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Yaw Ofori-Adjei - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Director at Fairgreen Limited
Real User
Feb 5, 2024
Offers AVH features at a more cost-effective price point
Pros and Cons
  • "This product stands out for its user-friendly interface, intuitive design, and responsive UI. It offers AVH features comparable to Nutanix but at a more cost-effective price point."
  • "It should focus on providing more detailed and helpful error messages. One area we'd like to see enhanced is better support for guest VMs, especially in a heterogeneous environment."

What is our primary use case?

We majorly use Nutanix AHV Virtualization for server consolidation. 

What is most valuable?

This product stands out for its user-friendly interface, intuitive design, and responsive UI. It offers AVH features comparable to Nutanix but at a more cost-effective price point.

What needs improvement?

It should focus on providing more detailed and helpful error messages. One area we'd like to see enhanced is better support for guest VMs, especially in a heterogeneous environment. However, there are no specific additional features that come to mind for the next release.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Nutanix AHV Virtualization for six years.

Buyer's Guide
Nutanix AHV Virtualization
September 2026
Learn what your peers think about Nutanix AHV Virtualization. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: September 2026.
914,351 professionals have used our research since 2012.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is stable with very few incidents of crashing or requiring reboots. I would rate it 8 out of 10.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is scalable and would rate it 8 out of 10. Almost 50% of our users use this and belong from medium sized enterprises.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup can be rated at five. It was more complex compared to other solutions like VMware, which had additional steps such as running foundation and configuring settings.The deployment process involves preparing the hardware, ensuring it's in place, and then following a straightforward process of powering on, rebooting, and installing the necessary components. The preparation phase includes sizing the environment, gathering information about networks, and connections. Once everything is in place, deploying the solution is relatively quick and straightforward, especially when compared to other devices.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

I would rate pricing a six out of ten, since it is affordable. The price is fixed but requires additional costs for additional features

What other advice do I have?

I recommend thorough research and understanding of its capabilities before making a decision. Consider your specific needs and, if needed, try the community edition for a proof of concept. Overall, I rate the product an 8/10

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. partner
PeerSpot user
Irshad Kazi - PeerSpot reviewer
Lead Technical Consultant at ITC Infotech
MSP
Oct 14, 2023
Helped us emphasize centralized management during production
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable part of Nutanix is its centralized management of everything."
  • "Nutanix misses alerts sometimes."

What is our primary use case?

We use the Nutanix AHV Virtualization solution for production purposes only. We use other solutions for application servers, such as on-premises physical ESX servers.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable part of Nutanix is its centralized management of everything. You have the storage pool, network pool, storage controller, and processes running inside the Nutanix ZooKeeper, Stargate, and Medusa services. These processes are not inside ESXi, so they must be managed separately.

There is no issue in Nutanix. If one node goes down with any hardware failure, it has a hardware and software host.

What needs improvement?

Nutanix misses alerts sometimes. To improve this, Nutanix should integrate with Eskom, an existing monitoring tool. This would allow Nutanix to receive alerts from Eskom instead of having to install and configure its monitoring tool. This would be a great feature, as it would allow Nutanix to receive alerts for all physical devices and processes, even if Nutanix itself does not manage them.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Nutanix AHV Virtualization for three years. We are using the latest version of the solution.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The product's stability is good.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

AHV virtualization is scalable, with enhanced security features. One thousand five hundred users are using this solution in our organization.

How are customer service and support?

The customer support is good.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is easy. If you are unboxing Nutanix appliances from the storage and need to install the entire cluster, it will take at least two to three days to install, configure, and migrate virtual machines from ESXi to AHV.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The product is costly and comes with an annual subscription. There are other solutions like Cisco UCS, vSAN, and Azure Stack. Azure Stack is a particularly significant competitor, as it is cheaper than Nutanix.

What other advice do I have?

