Dell SC Series vs Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Dell SC Series and Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Frame-Based Disk Arrays solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.
To learn more, read our detailed Dell SC Series vs. Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) Report (Updated: January 2023).
765,234 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"A valuable feature is the performance of the auto-tiering. It will move hot data up to your fastest Tier 1 or move your slow data down. Data progression is what it's called. With the auto-tiering you can have multiple tiers, you can have your Tier 1 be either spinning or flash, all the way down to 7.2K. It will change the RAID on the fly so your writes come in at RAID 10. After they sit for a while, they get converted to RAID 5, then they'll cool off and move down the tiers. Your performance is kept going, while the cold data is moved to your slow, non-performance tiers.""Technical support is very good. I do use it from time to time and it's always excellent.""There's some new stuff coming with 7.3, which just got released, where they're spreading the sparing across the whole array, rather than having a dedicated spare disk, and have it sit there and do nothing until one of them dies, and then it kicks in - and having to rebuild all of that. Now, they'll do the sparing across all the disks and they say that is going to add not only space but performance to the array, with 7.3.""The setup is straightforward.""The most valuable features are the with back-end dedupe, and the thin nodes. For a 20TB or 60TB, we're using almost a one-to-two ratio.""I've found the stability to be very good.""The most valuable feature is the ability to replicate. We are running a financial company and it needs to be available 24/7. We can't afford any downtime.""The setup and installation is much simpler now, because Dell has standardized the configure process."

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"It has solid performance and provides data locality.""Acropolis' main advantages are high performance and availability.""In terms of scalability, adding a number of nodes, I find that it will not be any issues.""The speed of the operations and of creation of VM is fantastic.""It allows us to have a cloud-based ecosystem.""Nutanix Acropolis AOS makes it easy to use and manage projects and it has a good reputation.""Hyperconverged Infrastructure is the most valuable feature of Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure.""Nutanix Acropolis AOS is easy to use, it is a great platform."

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Cons
"This solution could be improved if overall performance was improved and operated with a higher speed and supported a higher volume of RAM.""There's always room for improvement in the operating code.""It's not very efficient anymore. There are better products out there.""One option I would like to see is, when you're up on the view-screen, to be able to incorporate getting to what HPE call the iLO, the Integrated Lights-Out. To be able to get that instead of having to go back and trying to find IP addresses and re-institute those would be good. It would be good to be able to that put on the initial splash screen.""The administration and support (on the way that they delivered) was a little bit slow.""We have seen some degraded throughput with mixed workloads. We have been working with Dell EMC to correct some of these latency issues.""The cost of the solution could be better.""The lack of reporting would be the main issue."

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"The GUI of Nutanix Acropolis AOS could be improved that can be done from the OEM side. It's a very basic stable web browser that they're using. It is not very inclusive.""The GUI for this solution needs improvement.""One of the very important things that I would like to see in Nutanix, but I'm not sure if it's in the roadmap or not, is to have some kind of caching optimization at remote sites, to build active-active data centers more easily.""In Thailand, there really isn't a cloud version of Nutanx available to us.""It would be great if they could improve the GUI features.""The reporting section of the dashboard could be improved to include more detailed reporting about the servers.""When we have issues with the solution, they tend to be around networking.""The only problem is that not many operating systems are supported on the AOS hypervisor. They need to probably increase the support on multiple operating systems. As of now, a very limited number of operating systems and patch levels are supported on AOS."

