Nutanix AHV Virtualization Reviews

I've configured the solutions for two or three customers. It's my first time with Prism Central, Prism Element, and the CVM (Control Virtual Machine).

I haven't come across any limitations. Nutanix doesn't support externally attached storage through Fibre Channel.

However, Nutanix doesn't support Fibre Channel connectivity. This, in my opinion, is a weakness. For instance, it does not support Cyber Talent. To clarify, you cannot connect external Fibre Channel storage or NAS storage resources with Nutanix. However, VMware vSAN supports such solutions.

I have been using Nutanix AHV Virtualization for 2 to 3 years.

It is still working fine. However, when compared to VMware, I consider VMware to be more stable. I would rate the stability of Nutanix around 8.5 or 9 out of 10.

It is highly scalable, and I recommend it for larger companies. Adding nodes to expand clusters is straightforward. However, due to its cost, I don't recommend it for smaller companies as they might find it challenging to afford.

I'm highly satisfied with their support team.

My initial choice for high availability (HA) solutions is VMware ESXi. If someone asks for an alternative, my first recommendation is usually Dell EMC PowerFlex. In comparison to Nutanix AHV Virtualization, VMware ESXi has the advantage of supporting external storage, making it more flexible for integrating existing storage solutions. VMware ESXi is also perceived as more affordable than Nutanix AHV Virtualization.

They should make the product more competitive by working on their licensing model. Lowering the price would help make it more affordable.

I recommend using Nutanix AHV (Acropolis Hypervisor) for hyper-converged computing processes because of its simplicity in deployment and configuration. The platform also offers good support and is versatile, supporting various hypervisors such as VMware, Microsoft Hyper-V, and its native AHV. I would rate this product a 9.5 out of 10 overall.

There are a lot of use cases of Nutanix AHV Virtualization involving general IT workloads, I/O workloads, and big data workloads.

Most of the features provided by the solution are good, but in general, all of the product's features are identical. The performance and stability of the solution are good.

The integration capabilities of Nutanix AHV Virtualization is an area with certain shortcomings that need improvement.

Nutanix AHV Virtualization is still a new product in the market with which integrating many products, especially Citrix products, is not possible.

I have been using Nutanix AHV Virtualization for four to five years.

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

Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

My company caters to seven or eight customers who use Nutanix AHV Virtualization.

Whenever a customer reaches out to the technical support team with a problem, they understand the customer's use cases and suggest the most beneficial solution.

The initial setup of Nutanix AHV Virtualization is straightforward.

The solution can be deployed in two days maximum.

The solution is deployed on an on-premises model. The solution can be deployed on the cloud as well to get to the varying use cases.

The deployment process consists of mounting the upgraded framework and installing Nutanix's package to get it ready to function. Once you complete the aforementioned procedure, you install Nutanix vCenter and create the cluster. The solution doesn't require any extra hypervisors that need to be deployed.

Just a few technical people are required to deploy and maintain the solution.

Nutanix AHV Virtualization comes with a built-in hypervisor, so you don't need to buy an extra license from Nutanix if you already have other Nutanix products. Nutanix AHV Virtualization is an affordable product. I rate the product's price an eight on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is costly. I don't think there are any extra costs in addition to the standard licensing fees of the solution.

I believe that Nutanix AHV Virtualization has good features, so the solution is in good shape in the market.

I recommend the solution to those who plan to use it. Nutanix AHV Virtualization mostly meets the requirements of its customers.

I rate the overall solution a nine out of ten.

In cloud environments, where you do not know which hypervisor is used, Nutanix allows you to run a hypervisor from Microsoft and VMware, and they offer their hypervisor, which in some respects does have some benefits on the price level and the technology level. We use AHV because we get a broader integrated spectrum of functionality. More performance, less price, and functionalities going up. AHV hypervisor is based on KVM, which is an open-source product. Our clients are from small to enterprise-level customers.

The features I find valuable depending on the client's use cases. If the clients need high-performance storage, we can bypass some layers and be faster. With AHV, you can run micro-segmentation, which is, on the network security level, to have network virtualization across clouds. It's on a cloud data center. Most customers are interested in one aspect. Smaller customers are looking more at the price. Bigger customers are looking at network virtualization or micro-segmentation types of things. They're more attracted to functionalities.