Instead of creating a storage account and configuring other things, you should be able to create a cloud cluster, deploy it, remove it, and migrate VMs from on-premises to the cloud and vice versa, all within Prism Central in a user-friendly way. You should work more on AWS, GCP, Azure, and Kubernetes integration and services. You can deploy Kubernetes services inside the Nutanix AHV hypervisor.

Instead of creating a new system, I think improving the existing Nutanix AHV Virtualization KB document would be more helpful. The KB document has a lot of information, but finding specific solutions to problems can be difficult. For example, if you install a KB fix and an application stops working, you may have to read many documents to find the solution. This can be lengthy, and raising a ticket with Nutanix may be necessary. Finding the needed information would be easier if the KB document were better organized and structured.

If you need a protection database server, I recommend Nutanix. It is very fast. However, if you run applications, Nutanix is not the best choice. Other products in the market are better suited for applications.

Overall, I rate the solution a seven out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Hybrid Cloud
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Nutanix AHV Virtualization
September 2026
Learn what your peers think about Nutanix AHV Virtualization. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: September 2026.
914,351 professionals have used our research since 2012.
PeerSpot user
Presales Solutions Architect at Freelance
Reseller
Top 5
Jul 10, 2024
Offers valuable features in areas like automation and artificial intelligence
Pros and Cons
  • "It is a stable solution. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
  • "For the moment, the graphic user interface is not good, and it needs to be improved."

What is our primary use case?

Many customers use the solution. One of the customers, I think, uses 4,000 virtual machines. Virtual machines are used for administration, applications, and many other things. We can slide them into three environments, including the test environment, the pre-production environment and production environment.

What is most valuable?

The solution's most valuable features stem from the fact that I use many things, including NSX-T and NSX-P, which are new for virtualization. It started in 2022. NSX-T and NSX-P are different from NSX-v. NSX-v is dedicated to vCenter, and NSX-P is for Nutanix or VMware.

It is difficult to give an explanation about why I find NSX-P to be useful because VMware changed the category when Cisco bought it. I think Nutanix told its customers that the best way to go around it was based on the licensing system, and it is better than VMware's very expensive licenses.

What needs improvement?

For the moment, the graphic user interface is not good, and it needs to be improved.

In terms of the additional features or capabilities needed in the tool, we need some tricks in the tool for monitoring, and in areas like artificial intelligence and observability, we need to reduce the noise from the monitoring causes globally.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Nutanix AHV Virtualization since 2015, so it has been nine years. I am an integrator. I work as a part of our company's pre-sales department, so I explain the soluton's technicalities to our customers based on their needs. I use Nutanix AHV Virtualization Version 5.0.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is a stable solution. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is a scalable solution. Scalability depends on if you install the tool on an on-premises or cloud model. In the cloud, it is a very scalable tool, and it is unlimited. On an on-premise model, the tool's scalability is always limited. Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a nine or ten out of ten if it is deployed on the cloud. Scalability-wise, I rate the solution as one out of ten if it is deployed on an on-premises model, as the space is limited.

It is very difficult to say if the tool's on-premises customers would want the product to offer them high scalability because if you buy five TB, there is no option to expand unless you buy five TB terabytes again. Sometimes, we have to put some configuration, including deduplication or compression. There are some concerns about the tool's performance.

Currently, one of the customers that uses the solution has 25 users. Small, medium, or enterprise businesses use the tool.

How are customer service and support?

I am a pre-sales person who hears what the customer wants, and I design the solution accordingly before proposing it to them.

How was the initial setup?

I rate the product's initial setup phase as a seven out of ten if one is difficult and ten is an easy setup. For an IT person like myself, I can rate it as a ten, but for someone who does not know the tool, it's better to keep it at an average of seven.

The product's initial setup phase was much easier than that of VMware.

Depending on the customers, the solution can be deployed on the cloud or on an on-premises model. I have done both deployments on a 50-50 basis.

The solution can be deployed in six months if I include areas from design, discussion, and implementation.

