Nutanix Acropolis AOS alternatives and competitors

The cover points feature in VxRail is remarkable. It's unique. It has an intervention failover system as well as an automatic failover system, reaching clusters existing in VxRail. This makes all files act as a single file with a large and huge resource, and, of course, with customized administration, configuration, and resources. It provides automatic failover for redundancy and data recovery.

If they can provide deduplication compression through the traditional hard drives, as Cisco does in the HyperFlex system, it will be very cost-effective, especially when it comes to archiving workload. 

VxRail doesn't allow the mixing of old flash clusters and hyper clusters. When I'm starting with an old flash cluster and it comes to archiving workload, I will also need to attend the new cluster. So, I either manage two different clusters, or I pay and upload my work with the archiving mobile hard drive, which is not cost-effective at all. The main key is to allow mixing between two types of clustering, like Nutanix, or allow deduplication of completion over the period of shared hard drive on SAV. It will be much better.

I have been using this solution for four to five years. I have used three generations of Dell servers. 

It is very stable and durable. It only depends on vSAN, which is the number one software that defines storage. 

Currently, more than 500 users are using VxRail in our company. It's capable of delivering for all types of workloads. Technically, it depends on the hyper-converged instructions. This means that you have 100% assurance of its compatibility with all of its components. It should also carry all types of workload dispersing, that is, from the normal traditional virtual machines to high-performance computing, such as HEP workload, heavy database, artificial intelligence, and business analytics.

They provide good support. You can reach them, especially if your system is at ESRS, EMC functional support. You can just chat with one of their technicians. They collect the logs and discover the issue. It takes almost a couple of hours from opening the ticket to resolve it. They are very good.

The hardware replacement takes 24 hours. They have their own stock here in Egypt.

It is easy to install and implement the VxRail clusters. The initial setup was a piece of cake for us. 

We manage the storage, compute, and virtual machines as well as networking through the perfect channel. 

We do all kinds of deployments. We check whether the customer wants to deploy it on-premises, cloud, or integrate with the public cloud to tier and replicate.

VxRail is very cost-effective and affordable in the long term. It is more recommended when it comes to financial life, but it may depend upon the license. VxRail comes with VMware licensing, which may not be that cost-effective as compared to others. With VMware, it's an auto check competition. VMware is an expensive solution, especially for Nutanix. Nutanix have their own hypervisor called Acronis, which is very cost-effective against the VMware.

Nutanix is cheaper for the hardware but not for the software. If you ask the Nutanix partners to deploy Nutanix over Cisco servers or Dell EMC servers, the cost will be higher. Nutanix wants to compete financially. Therefore, they propose their software over the Supermicro server, which is a very cheap Chinese server. In fact, I don't like their terms of service.

HyperFlex has the highest price, and it is very expensive. I don't know why. It may be because this is a UCS system, which comes from Cisco and is already expensive. When it comes to HyperFlex, they need the labor to deploy Hyper-V, Citrix, or any other hypervisor.

I also deal with HyperFlex and Nutanix. In fact, I prefer VxRail. 

When comparing with HyperFlex, VxRail is much alike HyperFlex. It is very cost-effective, and it doesn't have too many conditions like HyperFlex. When you start with building clusters in HyperFlex, you stick to the selected nodes forever. It is not the same in VxRail. You start with pNode in VxRail, and then you add eNode, sNode, etc.  

HyperFlex has its own limitations. They say we can create up to 64 nodes, but, in fact, there are only 52 storage and 52 nodes compute with no mixing between two workloads. On the other hand, in VxRail, you can really create up to 64 nodes, which means the double amount of nodes to carry more servers, more computing in the clusters. 

There are too many concerns about HyperFlex, especially related to performance. HyperFlex source the deduplication compression. You don't have the option to enable or disable the deduplication compression, which means that deduplication ends the performance. In VxRail, you can enable or disable the deduplication compression. So, you can gain a net performance against the storage, and you can move the storage against the performance. You can balance the full configuration. 

When it comes to the software, Nutanix is great. The main concern is that Nutanix doesn't have its own hardware, and it is integrated with different types of servers to deploy its own system. Nutanix just has a contract with Noble, Supermicro, or HP to develop its own system, which is okay for some types of users. However, many types of users request and prefer the full software or hardware that comes from a single vendor so that they can achieve the maximum and ultimate support.

I would rate VxRail an eight out of ten. They should allow the deduplication compression over the hard drives and mixing of the hyper and the old flash clusters.

The feature that I have found most valuable is that it is easy to deploy.

It is also easy to configure with the vCenter and the other solutions that we have. It is easy to create and delete virtual servers. It is easy to create the load balancing and the clustering, and the new version includes different features that allow us to quickly see what happened if we shut down a virtual server. It is an arrays of disks. It works like a RAID file. You shut down one server and you can start the two others that work together.

