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IBM PowerVM vs Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
7.7
IBM PowerVM offers higher ROI and cost savings, especially for Oracle users, with scalability, easy administration, and enhanced efficiency.
Sentiment score
7.0
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure offers cost savings, efficiency, and scalability, reducing expenses by up to 30% annually for users.
The return on investment is substantial, though other platforms may offer a better ROI, primarily due to lower costs involved in setup and maintenance.
If calculated over a five-year period, IBM PowerVM is 30 to 40% more cost-effective than physical servers despite initial costs seeming high.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.5
IBM PowerVM is praised for strong support, though TSM support and hardware support subscription issues need improvement.
Sentiment score
8.1
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure's support is highly praised for quick, skilled, and effective assistance, deemed worth the cost by users.
IBM provides strong support.
IBM offers excellent customer support.
IBM has an established technical support team and partners who provide extended support to end customers.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.1
IBM PowerVM excels in scalability and flexibility, supporting large enterprises with superior performance and integration capabilities despite pricing concerns.
Sentiment score
7.9
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure offers seamless scalability, easy expansion, and adaptability, making it ideal for enterprises despite cost considerations.
An IBM server can handle up to sixty-four terabytes of RAM.
I think IBM PowerVM uses a 'pay as you grow' model, allowing customers to scale their resources as needed.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.5
IBM PowerVM offers superior stability and security with excellent uptime, efficiency, and resilience, outperforming alternatives like Nutanix and VMware.
Sentiment score
8.2
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure is praised for its stability, reliability, minimal downtime, and efficient support, making it a dependable platform.
The stability of IBM PowerVM is exceptional, as industry reports have named IBM Power and Z as the most stable platforms globally for 15 consecutive years.
Our clients in India using Power Servers have been running their servers for the last four to five years without any reboot.
Compared to VM, we find it most stable.
 

Room For Improvement

IBM PowerVM users seek better management, interface, performance, and cost-effectiveness, with enhanced automation, virtualization, and cloud integration features.
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure needs improvements in pricing transparency, setup, performance, integrations, automation, licensing, and system compatibility.
We have a strong relationship with IBM, which aids decision-making in transitioning clients from mainframe to other platforms.
PowerVM should integrate some capabilities of VMware vCenter to improve its management features.
We hope Nutanix can integrate inside our current license module.
 

Setup Cost

IBM PowerVM offers flexible payment options, though initial high costs require negotiation but may yield long-term savings.
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure provides cost-effective licensing options with free hypervisor, reducing TCO compared to traditional systems.
While initially costly, the ROI over five years proves IBM PowerVM is cost-effective, resulting in a 30 to 40% reduction in costs compared to a physical setup.
PowerVM itself is free with the purchase of an IBM server.
Pricing is a concern in Argentina due to the higher cost of mainframe solutions.
The pricing is renewed every year, at almost $100,000 per year.
 

Valuable Features

IBM PowerVM provides flexible resource management, high availability, and smooth cloud transitions, supporting various operating systems and complex workloads.
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure offers high performance, ease of use, scalability, and cost efficiency, benefiting smaller IT teams.
It supports specific workloads, like Oracle and SAP HANA, much better due to its shared processor pool feature which reduces licensing costs.
IBM PowerVM supports multiple operating systems such as IBM i, AIX, and Linux, allowing users to run various applications seamlessly in a cloud environment.
PowerVM excels in efficiently managing all systems and environments, including development, UI, and production.
The replication method between Nutanix clusters is a valuable feature.
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM PowerVM
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
36
Ranking in other categories
Server Virtualization Software (10th)
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructur...
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
197
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (3rd), HCI (3rd), Software Defined Data Center (SDDC) (1st), Hybrid Cloud Computing Platforms (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

IBM PowerVM and Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. IBM PowerVM is designed for Server Virtualization Software and holds a mindshare of 1.3%, up 1.2% compared to last year.
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI), on the other hand, focuses on HCI, holds 8.6% mindshare, up 8.5% since last year.
Server Virtualization Software
HCI
 

Featured Reviews

Atif Najam - PeerSpot reviewer
A stable system for high-end data processing with a great support structure
The only problem with the IBM system is improving its hardware licensing model. For example, when you procure a server with 40 physical codes, you must also procure licenses to activate the codes. In Dell or any system, you procure the hardware and have the full right to use the hardware. For IBM, it's different because when you procure a 40-code processor and have 40 physical codes, you only have a license to use 20. As a result, the 20 alert codes will always be in activated mode. Hence, the hardware licensing model could be improved because the licensing model is a bit different from the standard hardware procured.
MahendraPanchotiya - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers a unified platform, reduces downtime, and simple updates
Nutanix offers a unified platform for managing databases, virtual machines, and applications. This simplifies management by consolidating everything into a single interface. While Nutanix may have a higher upfront cost compared to other hypervisors, it can significantly reduce the resources needed for infrastructure management. With our previous hypervisor, we needed nearly ten IT personnel. Nutanix has allowed us to streamline our team to just three members. We use a combination of database technologies, including SQL databases and web servers such as IIS, BHP, and NGINX. Nutanix features helped our organization reduce downtime. I don't recall the last time we had downtime related to Nutanix because it is such a stable product. Nutanix, a reliable product, helps us streamline our processes, which in turn improves company revenue. We began to see the benefits after two years, with a 40 percent reduction in operational costs. We migrated 200 servers from AWS to Nutanix. Nutanix may not consolidate applications, but it helps us run them more efficiently on its platform. Updating is simple with one click. I would rate the updating processes 10 out of 10. Adding compute and storage on demand is not difficult. However, we need to factor in the existing and new firmware and software requirements.
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Comparison Review

it_user244362 - PeerSpot reviewer
Aug 30, 2015
Nutanix vs. VMware EVO:RAIL vs. FlexPod
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…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
20%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
6%
Educational Organization
38%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM PowerVM?
Managing other operating systems is also straightforward with IBM PowerVM.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM PowerVM?
While initially costly, the ROI over five years proves IBM PowerVM is cost-effective, resulting in a 30 to 40% reduction in costs compared to a physical setup.
What needs improvement with IBM PowerVM?
I have not encountered any issues or dissatisfaction with IBM PowerVM so far. Clients using it have been satisfied, and there have been no glitches since its introduction.
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Also Known As

PowerVM
Nutanix Acropolis AOS, Nutanix AOS, Nutanix Acropolis
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Sto, Soitec, SNO, Bundesrechenzentrum GmbH, Al Mansour Holding, Baptist Health of Northeast Florida, Huhtamaki, ELK Group, IT-Informatik, Arkansas Tech University, Pneuhage
St. Lukes Health System, the City of Seattle, Yahoo! Japan, Sligro, Empire Life, Hyundai AUS, and many others.
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