It's really difficult to describe how to set up the tool. For example, you have to have physical servers of not less than three. You can have two physical servers, but the load balancing won't be good enough. After you create the data storage, you create the VMs, and after that, you configure the networks. You have to dedicate some amount of storage to the server.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Compared to the licensing methodology opted by VMware, Nutanix offers a better licensing model.

If one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the price as two out of ten. There are no additional costs attached to the tool.

What other advice do I have?

The most valuable aspects of managing virtual infrastructure are the tool's automation, artificial intelligence, and the hyperconverged system.

When it comes to the hyperconverged part, it is easier to configure in Nutanix than it is in VMware. The hyperconverged part is very friendly and configurable.

Others planning to use the tool should have good knowledge of the license that they need. If you know exactly the license that you will consume, it's easy to understand the price and get some advantages out of it.

I rate the tool a nine out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Hybrid Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. integrator
PeerSpot user
EUT Analyst at Absa Group Ltd
Real User
Oct 6, 2023
A good product when it comes to scalability, stability, and manageability features that offer great technical support
Pros and Cons
  • "It is a stable solution. I haven't faced stability issues in the solution."
  • "To face no complications in our company, we had to switch off virtual machines one after the other before heading to Nutanix platform and going to edge services to switch off and turn off everything, making it a challenging process for me."

What is our primary use case?

I use Nutanix AHV Virtualization for the servers in our bank, where we have a lot of applications. In general, my bank uses Nutanix AHV Virtualization to host our application servers.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable features of the solution stem from the fact that I have never had to face any security issues from the use of the solution. I haven't faced any issues like ransomware when using Nutanix AHV Virtualization.

What needs improvement?

When cleaning up my environment and server room during one of the projects, my bank wanted us to shut down the servers. To face no complications in our company, we had to switch off virtual machines one after the other before heading to Nutanix platform and going to edge services to switch off and turn off everything, making it a challenging process for me. The aforementioned area can be considered for improvement in the solution.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Nutanix AHV Virtualization for six years. I am a user of Nutanix.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is a stable solution. I haven't faced stability issues in the solution.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I haven't faced any problems with the solution's scalability.

I am the only administrator for the solution. My company's other branches located in Tanzania, Zambia, and Kenya are planning to move away from Nutanix AHV Virtualization. Still, I think we should try to standardize the platforms to get better future support.

How are customer service and support?

I don't have any problem with the solution's technical support. I rate the technical support a ten out of ten since I like the platform. You may find that you may go into the platform and call other people to discuss your issues with the platform, making it one area where I think that I should have a little bit of control.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup of Nutanix AHV Virtualization was simple because I understood the product, and I could go through a few tutorials since I was given access to the platform where I could see everything related to the product at once. In Nutanix AHV Virtualization, when I was working with edge devices off-site remotely, I saw that it had many layers since there were too many releases and logins, making it look very demanding.

The solution is deployed on an on-premises model.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

I have been trying to determine if I need to opt for a single package or two packages to operate Nutanix and virtual machines. I would like to see some documentation from Nutanix providing clarity over the aforementioned statement.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

My company chose Nutanix AHV Virtualization over other platforms in the market since it was a recommendation made by the main office of my company. My company mostly operates from South Africa, and from there, we get the direction to go ahead with our work, so today, they can suggest we use one platform, while tomorrow, they may recommend another.

What other advice do I have?

I recommend Nutanix AHV Virtualization to others who plan to use it since I personally prefer the solution, especially in scenarios where I get absolute control over the product. Currently, my control over the product is limited since there are people between me and Nutanix AHV Virtualization.