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Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "Always keep in mind, this is not just a enclosure with disks is a complete SAN as a service. There is software, license, and storage in one single solution."
  • "It's a very affordable solution."
  • "We have reviewed many platforms over the years. It is probably the best solution for its value."
  • "It is one of the most cost effective systems for us. We have been able to run it longer than most, getting the most benefit and money out of it."
  • "We have found the solution to be affordable."
  • "It has a good price point and offers some value-added enterprise features."
  • "Compared to other solutions out there, it's affordable."
  • "The scalability seems a bit more expensive than even buying a brand new one so far. That has been kind of a drawback."
  • More Dell SC Series Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "Able to grow with smaller, more linear increments of investment"
  • "The basic license that comes with the box allows basic virtualization features but advanced automation features would require an upgrade of licenses."
  • "I know Nutanix and VxRail have similar prices and licenses. Nutanix is a go-ahead if AHV is used as hypervisor because it is already embedded in the price."
  • "While cost may seem higher than your traditional 3-tier architecture, you need to look at the bigger picture. You're not just buying hardware here. You're buying a complete environment."
  • "Setup cost is minor, pricing is quite a bit (we have a 7-node-cluster for about 450K EUR with 2 vGPU-nodes for Citrix) but that includes hardware, software, and support."
  • "The price is good but I think there is still room for improvement on the price."
  • "Extra features should not be so expensive. We would love to be able to use or even just try some of the extra features without having to buy them. Buying those features is just as expensive as buying vSphere licenses, so the cost savings is nullified."
  • "Work close with your InfraTeam and discuss with Nutanix the best way to achieve sizing and price that are right for you."
  • More Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Comparison Review
    Anonymous User
    Originally posted at www.storagegaga.com/dont-get-too-drunk-on-hyper-converged/ I hate the fact that I am bursting the big bubble brewing about Hyper Convergence (HC). I urge all to look past the hot air and hype frenzy that are going on, because in the end, the HC platforms have to be aligned and congruent to the organization’s data architecture and business plans. The announcement of Gartner’s latest Magic Quadrant on Integrated Systems (read hyper convergence) has put Nutanix as the leader of the pack as of August 2015. Clearly, many of us get caught up because it is the “greatest feeling in the world”. However, this faux feeling is not reality because there are many factors that made the pack leaders in the Magic Quadrant (MQ). First of all, the MQ is about market perception. There is no doubt that the pack leaders in the Leaders Quadrant have earned their right to be there. Each company’s revenue, market share, gross margin, company’s profitability have helped put each as leaders in the pack. However, it is also measured by branding, marketing, market perception and acceptance and other intangible factors. Secondly, VMware EVO: Rail has split the market when EMC has 3 HC solutions in VCE, ScaleIO and EVO: Rail. Cisco wanted to do their own HC piece in Whiptail (between the 2014 MQ and 2015 MQ reports), and closed down Whiptail when their new CEO came on board. NetApp chose EVO: Rail and also has the ever popular FlexPod. That is why you see that in… Read more →
    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:I find this version to be more budget-friendly compared to products from other vendors. This aspect greatly benefits my customers. It's highly advantageous due to its affordability. The operational… more »
    Top Answer:There are costs involving the solution, vendor fees and product safety which are additional.
    Top Answer:I would like to improve the processing ability.
    Top Answer:We found the reduced power consumption with Nutanix Acropolis AOS a very attractive feature. We also like the interface that allows you to talk directly to your VM from the present software. We found… more »
    Top Answer: Cisco HyperFlex HS series vs Nutanix Acropolis AOS Cisco HyperFlex gives extended hyper-convergence functions from core to edge and multi-cloud environments. It helps IT and OT teams deploy… more »
    Top Answer:We found the reduced power consumption with Nutanix Acropolis AOS a very attractive feature. We also like the interface that allows you to talk directly to your VM from the present software. We found… more »
    Ranking
    Views
    236
    Comparisons
    188
    Reviews
    1
    Average Words per Review
    439
    Rating
    8.0
    2nd
    out of 39 in HCI
    Views
    26,388
    Comparisons
    10,287
    Reviews
    27
    Average Words per Review
    952
    Rating
    8.6
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    SC Series Storage, Compellent
    Nutanix Acropolis AOS, Nutanix AOS, Nutanix Acropolis
    Learn More
    Overview

    Dell EMC SC Series arrays provide a unified platform for the ultimate in performance, adaptability and machine-driven efficiency. SC Series software delivers modern features that help you meet aggressive workload demands using the fewest drives necessary. With an open, future-ready design, SC Series storage integrates seamlessly with applications and infrastructure, enabling you to scale on a single platform and add capabilities without forklift upgrades.

    Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) is a top-ranking HCI software, cloud management tool, and Software Defined Storage (SDS) tool that is marketed as the foundation for users' hybrid clouds. It offers a powerful and secure hyperconverged infrastructure to deliver all data and applications at any scale and on any cloud. The solution offers a complete software stack that allows users to unify their hybrid cloud infrastructure. 

    NCI’s services include computer, storage and network, hypervisors and containers, and deployment in public or in private clouds. The product also comes with built-in resilience, disaster recovery capabilities, self-healing, and high-security capacities. It provides further deployment flexibility through several software and hardware options and platforms. NCI includes a full set of enterprise capabilities. It can also be deployed on a wide range of servers from popular manufacturers.