Some companies do not support AHV. Similarly, AHV is not supported on Alibaba and other Chinese clouds.

I've used this solution since it was made available around five years ago.

The product is stable. It is on par with or even better than the hypervisor from VMware.

When discussing AHV, statements such as cloud deployment depend on AOS usage. In this case, AHV is not scalable.

The complete support from Nutanix is outstanding. It's much better than all the other vendors I know of. This might change in the future, but they're providing exceptional support. You're directly connected to a support engineer. The support engineer is working with you on the case. That depends on when you opened the case, and you still might end up in Bangalore with a few problems with Indian English, but these engineers are really good. You can move to another engineer if you'd like, you can escalate, and I've never had a problem with the SLA where they did not react within the agreed time. They're usually faster, good at what they do, and even help you solve problems with products they don't sell, for example, VMware. They know about VMware. Sometimes you have some flaws, but it depends on the people and the communication, which is a rare case.

Positive

The initial setup is straightforward. The deployment for a complete cluster, to hand it over to production, is one or two days.

If you just look at the hardware, you might think this is an expensive solution. Looking at the hardware and the software licenses, too, it might look expensive, but in the end, the return on investment is there. If you build it up on your own using different components, orchestrate the demo, and make the comparison correctly, you will find it is not expensive. The value AHV brings is great. We have received a return on investment with a lot of customers.

There is a benefit gained by nearly all customers in switching to AHV, as AHV offers different benefits. Every customer will find a sweet spot to justify moving away from the existing hypervisor. It is attractive for the client to move. All the customers we know of and have worked with didn't switch back from AHV.

Sometimes we have to run both hypervisors on different clusters because of the software vendor not supporting AHV. Still, you don't have a lot of companies whose software products do not support AHV as a hypervisor. Where they do not support AHV, these are older applications where the software developer tries to reduce complexity, focusing only on one hypervisor, the market leader. But this is changing, and even the cloud challenges software developers because the cloud does not tell you which hypervisor is running in the cloud. They have to move on.

You can deploy the solution on your infrastructure, or you can deploy it onto AWS or Azure. AHV is not supported on GCP. It probably will be in the future.

If your client's business is too small, Nutanix AHV Virtualization might be too expensive. For example, if there's an appliance in an agricultural machine, this might not be the right use case. The smallest use case might be in a small sales office, remote and branch offices, enterprise data centers, and even large companies running multiple SAP HANA enterprise resource planning applications. They're all supported. You can run them on the AHV platform. If your use case is small, and price tag and energy consumption is priority, this is not the solution for you.

There are applications you can't run on this. For example, if you need more than four CPU sockets, and no hardware is supported with more than four CPU sockets, you need a good reason to have your special hardware. There are extreme boundaries to the left and right, but a wide range of use cases can be covered.

AHV is not scalable in the context of AOS usage. I'm mixing the functionality of AOS, which is used in AHV, so I can't separate it. But if you do have enough knowledge, you can say, "Oh, this is based on the functionality that AOS brings and not the functionality that AHV brings." Therefore, it's still okay, but you argue if the statements only focus on AHV.

If you plan on purchasing AHV, you must understand that Nutanix is disruptive. It can't be compared with other solutions. You need to open your mind and look at it without comparing. If you compare it with the solutions you know, you will not move forward because though it is different, it has benefits. You have to have a closer look at it. Nutanix provides storage, an integrated solution, but only 10% of the functionality is storage. If you just reduce it to storage, you're missing 90% of the benefits.

I rate Nutanix AHV Virtualization a ten out of ten.

We use this solution for server virtualization. It is a good product. 

Nutanix AHV virtualization requires little disk size for a huge number of servers. We can do everything from a single dashboard, monitoring performance, and single-task boxes. It is a very good and excellent product in terms of manageability. We can replicate it to multiple devices at times.

I would like to see better decompression or degrouping of the VMs so that we can use a single number of SQLs with two servers. We don't need a huge number of DXSPs.

The decompression should be better. In my experience with the VMware product, they don't have this type of solution. But we can do it with Nutanix AHV.