Considering the solution's scalability, stability, and manageability options, I rate the overall product a ten out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Maneet Kumar - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Manager IT Infrastructure at Global Health Pvt Ltd.
Real User
Dec 29, 2022
Opting to go with Nutanix has resulted in zero downtime over the last two years, and reduced operational burden
Pros and Cons
  • "The feature that has had the most impact is data locality. That is a feature that makes Nutanix different from other hypervisors. It helps us to get application performance that is probably double what we got with the legacy, three-tier architecture."
  • "If we have to opt for a high level of capacity planning and need more analytics—like deciding on new purchases or budgeting, or if we need additional resources in the near future—we need to pay for Prism Central. I would suggest that Nutanix improve a bit on the analytics part of Prism Element so we can calculate those kinds of things within that flavor."

What is our primary use case?

We are hosting our mission-critical applications on the Nutanix cluster.

Because of our business needs and application requirements, we have some limitations in terms of migrating our services to the cloud. As a hospital, we need ultra-low latency applications that are very critical for patient care. We need our solution within the same building so that latency requirements can be met. We have a huge amount of data and accessing it is more easily feasible within the data center within our building.

How has it helped my organization?

The main advantage we have now, using Nutanix AHV Virtualization, is that it has helped us reduce downtime. Earlier, we were on a three-tier infrastructure, with separate server, storage, and network. Opting to go with Nutanix SDI over the last two years has resulted in zero downtime. Even if there is maintenance is going on for upgrades, there is zero downtime. DR runbooks and snapshots have both helped us.

In addition, the security features have helped reduce operational challenges. Out-of-the-box, the security of AHV is already hard-coded and hardened. As a customer, I don't have to worry about the security or about adding another layer of security.

It is super easy to manage and doesn't require any specific technical skills to operate. We can provision new infrastructure on-demand with a few clicks. Because of that, it has reduced our IT administration overhead by up to 85 percent. If we compare provisioning network and storage and servers separately with the way that is done in Nutanix, it takes that much less time to provision new servers and resources. That is a big gift.

It has reduced the burden on our administrators. That 85 percent of time is available for an administrator to do other things, rather than providing and monitoring the resources. This is the big takeaway that we have achieved.

And in terms of consolidation, we have placed all of our high-I/O-latency and critical applications on Nutanix SDI. Initially, they were on legacy hardware from different OEMs, like Dell and HPE. Managing those older solutions required multiple skill sets, in Dell and HPE. Now that we have migrated these critical applications to Nutanix, there is no backend. The technology is working in the backend and, as an administrator, I don't have to do a deep dive into the technology. This consolidation was critical and that's why we moved to Nutanix.

We removed a legacy SAN from our environment. Initially, we had separate servers and then the SAN switches. With the SDI consolidation, we don't need any additional SAN boxes or switches to run the applications or servers. We bought our Nutanix solution with enough storage so that we could eliminate the SAN part, and it has helped us with performance as well, because the storage is directly attached to the Nutanix boxes.

What is most valuable?

The hypervisor AHV itself is the most valuable because it is almost invisible, from an administrative point of view. There's nothing to maintain or learn about the hypervisor technology Nutanix has used.

The feature that has had the most impact is data locality. That is a feature that makes Nutanix different from other hypervisors. It helps us to get application performance that is probably double what we got with the legacy, three-tier architecture.

It also supports all platforms, like Microsoft, Linux, and other OVF templates. It is kike other hypervisors in that it is equally capable and enterprise-class. And another very helpful aspect, from a cost point of view, is that it's free.

And when it comes to application visibility and performance, we can see it all in a single window. We get a realistic view of our application performance and security.

What needs improvement?

Nutanix has a Prism Central flavor and a Prism Element flavor. Prism Element is the very basic level. It provides management for Nutanix AHV. If we have to opt for a high level of capacity planning and need more analytics—like deciding on new purchases or budgeting, or if we need additional resources in the near future—we need to pay for Prism Central. I would suggest that Nutanix improve a bit on the analytics part of Prism Element so we can calculate those kinds of things within that flavor.

For how long have I used the solution?