VMware vSAN is better than SimpliVity. We once tried to run SimpliVity, but it was difficult for us, because the people from HP were not easy to work with, the costs of their white papers where higher, and it was not as easy to deploy as VMware. VMware vSAN also costs for licensing, but it costs less than HPE SimpliVity and I'm not depending on the HP team. I can run it myself with my engineers.

The only negative point relates to the licensing. If you want multiple, different servers, it costs money, but you have all the capacity for vSAN. You do not reach the data, but the processor arrays and the current architecture.

I have been using VMware vSAN for two and a half years.

We are using version 6.7 and we are processing now to switch to 7.0 because we are testing the new version.

VMware vSAN is a stable solution.

We have made many tests, we have also shut down the servers and made an extraction of the disk and everything, and vSAN was very good.

VMware vSAN is scalable, if you choose good servers at the beginning with many slots for disks, you can then add disks and extend the storage. You can add memory if you have good servers, and then you can enable your construction. But you have to choose good servers for production from the beginning.

VMware has very good support. They have technical support which is divided into three areas. In each area you always have the one who can reply to you and they are really good at the technical support.

We previously worked with Nutanix, which HP bought. At the beginning, we were also working with a free solution called KVM. There was no licensing cost with them, but there was also no real support and the customers were afraid of that. They wanted something that is known in the market. We also worked with Dell in the past.

If you already work with vCenter and VMware, the initial setup is easy. The process is easy to understand and easy to configure. You just have to be sure that when you connect the servers with the LAN that everything is in 10 giga, then it will be easy to configure. You have to configure the root storage of the LAN and give it a switch.

You have to configure everything from the beginning to make everything work, so you must have an expert on vSAN from your side and an expert for LAN on the other side.

I do think that VMware vSAN's cost could be lower.

We pay for the license every year.

The cost depends on your contract. The pricing for the government is not the best, but for each licensing, because its arrays are in your servers, it can cost $4,000 for each of the servers for a simple solution and up to $20,000 per server for vSAN solutions. It's very, very expensive.

I am also working with Microsoft and Safe Key, another solution for the clustering, and I tried HPE SimpliVity for simple cluster and for multi-cluster. When I saw the costs of HPE SimpliVity for multi-cluster, there were two points that made me not feel good about it: the price and that when we needed more than 20 or 40 terabytes of data, the HP license was such that I could not use this solution alone. We had to use the HP team at the beginning.

On a scale of one to ten I would give VMware vSAN an eight for the technology, eight for scalability, and a six for the price. Overall, I give it an eight.

We are an MSP that offers IT services to SMB companies in our area. We wanted to branch out and start offering hosting services in the form of offsite backup and server. To achieve this we needed a highly available cluster of servers. We started off designing a typical cluster/SAN setup but decided that we wanted the simplicity of hyper-converged architecture instead. In researching HCA we found that StarWind offered exactly that as well of proactive monitoring support for the cluster. Having an extra set of eyes on the health of the equipment was a huge selling point.

StarWind has given us the ability to have a failover cluster without the complications of a SAN network. We are able to offer extra services to our customers that we haven't been able to in the past. Small companies can be wary of the large cloud providers so having a StarWind HCA cluster we were able to give our customers the ability to grow into the cloud while also staying with a company they have worked with and known for years. With StarWind's proactive monitoring we can go about our day helping our customers and not have to worry about our cluster's health.

The most valuable feature is its Proactive support. They monitor the health of the cluster and hardware and reach out if they see anything out of the norm. They will then work with us through the entire resolution process whether it be a hardware issue or an issue with the StarWind vSAN services. If the issue turns out to be hardware related they will then work with the hardware manufacturer and get any replacement parts needed. Their techs are also very knowledgeable and have always been able to resolve any issues without any kind of long drawn out escalation process no matter the time of day.  

Multi cluster support for their Command Console would be very beneficial. Currently, you can only work with a single cluster at a time. The console is new so I expect much growth in this area in the near future. The other area that could be improved is the tech support locale.  Currently, all of their tech support is located in eastern Europe so if you have any issues understanding thick accents it may be a little frustrating. With that being said they have never got frustrated with me asking them to repeat themselves, they've always been very patient.

We've been using it in full production for about seven months.

Stability has been good. We've had one issue with the StarWind service locking up causing full sync to be performed. During this sync, there wasn't any noticeable performance impact by our users.

If you provide your own switches instead of doing their direct connect option you should be able to scale this solution very well. If you go direct connect you are limited to 3 nodes.  Adding additional storage should be easy if you have available hard drive bays.

Tech support has been fantastic. Always willing to help no matter what time of day/night.  I've never had to have an issue escalated as the first contact tech has always been able to solve any issues/questions.

This is my first venture into the HCA world.

StarWind performed most of the initial setup for us. We racked the equipment and then they remoted in and configured everything. We did not have any existing VMs to migrate so it was a simple setup.

