Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs Pavilion HyperParallel Flash Array comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) and Pavilion HyperParallel Flash Array based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two HCI solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.
To learn more, read our detailed Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs. Pavilion HyperParallel Flash Array 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
"It has allowed me to effectively and confidently manage the maintenance of hosts where I can power off a host and have its VMs migrate to another one.""Virtualizing data infrastructure with StarWind Virtual SAN improves efficiency and reduces operational costs.""StarWind Virtual SAN for vSphere is a software-defined storage solution that has reduced administration time for storage. It's pretty straightforward to install and setup it and so far it has been robust and worked as advertised from StarWind.""The top-notch support before, during, and after deployments are better than any other vendor I have come across.""The ProActive support gives me peace of mind because I am a one man shop, but with the technical support behind me, I feel like more than just one person. We spent two to three hours, depending on what we have to do, always on the phone, and they do not push to end the call.""The most important feature is the ability to experience the loss of one node or one storage device, and not lose the entire cluster.""This has helped to improve the reliability of service and operation in all departments, without having to stop in case of emergency situations.""They offer top-tier support."

More StarWind Virtual SAN Pros →

"The most valuable feature of Nutanix Acropolis AOS is it has centralized management.""Hyper-convergence is the most valuable feature for me as it allows me to scale the hardware according to project requirements.""The hyperconvergence service, as well as the DR solution, are game-changers for Nutanix.""The snapshots, cloning, and replication are all effective in helping to reduce downtime. It can replicate cluster data for disaster recovery and it provides high availability in case a node or a disk fails.""It is a good solution and it is easy to work on their platform.""Nutanix has the best virtual desktop infrastructure.""Nutanix has several unique capabilities to ensure linear scalability.""Being able to upgrade our entire cluster with the click of a button during business hours with zero downtime has made managing our infrastructure so easy."

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"There's lots of flexibility in how we use the resources while also maintaining a small footprint.""We have been able to consolidate storage into Pavilion. Pavilions are our only SANs because it is a bring your own disk solution. When new drives come out, we are able to take out half of the drives in the system, put in new drives, move our VMs over to the new drives, take the other drives out, and populate those with new drives. Then, we are suddenly twice as dense as we were before. NVMe flash is only going to get denser and cheaper so we can make use of that every couple of years by just throwing newer disks into it at a fraction of the cost of a new SAN.""The high performance is very valuable, as well as the enterprise reliability features."

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Cons
"While we had little to no issues in setting up StarWind and received excellent support from the StarWind technicians, we would have appreciated a clearer guideline for a setup with the free version of StarWind Management Console or, in other words - for the setup with the PowerShell.""Updating the software can be a bit tricky.""The setup and documentation for the installation with the free version could definitely be improved.""Regular updates to the software are required, and subtle design changes would be welcome.""We have, in rare cases, received conflicting guidance between different support folks within StarWind.""While we had no problems setting the system up, and service technicians from StarWind could assist us very well, they could provide some form of in-depth documentation.""The number of different ways you can set it up can make it a little daunting.""StarWind Virtual SAN architecture is slightly complex and requires the team to carefully identify and study how the solution integrates with VMware vSphere."

More StarWind Virtual SAN Cons →

"This solution would be improved with built-in integration with Rubrik.""One disadvantage of Nutanix Acropolis AOS is it doesn't support external storage. Connecting external SAN storage to Nutanix, it's not supported.""The price could be lower.""The software-defined networking should be improved. It is quite substandard as compared to the VMware variant. The software-defined networking is quite limited, and we usually use other products to do that. We're aware that Nutanix is working on that and will be coming out with better solutions, and we can't wait because to do a fully software-defined architecture, the abstraction layer needs not only software-defined storage, which you have, but also the software-defined networking piece.""Compatible with third party hardware, but it's still very limited.""Usually, there are separate administration teams that take care of servers, but in our organization, servers are usually looked after by the application owner. However, the application owners cannot reinstall the software, OS, and other things. That only aligns with the role of the HCI administrator. If these rights can be provided, it will be very easy.""One thing I've noticed is that, when you do a shift from VMware to Nutanix, it opens the setup of the VM that's currently running. If people from another site double click on it, it opens the VM instead of the setup of the unit. So I would suggest that this could perhaps be switched. That is so far the only change I would like. I would like it if they could fix the instance where you double click on a VM and it opens the VM instead of the setup. That's the only thing that's a major bother to me.""We ran into an issue as a managed service provider because Acropolis isn't designed to be used the way we are running it. For example, if we want to deploy a Kubernetes service, the customer networks need to reach our protected cluster network. We have isolated our customers in separate VLANs. However, our customers' networks must access our cluster network to get features like iSCSI or Kubernetes to run. It's challenging."

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"In our current configuration, we can only run the line controllers in high availability, active-standby mode, whereas we would like to see active-active implemented.""I would like to see the management layer improved.""The rail system that Pavilion uses to mount up into a standard Dell or APC cabinet extends further back than normal rails, and they cover up the zero PDU slot. So, I don't like the rail system that comes with the device. That is my biggest complaint."