We bought it in December 2019 and it was in production in the first quarter of 2020, so we have been using Nutanix AHV Virtualization for more than two years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is super stable. I have used ESXi and Microsoft Hyper-V in addition to AHV. I have experience on all three platforms and they are equally stable. AHV is an enterprise-class hypervisor.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution is very scalable. We can scale horizontally. If we need memory, we can buy a memory-intensive node and add it to the cluster in the same way we would for compute or storage.

We have around 1,500 users in our organization. All of them use the applications that are hosted on Nutanix.

How are customer service and support?

The technical support is very good. We have a variety of services from different OEMs. What I admire about Nutanix is that they really have very good support. That is one of the greatest things that puts Nutanix ahead of its competitors. It is 24x7 support, and its SLAs are very defined. Their guys are super technical and they take ownership of a case. In fact, as a customer, if I miss something, they will reach out to me. That is something I have not seen with many OEMs.

They also have something called Nutanix Insight. It is an integrated platform. Suppose there is a hard drive failure in our cluster. Their support will automatically know and they will dispatch the part, without even raising a ticket.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We had legacy infrastructure, including physical servers, storage, and network switches, from different OEMs: Dell, Cisco, HPE. We removed all of them and opted for Nutanix AHV.

How was the initial setup?

We have two clusters. One is our single-node DR cluster and one is our main, four-node hospital cluster, which is our main site. The clusters are in the same city, about 10 kilometers apart.

The initial deployment was straightforward for us. Nutanix has many partners in India and they aligned us with one of those partners. The partner came to us and assessed our existing infrastructure and then set up our environment by converting our physical infrastructure to the ESXi. From the ESXi, they migrated our servers to Nutanix AHV. There was hardly any downtime during the migration process, and everything went smoothly.

It took around three weeks to complete the deployment. There were two people involved, one from the OEM and me.

The maintenance it requires is super low. It has a feature called LCM (life cycle manager). As an administrator, I just have to just see if an update is available and then click on Update. It automatically updates. Nothing else is required from us. When maintenance has to happen, our applications will automatically migrate to other servers and they'll keep on running. End-users will never notice when maintenance going on. There isn't a single challenge with updating. It is super easy.

Adding compute and storage on-demand is also super easy. If I have to add compute, I just have to buy a node and expand the cluster. That's it. It will auto-discover the node and add it. It is a live procedure, so our existing workload is never impacted.

What was our ROI?

We have seen return on investment because we don't have to pay maintenance costs for the different legacy OEMs that we removed. It has saved us about 45 percent.

In terms of total cost of operations, Nutanix has also helped us a lot because, now, a single administrator can take care of network, server, and storage, because it is a consolidated box. Previously, we needed different guys, one for servers, an expert for storage, and another for network. One person is now doing the job of three people.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We assessed many solutions including SimpliVity from HPE, VxRail from Dell, and AHV from Nutanix. We did a comparison and we found that Nutanix AHV fit our budget and our feature requirements.

What other advice do I have?

I definitely recommend it and have done so to many of my peers in the industry. A few of those colleagues were super excited when they got an overview of the product.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
PeerSpot user
Kaleemullah Bhat - PeerSpot reviewer
Partner Manager - Commercial at Redington (India) Ltd
Reseller
Feb 6, 2024
Provides us with a platform to integrate all of our hardware products
Pros and Cons
  • "Integration is the most valuable feature of the product."
  • "Nutanix’s support team is not very efficient compared to others."

What is most valuable?

The solution provides us with a platform to integrate all the hardware products. We can integrate the tool with VMware. Integration is the most valuable feature of the product.

What needs improvement?

The support must be improved. Other technologies like Dell have their own service centers and different types of SLAs. Nutanix’s support team is not very efficient compared to others.

For how long have I used the solution?

I resell the solution.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I rate the product’s stability a nine out of ten.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I rate the product’s scalability a nine out of ten.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is easy and seamless. The deployment method depends on the customers’ requirements. We can deploy the solution both on the cloud and on-premise. The hardware is on-premise.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The solution’s pricing is relatively fair. It could be improved, though.

