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Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs Rackspace OpenStack comparison

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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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructur...
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
199
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (4th), HCI (2nd), Software Defined Data Center (SDDC) (1st), Hybrid Cloud Computing Platforms (5th)
Rackspace OpenStack
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.0
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
Converged Infrastructure (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Storage Solutions solutions, they serve different purposes. Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) is designed for HCI and holds a mindshare of 8.9%, down 9.5% compared to last year.
Rackspace OpenStack, on the other hand, focuses on Converged Infrastructure, holds 7.1% mindshare, up 4.6% since last year.
HCI Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)8.9%
VxRail9.6%
VMware vSAN7.7%
Other73.8%
HCI
Converged Infrastructure Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Rackspace OpenStack7.1%
FlexPod XCS12.7%
HPE ConvergedSystem11.1%
Other69.1%
Converged Infrastructure
 

Featured Reviews

JD
Dsi at OFFICE PUBLIC DE L HABITAT DE ROUEN
Hyper-converged storage has improved performance and now supports high redundancy for our VMs
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) was transparent because we were on a regular infrastructure before. We went on NCI and were able to improve performance, but it did not really change how things worked. The performance was really better for applications and access times to the data. I regularly looked at the analytics to see what was going on in my servers and what it was saying to optimize performance. It was pretty interesting because it could analyze and give insights on how to get things working better. In the latest versions, the Prism interface has been replaced by Prism Central. This requires another machine to be deployed to manage the servers.
SS
Manager Dev Ops at MSD
Private cloud control has deepened my DevOps automation and strengthened security practices
For improvement, I feel the documentation available for setting up and creating infrastructure using Rackspace OpenStack could be enhanced, as I personally find the existing documents are not sufficient for new learners or beginners. We can also work on improving the user interface; the Horizon dashboard is functional, but compared to AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud, the UI feels somewhat dated. A more modern, intuitive interface with better navigation would enhance the overall user experience, especially for new users. Improving the documentation, including more real-world deployment examples, troubleshooting guides, and architecture best practices, would make onboarding much easier. Faster upgrades would also help; Rackspace OpenStack upgrades can sometimes be complex, so simplifying the upgrade process and minimizing downtime would assist organizations in maintaining their environments more easily. Additionally, improving monitoring capabilities would be beneficial, with advanced monitoring and analytics dashboards providing administrators deeper visibility into performance, capacity, and potential issues without relying heavily on third-party tools. Adding more managed services, similar to what public cloud providers offer, could reduce operational overhead while still allowing customers to retain the flexibility of a private cloud. Lastly, integrating AI could be valuable, with AI-driven recommendations for capacity planning, security monitoring, and automated troubleshooting improving platform management.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I would encourage you to try out this product, as you will not regret it because of the stability of the technology and the other benefits you can get from Nutanix."
"It has seamless expandability."
"It has solid performance and provides data locality."
"It's quite easy to scale, and you have the option to have distributed nodes everywhere around the world that work as one. You can also have a solution for small branch offices with only two nodes for redundancy, and that's good enough to start."
"The performance and stability of Nutanix is so good, it is almost unbelievable."
"I have an immediately gain, as it has lower hardware maintenance costs, and lower electricity consumption."
"Nutanix is the first and the biggest hyper-convergence company in the world."
"The tool is simple, stable, and easy to upgrade. It also requires few resources to manage, which simplifies our work. The solution's ease of upgrading is its valuable feature. AHV, provided by Nutanix, is excellent in performance and ease of use. It's based on an open-source product called KVM, which I also use for other services."
"The documentation was plentiful and very helpful.​"
"The most valuable feature is the customization, and with the customization you can really give the customers what they want."
"Rackspace OpenStack positively impacts my organization by making processes easier since I do not need to manage all servers manually because it efficiently manages server operations and maintains proper data, which saves time."
"The initial setup isn't too difficult."
"Apart from the main features, I really appreciate OpenStack's microservices architecture and its flexibility for deployment with different tools."
"The most useful opinion about Rackspace OpenStack is that it is very flexible, first of all, and the most important feature is that it is feature-rich."
"The open-source nature of OpenStack provides significant value."
"I like its integration with GitLab and its simplicity. OpenStack has a lot of third-party libraries that it uses."
 