In future releases, I would also like to see support for replication with the Centralized Data Reduction (CDR) application. This would allow us to replicate our data to a single dashboard without having to use ASRM or any other third-party solution. It would be a major improvement, and I hope that Nutanix will add this feature in the next version of AHV.

VMware has a decompression function that Nutanix doesn't have, and I would like to see that function added to Nutanix in the next version.

I have been using Nutanix AHV Virtualization for about three years.

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

There's no limit, we can have it on multiple servers. Our whole company's employees are using this solution. 

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

The support team is fantastic. We raise a ticket, and they can quickly define the issue and assign it a priority level of 0, 1, 2, or 3. If the issue is fairly high-priority, we get support with a deep view of the problem.

Positive

The initial setup is very simple. There's no complication.

Anyone can easily deploy the solution because it is easy to use. There is no huge learning curve required. 

However, we have about five people for maintenance. 

There is no licensing issue. It is a bundled product with Nutanix.

I rate the solution’s pricing a five out of ten.

We utilize alternative solutions such as VMware or Microsoft. Each of these products comes as a distinct offering, whereas Nutanix AHV comes as a bundled package. 

Upon acquiring a Nutanix system, all necessary components are readily available, eliminating the need for additional APN, networking, or application software like HRA. There's no requirement for supplementary bundled products. This aspect truly sets Nutanix AHV apart as a remarkable and comprehensive solution.

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

This is for on-prem virtual infrastructure, for computing storage, and to apply the hyper-converged infrastructure concept while doing a lot of virtualization features, like HA, high availability, redundancy, and replication. We also do some reports and analyses based on utilization. The product has a lot of features.

There are many features we can leverage. 

The hyper-converged infrastructure concept is great. This is the best feature. I also like the high availability. This protects our workload against any failures, like a failure for load, or failure of a rack, drive, or network. It helps us create business continuity.

It's easy to set up.

The solution is stable.

It can scale well. 

Technical support has been helpful. 

I'm already looking into possibly adding micro-segmentation features. It will help control traffic better and make everything more secure. 

The solution can be pricey. 

I've been using the solution for seven years.

The stability has been good. It handles daily administrative tasks automatically. So far, there are no bugs or glitches, and it doesn't crash or freeze. 

We have around 1,000 people using the solution. 

It's scalable and easy to expand. 

It's easy to contact technical support. They are helpful.

I've also used VMware solutions. 

Both are basically the same. VMware is like Nutanix. Nutanix has an HCI feature. However, with VMware, we can use the vSAN. This is the same feature for hyper-converged infrastructure. That said, in VMware, you need a lot of licenses since every feature needs a license. In Nutanix, it's different. Everything is built into one product. 

The initial setup is pretty straightforward. However, it will depend on the design we go with. In our case, we needed just one week to get it deployed. 

The solution is a bit expensive. We pay a lot of money for S nodes. 

We're partners. 

While the solution is largely on-premises, we do have some infrastructure on AWS.

I'd rate the solution six out of ten.

I would recommend other companies deploy it. It's very powerful, whether it is on-prem or in the cloud. 

To use geo clusters, you must have AHV running at the bottom of Prism Central. That was one application. Clusters must connect to multiple geographic locations. 

Second, we needed a lightweight system that could integrate with AHV Prism natively.

Nutanix It was an out-of-the-box integration with AHV being Nutanix and Prism being Nutanix. We didn't have to do anything special to integrate it with Prism. 

Third, an application feature was available with AHV that was not available with VMware or other solutions. That feature enabled us to create VM-level recovery and production sites across our spectrum. 

Fourth, the way AHV and CVM actually work, because if you buy VMware, it must be integrated with vSAN; in this case, CVM was integrated with AHV. 

Many backup solutions that we use today are available for purchase, be it IBM, VMware, Veritas, or anything else. They usually have very good vSphere and Hyper-V support. Because there isn't much AHV deployment in place, we typically have issues with the integrations that AHV has with backup solutions. We would like to see AHV's backup solution integration improved so that we can take VM-level backups directly from Nutanix.

The issue is that it provides a higher VM level for VMware and other areas. When it comes to AHV, however, you must purchase a separate set of third-party software, which can then supplement that backup via your IBM Spectrum Protect Plus.

One issue we frequently encounter when using AHV is that if you want to install specific software, you must first gain compatibility.