What other advice do I have?

I will recommend the tool to others. It is hardware-agnostic and vendor-agnostic. We work with all technologies. The tool provides a platform to integrate all technologies together. Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Reseller
PeerSpot user
Imam Zaenuri - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Manager at PT.Password Solusi Sistem
Reseller
Top 20Leaderboard
Nov 15, 2023
A stable solution that has good performance, but its replication to another site should be efficiently optimized
Pros and Cons
  • "Nutanix AHV Virtualization has good performance and can be used for backup and disaster."
  • "It would be better if the solution's replication to another site could be efficiently optimized."

What is our primary use case?

Nutanix AHV Virtualization is used for the migration from the physical to the virtual.

What is most valuable?

Nutanix AHV Virtualization has good performance and can be used for backup and disaster.

What needs improvement?

It would be better if the solution's replication to another site could be efficiently optimized.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have worked with Nutanix AHV Virtualization since 2015.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Nutanix AHV Virtualization is a stable solution.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Nutanix AHV Virtualization is a very scalable solution. Most of our customers for Nutanix AHV Virtualization are small and medium-level businesses.

How was the initial setup?

The solution’s initial setup is easy.

What about the implementation team?

Around 15 engineers are needed to deploy the solution.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Nutanix AHV Virtualization's Series 1000 is cheaper than other competitors. If you start to use the Series 3000, it'll be the same or sometimes higher. We have to pay a yearly licensing fee for the solution. Clients must pay for another license if they want to use more features.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

VMware vSAN is better than Nutanix AHV Virtualization because it improves every year.

What other advice do I have?

The solution's maintenance depends on the project, but I think one person is enough for one cluster.

Before choosing Nutanix AHV Virtualization, users should know their workload.

Overall, I rate Nutanix AHV Virtualization a seven out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Reseller
PeerSpot user
Manager at Seoul Institute of the Arts
Real User
Top 5Leaderboard
Jul 4, 2024
A useful and convenient solution that helps to create VMs
Pros and Cons
  • "The tool's most valuable feature is the snapshot feature. It is very useful and convenient."
  • "I must change the memory cards in at least two to three weeks."

What is our primary use case?

We use the solution to make virtual machines. 

What is most valuable?

The tool's most valuable feature is the snapshot feature. It is very useful and convenient. 

Nutanix AHV Virtualization is easy to integrate with other systems. 

What needs improvement?

I must change the memory cards in at least two to three weeks. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been working with the product for seven years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Nutanix AHV Virtualization is stable. I rate the product's stability an eight out of ten. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Nutanix AHV Virtualization is scalable. I rate the solution's scalability an eight out of ten. 

How are customer service and support?

I am satisfied with the partner company. 

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I also use VMware, which is strong. However, Nutanix AHV Virtualization's UI is convenient. It is easy to create and delete VMs. 

What was our ROI?

Nutanix AHV Virtualization's impact on our company is good. It helps to save 30 percent of time. 

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Nutanix AHV Virtualization is expensive. I rate it a six out of ten. 

What other advice do I have?

I rate the overall product an eight out of ten. 

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
KuldeepSingh4 - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Solution Architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Top 5
May 26, 2024
Enables you to multiple containers and apply distinct policies to each storage container

How has it helped my organization?

From a hypervisor perspective, AHV appears promising. However, some enhanced features, like fault tolerance compared to VMware and template management, seem to lack user-friendliness. While performing tasks in AHV is possible, the process can be cumbersome. Users often find themselves navigating through multiple interfaces and resorting to command-line actions. Although AHV functions adequately as a hypervisor, improving its user interface and streamlining features like template management would greatly enhance the user experience.

What is most valuable?

The significant advantage lies in its storage policies. With AHV, we can create multiple containers and apply distinct policies to each underlying storage container. Additionally, AHV employs a concept of core tier and core tier data, ensuring that frequently accessed data is readily available, even in hybrid environments. Unlike other systems like AHV Excel, AHV doesn't separate cache and capacity drives, leading to faster data read speeds. This streamlined approach contrasts with solutions like Dell EMC.

