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:
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Integrated virtualization: These features offer simplified automation and AHV streamlined operations. The services in this category are optimized for high performance and reliability.
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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.
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Microsegmentation: Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) offers features to prevent malware spread and reduce attack surfaces by leveraging machine learning (ML).
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Virtual networking: This set of features allows users to easily implement multi-tenancy in their environment or stretch networks across clouds.
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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.
VMware Cloud on AWS integrates VMware's enterprise-class SDDC with AWS's scalable infrastructure, offering innovative solutions for IT needs. It combines both environments for seamless application migration and management.
Developed to address hybrid cloud challenges, VMware Cloud on AWS offers streamlined processes for migrating applications, enhancing scalability and reducing costs. By leveraging VMware's infrastructure alongside AWS's global presence, organizations can efficiently optimize their IT environments. Users have noted the ease of integrating on-premises infrastructure with AWS environments, highlighting it as a valuable tool for modern infrastructure transformations. Despite its strengths, reviewers suggest enhancements in cost management tools.
What are the most important features?
- Hybrid Cloud Extension: Enables easy migration of applications across cloud environments without downtime.
- Consistent Infrastructure: Provides a consistent VMware experience across on-premises and AWS.
- Global Reach: Utilizes AWS's global infrastructure for disaster recovery and data sovereignty.
- Robust Security: Incorporates VMware's extensive security features across both infrastructures.
- Scalability: Easily scale resources up or down based on needs without hardware concerns.
Which benefits and ROI should users look for?
- Reduced Costs: Minimizes the need for additional hardware investment and maintenance.
- Increased Agility: Quick deployment enhances time-to-market for applications and services.
- Improved Performance: Leverages AWS's infrastructure for robust application performance.
- Operational Efficiency: Streamlined operations with unified management tools.
- Disaster Recovery: Offers cost-effective and efficient disaster recovery solutions.
In particular industries, VMware Cloud on AWS is used extensively in finance and healthcare due to its strong compliance and security features. Financial institutions benefit from its disaster recovery capabilities, while healthcare providers utilize its secure data management features. It enables seamless integration of applications, thus supporting industry-specific regulatory requirements. Its ability to scale easily supports dynamic workloads and increasing data handling needs.
