. Hyper-V is part of the Microsoft ecosystem, and VMware is part of the VMware ecosystem.

For community support, Nutanix is still growing, while Hyper-V and VMware have strong community support.

Cost-wise, AHV licensing is often included in the Nutanix HCI package. Hyper-V is included with the Windows Server license, and VMware vSphere is part of the vSphere licensing package.

Regarding ecosystem compatibility, Nutanix AHV may have limited compatibility with non-Nutanix hardware and software, requiring specific hardware. However, Hyper-V, VMware, and Citrix XenServer are compatible with a broader range of hardware and software.

It is definitely easy to deploy, but it requires careful planning, step-by-step design, and hardware procurement. Since you cannot choose any hardware, it's important to secure the necessary hardware components for the AHV deployment. 

The initial setup involves: 

• cluster configuration, 
• storage configuration (similar to other hypervisors), and 
• network configuration. 

Afterward, we need to deploy the AHV hypervisor and create the virtual machines. 

Finally, virtualization monitoring, management, integration, and other automation tasks are performed. 

Overall, the process includes general provisioning, AHV monitoring, and other tasks.

Average deployment time:

If we have all the prerequisites in place, the actual deployment can happen in maybe two weeks. However, due to customer processes and security approvals, it often takes one to one and a half months, sometimes even two months.

Challenges while integrating Nutanix into the infrastructure:

We sometimes face challenges when integrating with the customer's existing environment. These challenges can include compatibility issues, data migration issues, and knowledge gaps about the customer's environment, which may require training and upskilling for the AHV subject matter experts (SMEs). 

Additionally, we need to follow operational processes, such as change management practices and service delivery procedures. We can not straightaway we can not go ahead and do the integration, so operational processes come into play.  

Performance can also be a challenge, as the customer's environment might have existing pain points. Fine-tuning the performance can be necessary to address these issues.

Finally, security and compliance are important considerations. We need to ensure that the integration meets the customer's standards and carefully consider data protection, access control, encryption, auditing, and regulatory requirements.

A minimum of five people are needed: two implementation engineers, one testing engineer, one project manager who can coordinate with the business teams and the customer, and one architect.

With respect to ROI, there are several areas where we've seen improvements.

• Reduced hardware costs: Nutanix AHV hyperconverged infrastructure eliminates the need for separate storage arrays and simplifies file server infrastructure, consolidating compute, storage, and network resources onto a single platform.
• Improved resource utilization: AHV is efficient in handling resource management and scaling, maximizing resource utilization, and avoiding overprovisioning, thereby reducing operational expenditure (OPEX) on power consumption, cooling costs, and data center footprint.
• Simplified management: This reduces IT labor costs associated with manual administrative tasks, troubleshooting, and support activities.
• Enhanced agility and scalability: This increases business functionality and responsiveness, representing improved productivity and competitiveness.
• Lower licensing and support costs: Compared to VMware vSphere and Microsoft Hyper-V, the cost of AHV licensing is more competitive.

Regarding pricing, since AHV is tightly integrated with Nutanix hyperconverged infrastructure and compatible hardware, pricing is often included as part of the hardware procurement. 

We have the option of node-based pricing or user-based pricing. In my experience with virtual desktops, we purchased user-based licensing, which is around four to five dollars per user per month.

It is a cost-effective solution with no additional licensing costs for Nutanix customers, potentially reducing overall IT expenses.

From the VDI perspective, I would rate it as a nine out of ten. Based on my experience, we haven't had any downtime, even during disaster recovery tests. We haven't seen any issues with resuming our stage with cluster configurations, etc.

My advice and the biggest lesson I learned since implementing it:

Implementation is much easier than it may seem. Initially, those accustomed to Hyper-V and VMware might find the interface new, but they can quickly adapt to Nutanix. The management console is self-explanatory. 

AHV is tightly integrated with Nutanix's hyperconverged infrastructure, enabling streamlined deployment and management through a single interface (Prism), reducing administrative overhead. 

Additionally, it offers built-in features for data protection, disaster recovery, and automation, resulting in better operational efficiency. It is a cost-effective solution with no additional licensing costs for Nutanix customers, potentially reducing overall IT expenses.

AHV is optimized for virtualized workloads, providing excellent performance and resource utilization across virtual machines.

We use the solution for cloud services and IT.

The solution's up time is always up. The solution is easy to troubleshoot and easy to operate. The most valuable feature of the solution is the built-in data protection, that helps with backup in a matter of minutes.

The solution's pricing could be improved.

I have been using Nutanix AHV Virtualization for eight years.

I rate the solution ten out of ten for stability.

Around 5,000 users in our organization are using the solution 24/7.

I rate the solution ten out of ten for scalability.

I'm using and testing other solutions like VMware, Hyper-V, and KVM.

The solution’s initial setup is straightforward. One administrator was needed to deploy and maintain the solution in our organization.

We implemented the solution through an in-house team. It took 40 minutes to deploy the cluster. To deploy the solution, you need to read a PDF file called field installation for the version you want to install. It's a quick step-by-step process with the prerequisites you need for a computer with two networks. You have to download the foundation, download the iOS ISO, and install it.

Since Broadcom bought VMware, Nutanix also increased its pricing, making the solution expensive. We purchased a 3-year license for the solution. Every time, the license gets more expensive, and the solution has fewer features. I guess it happens because there is no competition.

The solution helped us avoid high expenses on VMware. I got more by paying less. I would recommend Nutanix AHV Virtualization to other users because it's a simple solution. It takes us 40 minutes to set up a cluster and about 10 minutes to expand the cluster. So, the efficiency is amazing, and the team is available for other tasks.

Overall, I rate the solution ten out of ten.

Regarding our clusters, we have deployed multiple AOS clusters with the virtualization hypervisor ASV on them, and we are running VMs on it. For the Veeam instances, we are backing up the VMs that are running on Nutanix infrastructure. For that, Veeam has a proxy called ASV proxy, especially for the Nutanix VMs. That's what you deploy on a cluster, and then you are able to take a backup of the VMs.

One of the most valuable aspects is that it is open source. Nutanix has a licensing cost, yet the hypervisor itself does not incur a cost. Additionally, on Nutanix, you have the capability to take snapshots, unlike on VMware. Also, there are the built-in Docker capabilities for replication between clusters, and you do not need different products to support functionalities such as snapshots on Nutanix.

There is an issue with the guest tools, which depend on the storage hypervisor IP. If the communication with NGT were IP-less, it would be more useful since enabling NGT can expose infrastructure details. Nutanix is aware of this and is working on it. Without resolving this, you cannot take application-consistent backups during VMs' snapshots, as NGT is not installed on a VM.

I have five years of experience with this product.

If you're using an LTS release, it's more stable than the short-term support releases (SDS). The LTS is the enterprise release and is more stable.

Nutanix AHV virtualization is easy to scale, and it doesn't impact anything negatively. Scaling is straightforward whenever required.

Support is excellent. The response time is quick compared to other customer support from different vendors. AHV support is the best.

Positive

Before using Nutanix, the organization was using VMware. Cost was a factor in switching, as the licensing cost for VMware was higher. Nutanix provides an all-in-one solution for functionalities like snapshots, which previously required different products on VMware.

While the setup is not complex per se, it requires specific tools for deployment, and some training is necessary. It's not something a layperson can do; some tutorials are needed before deploying Nutanix.

I am not involved in the licensing terms, and I'm not aware of the exact costs associated with Nutanix AHV licensing. Overall, I understand it to be cost-effective compared to VMware.

I would definitely recommend Nutanix to others.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.