Nutanix has Prism, which offers numerous capabilities. Unlike VMware, we don't require additional monitoring tools. We often rely on VMware for monitoring, logging, capacity planning, and analysis. However, all these features are available within Prism. Additionally, one-click upgrades for all components are available within Nutanix AHV. Similar features are also available in Dell EMC VxRail.

What needs improvement?

The lack of public documentation makes it difficult to implement available solutions efficiently. While generic information is accessible, specific problem-solving documentation is lacking. For instance, millions of KB articles are readily available with Dell or VMware, facilitating swift issue resolution even before consulting official support channels. However, finding straightforward answers for Nutanix-related issues proves challenging. Therefore, increasing KB publishing and public documentation would greatly benefit users, particularly by focusing on specific problems rather than general product information. Like VMware's community, Nutanix could enhance its community platform to provide readily available answers. While Nutanix might have the potential for such initiatives, they are not as prominently exposed as their counterparts.

When a customer considering Nutanix as a VMware alternative wishes to migrate to Nutanix but finds that it does not support external storage, this presents a significant roadblock for customers contemplating moving away from their current infrastructure, especially if they heavily rely on external storage. However, it would have significantly improved if Nutanix had addressed this issue. AHV is indeed a viable option. Additionally, if Nutanix enhances its SDN capabilities, particularly in areas such as VPN connectivity and load balancing features, it could become an even more attractive alternative to VMware for those looking to transition from a VMware-based data center to a Nutanix-based one.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Nutanix AHV Virtualization as a partner.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

For one of our customers, let me provide a live example. The customer was using NFS as an external file storage solution. However, by embracing the native functionality of AHV file services, they could remove the external file servers from their environment. They utilized the native feature set of Nutanix, mainly the AHV file services managed remotely. In another scenario, a different customer initially used external storage with their Windows clusters after migrating workloads from VMware vSphere. However, when it comes to AHV, it offers its own volumes or block storage feature.

Consequently, they no longer relied on external storage but utilized the internally provided storage. Especially noteworthy is the ease of migration facilitated by Nutanix Prism. Unlike many other hypervisors, with Nutanix, there's no need for additional migration tools or costs. This aspect presents significant cost savings when transitioning to Nutanix from different platforms. These examples underscore the value proposition of Nutanix AHV, particularly in terms of cost savings and leveraging its native capabilities, which eliminate the need for additional external costs.

What other advice do I have?

When utilizing Nutanix AHV virtualization, especially when seeking optimization for our workloads and the best performance, it's essential to place IBM on the host properly. Typically, when AOCs are overloaded, and AHVOCs are less overloaded, but we aren't achieving the expected performance for the VM region, diagnosis is necessary. If the host lacks the resources to supply to the VM, AHV will automatically balance the workload across multiple nodes.

Nutanix offers two key advantages. Firstly, it provides native snapshot features, significantly reducing the need for additional backup solutions. These snapshots efficiently back up VMs to local storage, simplifying the backup process. Secondly, Nutanix excels in metro cluster capabilities, allowing seamless workload protection across two Nutanix sites. In the event of a failure at one site, VMs are automatically restarted on the secondary site, ensuring continuity of operations. Additionally, Nutanix boasts native DR capabilities, eliminating the need for additional expenditure. Whether customers are utilizing on-premises Nutanix clusters or extending their environment to Nutanix on AWS or Azure, they can easily establish DR setups by configuring initial connectivity via IP, VPN, or similar means to safeguard their workloads.

Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Partner
PeerSpot user
AntonGeijsendorpher - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Network Administrator at Foord
Real User
May 12, 2024
Easier to administer and manage than other solutions
Pros and Cons
  • "Nutanix AHV works really well. It's much easier to administer and manage than VMware. Since we're not a large IT department within the finance sector, our team is relatively small. We don't have a huge team of IT professionals to manage all the other systems."