Cost is very reasonable and shouldn't catch anyone off guard if you've looked at other HCA devices.

We also looked at Nutanix, HP Simplivity, VxRails, and Scale.

We have Microsoft Hyper-V.  StarWind is configured as a two-node cluster with a Windows environment. It is crucial for the Virtual Machines that give us the resiliency of Exchange, 4TB File Servers, Networking Services, Quickbooks Server, Terminal Servers, Virtualized Spam Protection, Active Directory Services, and a few others.

We needed something that allows for better resiliency than the old way of doing things.  We have seen other choices out there but this seemed to be the best one, given our budget and the hardware we wanted to use.

This StarWind solution has enabled us to be more resilient, once it was set up and tested.

Failover happens very smoothly. Recovery and maintenance are now less stressful and most importantly, it allows our users to keep working.

Before StarWind, we were dealing with an archaic way of synchronizing Virtual machines and data between non-clustered physical hosts and it was very frustrating. Now, things are less hands-on and easier to manage and navigate the virtual environment, including maintenance while other users keep working.

We found that robust communications between clusters and synchronization were key and most valuable to us due to the amount of data we were synchronizing.

The expertise from their technicians is very helpful even in the middle of the night, with the right support plan of course. The technical documentation, the follow-up and the details noted on a per-call basis was amazing. We really appreciate that kind of commitment to our success and stability that the StarWind software brings to our business.

Built-in Notification would really help and as I understand, their new release has this now.  

A mobile app to sync up for overview and status would really be helpful.

Also, it would be helpful if the software had a few more guides and links/videos on how-to's.

An "Update available" notification within the software would also be helpful and a guided wizard to do the upgrade properly would also be nice and efficient.

A better visual of the SAN storage/actual storage and how it is used would be good, especially when it comes to where the files are located on the disk. 

We have been using StarWind Virtual SAN for the last two years.

Stability seems great and we have not had any problems with the software.

Seems very scalable, although we chose to have a two-node cluster.

This area has been the best for us, especially being new to this technology. The support team was amazing with follow-up and they are super patient.

I have not used another solution for the same purpose. This was what I picked based on my research.

Initially, I didn't quite understand the framework and what exact hardware was needed so I had to do some learning. However, once all was in place it went pretty smoothly.

We did our deployment in-house, with help from StarWind.

Return on investment for us, I would say maybe breaking even. As I said, I wish the costs were better balanced.

The cost seems a bit steep, and I wish it was less expensive.

I have looked at Nutanix and VMware.

Mainly that the costs would be less expensive.

I'm a service provider. I install it for my customers. I typically implement it for telecoms.

Once you get the solution up and running, it is very good.

The solution is extremely stable.

The product offers good value for the amount you pay. It doesn't give you any issues once it's implemented.

The solution can scale very nicely.

The interface is very good and is very easy to navigate. You can find everything you need from one central place.

To install or to update it is more complicated than other solutions. 

They can automate a lot of things. We do a lot of things manually and this is somewhat unnecessary. For example, the installation of a plug-in, or VMware, and so on. If you can automate all these things, like Nutanix, you get a better result. It's very simple to install Nutanix. You click and wait. The whole implementation is pretty automatic. SimpliVity will be very, very good if it can automate many aspects of the deployment.

It would be ideal if they could include OpenView managers in one place with all the equipment.

We've been using the solution for two or three years.

While the implementation is difficult, once you get past that, it's an excellent solution. It's an extremely stable product and very reliable. We have no issues with it once it's up and running. It's not buggy or glitchy. It doesn't crash. It's great.

The solution is very, very scalable. If a company needs to expand it, they can do so easily.

HP Technical support is great. HP has developed instant AI, artificial intelligence. Support can be automatic now. When we activate the AI, when we have a problem on-site, HP will basically know in advance. If we have to repair something, it will be sent automatically. They do offer on-site support, however, that's something that needs to be paid for.

Overall, we've been satisfied with their level of support.

I have some experience with Nutanix. I've read about it and gone over documentation. I've never installed it, however, I find the implementation in theory easier and more automated than this product.

The installation is not straightforward. It is quite complex. Even updating it is complex. There are many steps you need to account for. It takes some time to get it done.

It's depend on the plan of the client, however, if there is one cluster only, it can go fast and you can deploy in a few days. However, if you add to an existing cluster, you have to update many things, and this will maybe one week or potentially two weeks.

While at first clients always comment on the pricing being very high. However, once it's deployed, and they see how well it works, they don't complain. Therefore, I think it's quite fair.

We are HPE partners.

Overall, I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

I would caution others, to implement the solution effectively, you have to go step by step, and with no hurry. The documentation for implementation is very long. If you don't follow it exactly and do every step as described, you'll have a lot of challenges during the implementation, therefore, just go slow.