    The capabilities of the product are categorized into three main groups:

    • AOS storage
    • Flexible and open compute
    • Automated and secure networking

    Outside of these categories, NCI also offers other capabilities:

    • Integrated disaster recovery
    • Full-stack lifecycle management
    • VMware with Nutanix
    • Intelligent operations

    Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) Features

    Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) offers its customers various features and tools in each of the previously mentioned categories. The available features for users currently include:

    • High-performance: This set of features utilizes hardware advances such as NVMe and RDMA to accelerate users' most demanding applications with consistent performance. The tools in this feature category work alongside data locality to ensure successful results.

    • Foolproof resiliency: These Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure features protect data and keep it available by facilitating advanced distributed consistency algorithms. Users can utilize these features to protect their data from issues like bit rot, hardware failures, and even entire site failure.

    • Flexibility: This set of features allows storage to be sized for the needs of each organization and expanded promptly and easily so that the organization and its data can grow. The features offer flexibility to users in terms of applying storage policies logically on a pre-workload basis, instead of being tied to hardware.

    • Hypervisor choice: Users can choose from the leading hypervisors - Microsoft Hyper-V or VMware ESXi. They can also leverage the built-in hypervisor AHV that Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) provides.

    • Integrated virtualization: These features offer simplified automation and AHV streamlined operations. The services in this category are optimized for high performance and reliability.

    • Kubernetes: Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) offers features to build and deploy cloud-native applications on intelligent distributed infrastructure. Apps can be integrated with cloud-compatible storage and both building and deployment can be achieved within the same platform.

    • Microsegmentation: Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) offers features to prevent malware spread and reduce attack surfaces by leveraging machine learning (ML).

    • Virtual networking: This set of features allows users to easily implement multi-tenancy in their environment or stretch networks across clouds.

    • Centralized network management: Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) provides organizations with a way to manage networking configurations centrally. Users can utilize it across their human-computer interaction (HCI) environment with simple virtual switch management.

    Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) Benefits

    The product offers various benefits to users who utilize its capacities. Some of these include:

    • NCI reduces technology sprawl and frees up technical resources to allow organizations to focus on other activities, potentially reducing costs for the business.

    • The product allows customers to deploy, scale, and bridge to the public cloud to be able to react in evolving business environments.

    • Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure improves data availability while simultaneously protecting it against several kinds of failures and attacks.

    • The solution offers high-performance, resilient distributed storage for all workloads.

    • Working alongside Nutanix Cloud Platform, NCI offers simple management of data from one console.

    • Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure works by the zero trust philosophy, protecting users' apps and data through specially designed security protocols.

    Reviews from Real Users

    According to Gerhard J., an IT manager at Q4 Fuel, Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) provides serious reliability and stability across the entire system makes for ROI.

    A solutions architect at a computer software company describes NCI as a stable, straightforward to set up, and scalable solution.

    Sample Customers
    TGen, Frost Science, Gerrie Electric
    St. Lukes Health System, the City of Seattle, Yahoo! Japan, Sligro, Empire Life, Hyundai AUS, and many others.
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company22%
    Healthcare Company15%
    Manufacturing Company15%
    Pharma/Biotech Company7%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company19%
    Government11%
    Manufacturing Company8%
    Financial Services Firm7%
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company17%
    Manufacturing Company10%
    Comms Service Provider10%
    Financial Services Firm9%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization26%
    Computer Software Company14%
    Financial Services Firm7%
    Government6%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business48%
    Midsize Enterprise18%
    Large Enterprise34%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business30%
    Midsize Enterprise14%
    Large Enterprise56%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business36%
    Midsize Enterprise30%
    Large Enterprise34%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business17%
    Midsize Enterprise36%
    Large Enterprise47%
    Buyer's Guide
    Dell SC Series vs. Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)
    January 2023
    Find out what your peers are saying about Dell SC Series vs. Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) and other solutions. Updated: January 2023.
    765,234 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Dell SC Series is ranked 2nd in Frame-Based Disk Arrays with 49 reviews while Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) is ranked 2nd in HCI with 192 reviews. Dell SC Series is rated 8.4, while Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of Dell SC Series writes "Automated architecture that proactively optimizes your database ". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) writes "A powerful solution with easy deployment, upgrades, and management". Dell SC Series is most compared with Dell PowerStore, Dell Unity XT, IBM FlashSystem, Huawei OceanStor and VAST Data, whereas Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) is most compared with VMware vSAN, VxRail, HPE SimpliVity, VMware vSphere and Hyper-V. See our Dell SC Series vs. Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) report.

    We monitor all Frame-Based Disk Arrays reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.