What is our primary use case?
Prism Pro is the heart of our organization. If Prism Pro dies, then our system dies.
We are in the gaming industry with approximately 85 servers. This solution increased our productivity and reduced our time performing server checks.
We also use Prism Central for our monitoring on the administrative side.
How has it helped my organization?
Nutanix Cloud Manager has increased our productivity higher than what it used to be. We used to spend four hours on server checking. Nutanix gave us three and a half hours back from those four hours to do normal work.
The system gives you an aggregate of how you will be using the system.
What is most valuable?
I really appreciate the Life Cycle Manager (LCM) feature, which provides upgrades to clusters. Offers a single-touch upgrade, where you just click "upgrade", then do nothing else.
The dedupe is amazing and reduces space. For example, if you have a file server with a document named April 2013, then somewhere else in your file system, there is another file called April 2013 with similar information, it will combine those two files. If there are two files that are one gig each containing the same content, then Nutanix analyzes that data and makes it into one document. Therefore, instead of using two gigs of storage, you are only using one. It can also combine multiple files from different global locations.
What needs improvement?
Recently, I have had quite a few issues with Nutanix Guest Tools (NGT). When you do a full update from LCM, your NGT doesn't automatically install on your VMs. You need to go back to Prism Central and select a list of VMs, then install NGT. You need to go to each of those VMs, then restart them to get the NGT installed. Also, there are some VMs that we have on our system that we used to run on an old environment, which was Hyper-V. Previously, we had VMware, so some of our VMs are Windows 7 32-bit and Windows 7 64-bit. However, the NGT no longer allows for installations on those.
We constantly get packet drops. We are actually looking at upgrading them in the future. While Windows 7 is not supported anymore from a Microsoft perspective, Nutanix could allow NGT to still be installed since people still use Windows 7. I have five VMs currently running on Windows 7. This is not a major issue. The VMs still work, but you get an alert in the mornings, saying, "Hey, NGT is not installed." When we go there, we try to install NGT, but it won't allow us since Windows 7 is not allowed anymore.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been using Prism Pro for three to four years and the Nutanix Cloud Manager version for the past few months.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Even if you forget about Nutanix for five days, Nutanix will take care of itself. This takes the strain off the business since you don't constantly need to worry about Nutanix this or Nutanix that when monitoring an environment. You get an email or a report at the end of the day, saying, "Something is not working," or, "Some system services stopped here," or, "Storage is running low here," or, "Memory is not being utilized properly."
The stability is very good. In the past three years, it has not shut down. Maintenance is not really required, as long as you do your LCM updates every two to three months.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We can scale it.
Currently, there are about 980 users on all nine of our casino properties.
We can go a few more years with the package that we currently have. Right now, the solution is running perfectly. We may have to look at increasing memory in the next year or so. While our CPU and space are fine, it is the memory where we need a bit more. Right now, we have about 28 terabytes but are using about seven.
How are customer service and support?
I deal a lot with the Nutanix support, especially if I don't understand something, I just start a call with them. They have local support in South Africa. So, if there are any issues or problems during the upgrade, their support team can be contacted with just one email, and they respond immediately.
From a support perspective, no other solution comes close to it. If you have a support issue, Nutanix is there. Obviously, they don't come onsite, but they log into your system and do full checks. On top of that, they help you understand the problem. They don't just go and fix it, then say, "Okay, it is done." Instead, they are like, "This is not the problem. This is what caused it. You could have had a power dip (or whatever) that could have prompted this."
I would rate Nutanix technical support as 10 out of 10 because they are well-versed in the solution. I have had plenty of experiences with the support. If they don't know something, you are guaranteed within the next hour that they will learn it and get back to you. I've had plenty of experiences with them and the support is top level.
Nutanix has a strong community called Test Drive, is a community forum for people who use Nutanix. If you have a problem, there is a whole knowledge based on everything. You just type the word and it brings up all the articles on that subject, giving you step-by-step instructions.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We previously used Microsoft Hyper-V and were on physical. With Hyper-V, if a shift was nine hours, then it took up four hours of time from the person who did server checks. This means logging onto every server, checking resources, CPU usage, space, and the events monitor.
