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Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs SolidFire 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructur...
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
198
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (5th), HCI (3rd), Software Defined Data Center (SDDC) (1st), Hybrid Cloud Computing Platforms (4th)
SolidFire
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
33
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (28th)
 

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 9.1%, up 8.3% compared to last year.
SolidFire, on the other hand, focuses on All-Flash Storage, holds 0.2% mindshare, down 0.3% since last year.
HCI
All-Flash Storage
 

Featured Reviews

Andrea Beccia - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers satisfying data protection and workload movement features with exceptional stability
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure can be used up to 100% of its capacity, but our company is presently using 80% of the solution's resources. Our company manufactures iron casting products in the metal industry, and Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure is also used. For virtualization purposes, Nutanix Acropolis is used as a full-stack solution. For the Windows virtual machines in our company's server, Nutanix Acropolis is utilized instead of solutions like VMware Hypervisor. One of the main reasons our company adopted Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure was its data protection features. The solution is also used in disaster recovery through the automatic snapshots feature on the local site. Next year, our organization will try to join clusters in the network using the solution. Network clustering will help our organization's team move workloads into the geographical cluster automatically. Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure is considered an ideal solution for disaster recovery where data protection remains embedded. The solution is capable of even capturing auto snapshots for remote sites. Next year, our company plans to test new features of Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure that will assist in automated workload movements on two sides at a distance of 60 kilometers. I would recommend others use the solution for its exceptional stability, performance, hardware compatibility, and overall flexibility. Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure allows the use of varying hardware for the same cluster. I would rate the solution a nine out of ten overall.
Ramil Cerrada - PeerSpot reviewer
A versatile storage solution suitable for various workloads in cloud environments providing scalable architecture, granular Quality of Service and consistent performance
The most significant benefit lies in its exceptional performance, driven by its Flash-based architecture. This enhances routing speed and, consequently, database performance. The provisioning process is efficient and doesn't demand higher latency, ensuring optimal data transfer performance which is particularly valuable for tasks like data mining, where quick results are essential.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable aspect of Nutanix is the performance of the storage, which is excellent. And controlling compute, storage, the network, and security all together in one box is very efficient for us. It gives us a single platform to manage our all infrastructure."
"We really love the Lifecycle manager and one-click upgrades."
"Some of the most valuable features of Nutanix Acropolis are that it's free from Nutanix and it's very stable."
"In the world of IT operations, there is a lot of noise. Traditionally, systems would generate a great deal of alerts, events, and notifications, often leading to the operator either a) not seeing critical alerts since they are lost in the noise or b) disregarding the alerts/events."
"Acropolis AOS is scalable to nodes and the cloud."
"One of the most valuable features is how well this solution performs. It's stable, aside from some patch issues, but it's great from a virtualization and scalability perspective."
"The virtualization environment is now much easier to manage and maintain, there is only one vendor to call in case of issues and one single console to manage everything."
"I definitely find the reduced power consumption very valuable. Another aspect I really like, when one compares Citrix to VMware, is the interface where you talk directly to your VM from the present software."
"It is very easy to scale up SolidFire."
"Templates are already predefined for it. If you're coding it up, it will take two days. You can pick up a template right there from the API, and it just works for you. Implementation done in 10 minutes."
"The scalability and being able to implement it quickly."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is its scalability."
"Being able to provide quality of service as promised."
"Greater IOPS, speed, it's all-flash. So seeing that everything is going to all-flash, all SSDs, SolidFire fits right in there with the emerging trend in IT."
"The dashboard is such that you don't need to be a storage expert to administer it."
"It's a very compact device. For a medium-sized business, it's very helpful because the device is efficient and very fast."
 

Cons

"The look and feel of the web GUI of this system needs improvement, when compared to other systems. Its hardware integration also needs improvement."
"It would be great if they could improve the GUI features."
"The one note of improvement I have for Nutanix is that the installation should be easier."
"I would like to see Acropolis add the ability to migrate VMs between storage containers. I don't know if they've added this in the latest versions, but I haven't seen it yet. It's mainly about AHV. When we use VMware, we can move between storage containers. In VMware, it's just like regular storage, and we can move it."
"With some projects that we are deploying, there are errors that arise when adding nodes."
"The solution doesn't support older systems, which can be a problem for some organizations who wish to implement it. It became a problem for us due to the fact that some of our systems are older."
"The One-Click Upgrade process could/should offer the ability to integrate with 3rd party drivers. For example, we use NVIDIA Grid graphics cards. It would be amazing if, during the One-Click Upgrade process, we could "slipstream" additional VIB drivers for ESXi into the upgrade process."
"Notifications could be improved as they're not currently very useful."
"When you set up the nodes, we have to serial into each one of these nodes to configure the IP ranges. It's still very easy, but it's time consuming."
"The tool should improve its initial cost which is expensive compared to other products."
"The inclusion of more protocols and interfaces would make it easier to integrate with other products."
"Though it is a stable solution, its users may face some security issues at times...The security provided by the solution is one area that can be improved."
"It would be good to provide administrative access at the root level to be able to do things with the system, if need be."
"The user interface needs to be improved. Much of the client feedback involves comments such as "Oh, it's hard to navigate through.""
"A little better segregation of the multi-tenancy. Right now, it's just VLAN-specific, that's all you can do."
"The upgrade process could be better."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Nutanix Acropolis AOS price includes no additional costs for features."
"There are a lot of features included with Nutanix that cost a lot with other companies."
"Their technical support is really good. They have been very helpful."
"Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure's pricing is higher now."
"Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure’s pricing is very good and competitive."
"It is not cheap, but if you look at the return on investment and the total cost of ownership, it is worth the price."
"When compared to the competitors, the price is reasonable."
"The pricing is fair for the package."
"We would probably use SolidFire more, except we're getting more bang for our buck with our purchases of ONTAP right now, and the deal we made with NetApp, so it's more of just a cost decision"
"On a scale where one is a high price and ten is a low price, I rate the solution between three and four. It is an expensive solution."
"The price of this solution is more expensive than others."
"Based on what I heard from other people, its price was on the higher side."
"It might be considered expensive, but when evaluating performance, it represents good value online because you pay for what you get."
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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
Educational Organization
27%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
37%
Computer Software Company
18%
Real Estate/Law Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is the biggest difference between Nutanix Acropolis and VMware vSphere?
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 fou...
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...
Which would you choose - Nutanix Acropolis AOS or VMware vSAN?
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 fou...
What do you like most about SolidFire?
The provisioning process is efficient and doesn't demand higher latency, ensuring optimal data transfer performance which is particularly valuable for tasks like data mining, where quick results ar...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SolidFire?
It might be considered expensive, but when evaluating performance, it represents good value online because you pay for what you get.
What needs improvement with SolidFire?
There is room for improvement with a focus on creating a centralized storage system, functioning similar to AWS. This involves diverse storage tiers that can be designated for various customers.
 

Also Known As

Nutanix Acropolis AOS, Nutanix AOS, Nutanix Acropolis
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

St. Lukes Health System, the City of Seattle, Yahoo! Japan, Sligro, Empire Life, Hyundai AUS, and many others.
California Public Utilities Commission, RFA, 1&1, Ultimate Software , Endicia, ezVerify, MercadoLibre, Sungard Availability Services, ServInt, Elastx, Hosted Network, Colt, Crucial, iWeb, Datapipe, Databarracks
Find out what your peers are saying about Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs. SolidFire and other solutions. Updated: November 2022.
860,168 professionals have used our research since 2012.