More Pavilion HyperParallel Flash Array Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "The setup cost is very low. The pricing is great."
  • "We are happy with the price."
  • "The license is reusable. We can always rebuild it and apply the license. Then, boom, we get new servers, apply the license, and we're back up and running."
  • "The pricing is fine for the work that it does."
  • "When we did all the analysis for StarWind, it was approximately 20 percent less than any of the other solutions that we looked at."
  • "The scalability limitation for us is its licensing. At some point in the fairly near future, we will probably have to upgrade our license so we can store eight terabytes instead of four. We are currently at four terabytes, but we're starting to knock on the door of that capacity."
  • "The pricing is excellent. It will run on anything. You don't have to buy a $100,000 server, with hardware you don't need. You just pay for the license and you're good to go."
  • "The licensing is a bit weird. If you license the standard version of StarWind, it allows you four terabytes. Then, they have a pro version, but with the pro version, the only difference is it doubles the terabytes to eight."
  • More StarWind Virtual SAN 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 →

  • "This is hardware. They have a singular array that you can populate with your own disk, or you can buy the disks through them. For controllers, you pay for the components inside of the SAN, but there is only one chassis that they work with."
  • "The licensing fees are very reasonable."
  • More Pavilion HyperParallel Flash Array 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:It is easy to use and can monitor system synchronization and check Storage status. StarWind Virtual SAN (VSAN) combines… more »
    Top Answer:The cost of this is less than you expect. Since they're selling a software stack, you do need to consider your own… more »
    Top Answer:You can maintain and update it with little to no fuss, even the free version is incredibly capable whilst it brings the… more »
    Top Answer:We found the reduced power consumption with Nutanix Acropolis AOS a very attractive feature. We also like the interface… more »
    Top Answer: Cisco HyperFlex HS series vs Nutanix Acropolis AOS Cisco HyperFlex gives extended hyper-convergence functions from… more »
    Top Answer:We found the reduced power consumption with Nutanix Acropolis AOS a very attractive feature. We also like the interface… more »
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    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    StarWind SAN & NAS
    Nutanix Acropolis AOS, Nutanix AOS, Nutanix Acropolis
    Pavilion HFA
    Learn More
    Overview

    StarWind Virtual SAN provides high availability and fault tolerance for virtualized environments without the need for dedicated SAN hardware. It allows for real-time replication between servers, shared storage for Hyper-V clusters, and enables vMotion and High Availability features for VMware vSphere. The solution reduces costs and leverages existing hardware while providing a scalable and reliable infrastructure. Valuable features include ease of use, scalability, top-tier support, hardware agnosticism, and the ability to use off-the-shelf standard servers to increase storage space. StarWind VSAN has helped organizations improve performance, data availability, and data security while reducing downtime and providing cost-saving storage options.

    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.

    Pavilion HyperParallel Data Platform

    The Pavilion HyperParallel Data Platform™ dramatically accelerates what organizations achieve by delivering universally unmatched storage performance, in an incredibly compact solution while reducing data center costs and complexity. Unrivaled flexibility for multiple data types and protocols, along with broad ecosystem integration, ensure that every customer has choice and control.

    What is the Pavilion HyperParallel Data Platform

    The Pavilion HyperParallel Data Platform is comprised of the Pavilion HyperParallel Flash Array™ and Pavilion HyperOS™. The Pavilion HyperParallel Flash Array leverages a unique, switch-based architecture to create a multi-controller solution that delivers an unmatched combination of high performance, ultra-low latency, and storage density. Pavilion HyperOS is a powerful, purpose-built storage operating system designed to unlock the power of the multi-controller Pavilion HyperParallel Flash Array, which delivers scalability and flexibility that no other solution can offer.

    Pavilion HyperParallel Data Platform Data Sheet

    Download the Pavilion HyperParallel Data Platform data sheet. Updated: December 2020

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    Sample Customers
    Baker Tilly BVI, CMS Internet, Board Harpeth Hall School
    St. Lukes Health System, the City of Seattle, Yahoo! Japan, Sligro, Empire Life, Hyundai AUS, and many others.
    Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC), Statistics Netherlands (CBS)
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Manufacturing Company10%
    Construction Company8%
    Computer Software Company8%
    Educational Organization8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company18%
    Manufacturing Company9%
    Government9%
    Financial Services Firm8%
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company17%
    Manufacturing Company10%
    Comms Service Provider10%
    Financial Services Firm9%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization26%
    Computer Software Company14%
    Financial Services Firm7%
    Government6%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company17%
    Comms Service Provider16%
    Government8%
    Financial Services Firm8%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business64%
    Midsize Enterprise22%
    Large Enterprise13%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business25%
    Midsize Enterprise17%
    Large Enterprise58%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business36%
    Midsize Enterprise30%
    Large Enterprise34%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business17%
    Midsize Enterprise36%
    Large Enterprise47%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business22%
    Midsize Enterprise15%
    Large Enterprise63%
    Buyer's Guide
    Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs. Pavilion HyperParallel Flash Array
    January 2023
    Find out what your peers are saying about Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs. Pavilion HyperParallel Flash Array and other solutions. Updated: January 2023.
    765,234 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) is ranked 2nd in HCI with 192 reviews while Pavilion HyperParallel Flash Array is ranked 14th in NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays. Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) is rated 8.6, while Pavilion HyperParallel Flash Array is rated 9.4. The top reviewer of Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) writes "A powerful solution with easy deployment, upgrades, and management". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Pavilion HyperParallel Flash Array writes "Good support, improves performance, scales well, and boosts team efficiency". Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) is most compared with VMware vSAN, VxRail, HPE SimpliVity, VMware vSphere and Hyper-V, whereas Pavilion HyperParallel Flash Array is most compared with Pure FlashArray X NVMe. See our Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs. Pavilion HyperParallel Flash Array report.

    We monitor all HCI 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.