With Nutanix, there are no server checks anymore. You just log into your environment for ten minutes in the morning, then you get a report saying something like a VM is high on CPU usage and another VM is high on memory usage. You can then investigate those particular VMs. You don't really have to go through everything, due to the reporting on Nutanix's side. It shows you everything that you need to know about every server in your environment.
I used to use HP 370s. If I had to do an update within HP, it would take me about five hours of work. This meant that I had to mount an ISO for set up, put my VMs in maintenance mode and then ensure afterwards that the maintenance mode has been turned back off, update my VMs, and then make sure that the software is working. Now, with LCM, we do an inventory check for available software and firmware. It updates without affecting our environment. I don't have to do anything. Nutanix does it for me, in terms of migrating VMs and switching clusters off from maintenance mode.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was simple. You get a completely blank Nutanix environment. You just install your Nutanix software. You give it your IP addresses, communicate to your environment, and that is it. It is so advanced that it can take your whole Hyper-V environment and migrate it into your Nutanix environment via Move-VM. From that Move-VM, there is a communication point between Hyper-V and Nutanix so you can make a connection from your Hyper-V onto Move-VM as well as from your Nutanix onto Move-VM. So, you can pull all your VMs through with no downtime, which is amazing.
What about the implementation team?
We bought it from a partner who supplied us with experts.
What was our ROI?
It has saved us a lot to focus on other tasks since you can really let Nutanix run itself. Employees can focus on other projects, so productivity has increased immensely.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The pricing was quite competitive and a lot lower compared to other solutions. It wasn't cheap, but it was not as expensive.
You get many functions by just buying one solution. You don't need to continuously add in this or that, then next week you need to add more storage or space. Instead, it is always there. It is economical compared to other products. For example, HPE is all about add-ons. Whereas, Nutanix comes as a whole solution. They aren't coming up with a new monthly cost.
If you send them an email, which says, "I would like to investigate the reporting of this tool where we monitor only the memory usage of the device." They don't come up with another story about, "Oh, that is an add-on service. You have to pay for that." It is a complete solution. You get everything at once.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
There was a good pitch to move towards Nutanix. I was part of the panel. They were cost-effective compared to the other solutions that we looked at.
We looked at Microsoft Hyper-V, Azure, and had VMware previously, but we disconnected from both those solutions. We had a 3PAR solution from HPE, so we also looked at them. However, Nutanix was the most economical solution and its functions were way above Hyper-V in terms of adding resources, monitoring VMs, reporting wise, and latency. Deduplication was the main thing that we looked at since file service plays a major role in our environment.
We did look a lot deeper into Azure. In fact, certain divisions of our business, from a head office level, started using Azure for more complex stuff, such as linking with Smartsheet. For the unit casino level, we all have Nutanix.
I have worked on Hyper-V quite extensively, but it doesn't come close to Nutanix. Nutanix has a completely informative dashboard to view your entire environment on one page. You don't need to go to a server, then pop up your resource monitor and have a look at whatever. Using Nutanix, you have a health page and homepage. Your homepage will give you your full description of the health of your environment. If you want to run a health check, then it tells you about your services, password checks, and VM utilization. That check runs for about five minutes, then it gives you the full rundown of your entire environment. From your home page, you can see everything in your environment. Whereas, with Hyper-V, you need to click on each cluster, then from each cluster, you need to look for your resources. That takes awhile. But, with Nutanix, it is quick.
I also like Azure, but Azure is a bit more complicated to use than Nutanix. From a user perspective, Nutanix helps the user. They don't complicate the user with 5,000 functions. If you get a good product, you just want to know what it does. You don't need to know where the info is from. Nutanix brings the full functionality to you, and everything works.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate this solution as a strong nine out of 10.
Don't look any further. Nutanix is second to none.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
*Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.