Cons

"The solution does not lend support when we connect with a few dongle licenses."
"One thing I would like to eventually see from Nutanix is the ability to install the Nutanix OS on any hardware, making it hardware agnostic instead of depending on their expensive servers."
"It is a CentOS-based operating system, but CentOS releases security patches almost every week or every other week. However, Nutanix releases their upgrade at three or four month intervals."
"There is a feature in Nutanix called fault tolerance that could be improved."
"The product needs improvement in the areas of SAN attachment for high capacity and high I/O profile workloads."
"In the licensing, it needs to be clear about features because it is not clear whether Flow is integrated or not."
"Some clients find the solution's cost to be too high."
"The pricing model for software and hardware subscription renewals can be improved."
"The seamless integration between MySQL services and the rabbitMQ database can be revised during the debugging phase."
"For improvement, I feel the documentation available for setting up and creating infrastructure using Rackspace OpenStack could be enhanced, as I personally find the existing documents are not sufficient for new learners or beginners."
"The line migration is a problem."
"So for the main stability, there have been a couple of issues that I've experienced."
"OpenStack's UI, while user-friendly, could be improved to offer a more intuitive experience."
"It should have a single dashboard for cloud management and on-premises systems"
"Rackspace OpenStack can be improved because it wasn't clear that you have to cancel 30 days before; otherwise they charge you for the month."
"The pricing for Rackspace OpenStack is sometimes not competitive according to other market products, as sometimes the price is high for some components like Advanced Cluster Management (ACM) and Advanced Cluster Security, which are very costly add-ons, not the main license."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The basic license that comes with the box allows basic virtualization features but advanced automation features would require an upgrade of licenses."
"There are a lot of features included with Nutanix that cost a lot with other companies."
"Cost-wise, it is very good. It is like the hypervisor cost is not there. We only need to pay for the system and AOS licenses."
"The price of the solution could improve. Nutanix has recently changed its pricing model from perpetual to subscription. They have identified there are challenges with the pricing model."
"If a customer has been using VMware, the difference in pricing is lower. However, if they are looking to use the VMware, the price can be much higher depending on the license."
"Nutanix Acropolis AOS is affordable, it has good value. The final price depends a lot on the hardware used, it's an appliance in the end. Whether you use HPE as the hardware vendor or Supermicro as the hardware vendor, it really depends on what hardware is used which is the main cost."
"The pricing is quite good in comparison with HPE SimpliVity, Nutanix Scale, and even traditional architecture."
"Its licensing is fine. They provide the flexibility to choose from different options. You can go with the standard plan. You can go with the pro or platinum plan. Generally, our clients go with the pro licenses, but if you go for the platinum license, you get even more capabilities. Their starter license is also quite good."
"I use it as an open-source tool."
"The pricing is low."
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Comparison Review

it_user244362 - PeerSpot reviewer
Managing Consultant with 51-200 employees
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
Outsourcing Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Outsourcing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business93
Midsize Enterprise76
Large Enterprise88
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise8
 

Questions from the Community

How do I choose between Cisco Hyperflex HX Series and Nutanix Acropolis AOS?
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 hyper...
What makes Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) worth using?
NCI is a product with many tools and services but the one that, in my opinion, makes it better than similar products and worth using, is the full-stack lifecycle management. This capacity allows u...
Have you received reliable help from Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure's support when you contacted them?
NCI is one of the best out there. For any software, no matter how good it is, technical support makes it or breaks it for me. You may have an amazing product but if there is not anyone to help you ...
What needs improvement with Rackspace OpenStack?
I cannot comment comprehensively on how Rackspace OpenStack can be improved, as I do not find that much difference; however, some areas can be improved, such as support for OEMs deploying highly sp...
What is your primary use case for Rackspace OpenStack?
My main use case for Rackspace OpenStack is that we are particularly using it for our OpenStack applications, where we are putting our applications on Rackspace OpenStack software day-to-day. A spe...
What advice do you have for others considering Rackspace OpenStack?
I rate Rackspace OpenStack an 8 on a scale of 1 to 10. I chose 8 out of 10 for Rackspace OpenStack because every product has some space to improve. Regarding Rackspace OpenStack's AI capabilities, ...
 

Also Known As

Nutanix Acropolis AOS, Nutanix AOS, Nutanix Acropolis
OpenStack
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

St. Lukes Health System, the City of Seattle, Yahoo! Japan, Sligro, Empire Life, Hyundai AUS, and many others.
X.commerce
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