    How has it helped my organization?

    Nutanix AHV works really well. It's much easier to administer and manage than VMware. Since we're not a large IT department within the finance sector, our team is relatively small. We don't have a huge team of IT professionals to manage all the other systems.

    What needs improvement?

    Everyone desires to maintain competitive AHV pricing. AI technology has made significant strides. However, AI also introduces complexities in terms of security. It seems to function but when considering security, it adds layers of management. Integrating AI involves managing IT processes and ensuring they don't compromise security or provide unauthorised access. Unforeseen events may occur due to AI implementation, which require careful consideration. While AI streamlines certain tasks, it doesn't offer a universal solution to improve everything instantly. Incorporating targeted AI solutions within competing products is advantageous. In terms of financial considerations and functionality, integrating AI and Microsoft components into half of the Nutanix AHV evaluation is beneficial. When it comes to the core networking infrastructure, stability and reliability are paramount.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I have been using Nutanix AHV Virtualization for four years.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    The product is stable.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    The solution’s scalability is very high.

    I rate the solution’s scalability a ten out of ten.

    Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

    Nutanix AHV wasn't difficult to complete compared to VMware. VMware can be quite complex. Shifting from one account to another, or from one platform to another, but making a direct comparison is challenging. Nutanix has adopted a similar approach. However, Veeam operates differently. Their focus is on delivering a fast and comprehensive product, like Spectrum. They aim to provide an all-in-one solution.

    Nutanix is made up of many different components. Our approach varies, especially with larger virtualization setups, depending on your requirements. If you're a large organisation with thousands of users and hundreds of offices, then, it will be a better fit depending on the requirements. For a small organisation with just a few offices, Nutanix AHV might be easier and simpler to deploy, administer, noticing that it works for larger deployments. 

    How was the initial setup?

    The initial setup is super easy and takes a couple of hours to complete. We deploy the Nutanix AHV virtualization product on major data centres. We'll back up and replicate our data there.

    Deploying the hardware only takes a couple of hours to plug it in. There are other factors to consider from a production. We can't simply download databases, client applications, or live trading functionalities. These aspects need to be carefully managed through change control procedures. The migration was conducted systematically and methodically over a certain time period. If you condense the actual time it took to perform the migration. You have to consider the number of virtual machines. It could take a couple of hours. Therefore, it's unfair to categorise it solely as an economic trend because it depends on several factors.

    What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

    If I had to pay for it personally, I wouldn't be able to afford it. Considering how much business we generate and how it aligns with current trends, it's worth it for the company. If you're only going to deliver one package once a month, buying a big truck would be expensive for you. But if you're delivering fifty packages every day and making money from it, the cost of a one-minute delay on the truck isn't very significant. Nutanix offers enterprise-class hardware and software. It's a solution tailored for enterprises and while it might be quite expensive for smaller businesses, it's well worth the investment. In the market segment it operates in, it offers competitive features.

    What other advice do I have?

    We've two Nutanix clusters that replicate between each other. One is production and another one is disaster recovery. It has higher availability clusters. We've three nodes on the side, and it's replicated between the two. One of the nodes goes down. The network capabilities of AHV is very good.

    Everything would be connected. It's all on one singular platform, making management streamlined. There's no need for add-ons; everything you need comes with Nutanix. You won't find yourself constantly adding and using different add-ons, or dealing with the complexities of integrating with Linux.

    The best implementation is to integrate the Nutanix AHV virtualization framework directly with the hardware and facility infrastructure. This allows you to quickly start using and building new virtual machines in just a couple of hours. It's a seamless process that significantly reduces deployment time.

    Overall, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.

    Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
    PeerSpot user
    Buyer's Guide
    Download our free Nutanix AHV Virtualization Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
    Updated: September 2026
    Buyer's Guide
    Download our free Nutanix AHV Virtualization Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.