If you want to install an operating system, or OS, on top of your AHV, only a few operating systems are supported. That is one area where I would like to see some progress. VMware typically supports almost all of our systems, as does Hyper-V, but when it comes to AHV, we must apply specific patches in order to run it on top of AHV. Operating system support must be improved out of the box.

If you want to install software, you must first ensure that it is compatible with Nutanix AHV; not all software is compatible.

It is not possible to integrate it with everything. There is limited compatibility with the software that can be installed on top of Nutanix AHV, for example.

If you want to install a specific operating system, you must first check to see if it is listed in the compatibility list; only then will you be able to install it, and that is one issue for now.

I have been working with Nutanix AHV Virtualization for approximately three to four years.

We had a few issues initially. There was some upgrading required because the system was initially behaving abnormally due to a firmware issue that was causing issues with our memory. However, a fix was provided, and we have had no problems since. We had no problems because Nutanix usually provides proactive support.

Overall Nutanix AHV Virtualization is very stable.

Nutanix AHV Virtualization is a very scalable solution.

I have approximately 6,000 people who use the services that I provide on top of this AHV system.

Because we are running Oracle-based ERP on that, all of the users are internal.

In terms of support, there are two systems that I usually consider. First and foremost, it is most likely proactive in identifying any future problems that the team may encounter. 

They have a system that allows them to log in every day to the support team, and they actually go through that support and let us know if they see any problems. For example, if we have a problem, and we engage the Nutanix resources, most of the resources that Nutanix aligns with us are very good technically, and they usually resolve the problem within an hour or two at most.

The support is excellent.

I would rate the technical support a five out of five because it is critical that vendors can see what the problem is with the product after they have made a sale.

It is important that the team providing user support assists us in resolving issues as quickly as possible.

Positive

Spectrum Protect Plus, is an IBM product, that we are using for backup and recovery.

We used multiple platforms to evaluate the products. What we were aiming for was a private cloud server environment in which we could provide application services, infrastructure services, and other similar services for a fee. This was the solution's actual vision. 

To evaluate the product, we needed to consider a variety of factors. One was the product's technical soundness. 

VMware has already been used in several cases, but the issue was that in the case of VMware, we had to procure four to five different solutions. For example, to deliver the same feature set as Nutanix Prism Central, we had to purchase vRealize Orchestrator, vRealize Operations Manager, Orchestrator, the NSX platform, and so on.

We chose Nutanix AHV Virtualization primarily because we did not require other products, for example, when comparing it to VMware, we simply listed three additional products that we required to deploy the VMware hyperconverged option. We chose Nutanix AHV because it was obviously the easier option.

Nutanix Management Cluster was the solution we chose, with Nutanix Prism running on top. 

It was pretty straightforward; all you had to do was turn on the hardware, and the software was already installed. 

Nutanix can send you those configured, pre-installed, and up-and-running systems; all you have to do is bring it in and do the system. There was nothing to be done; the only initial configuration was to connect the cluster to the system, and that was it.

I would rate the initial setup a five out of five.

Everything was predeployed and preconfigured. We only needed to plug in the power and network to get it up and running. 

The entire setup took about 15 to 20 minutes. It was just bouncing the servers and powering the bot.

Both options are available. You can also have a hybrid model, as well as an on-premises model and a cloud model. It really depends on how you want your infrastructure to be designed. We have a model that is on-premises.

We have the on-premises version of AHV, and as I mentioned earlier, everything grew so large that we had to move on-premises.

It is essentially self-sustaining. We don't have to intervene very often.

We can purchase a subscription and have a specific piece of hardware and software available on the cloud. We have the on-premises version.

There are two types of AHV licenses available on the market. The first is the perpetual model, in which the license is purchased once and an annual support fee is paid, and the second is the Cluster model.

When we removed AHV, we were left with the perpetual model.

We paid a one-time fee for the license, and there is an annual maintenance or support fee for patches and everything else.

We do not pay licensing costs on an annual basis, and we pay the support and maintenance fees once a year to ensure that we have the necessary support and maintenance. 

The annual maintenance cost is approximately 15 to 18% of the actual cost that you pay. If you buy the solution for $100,000, the support and maintenance contract will cost you $15,000 per year.

It is dependent on the use case. If you only want to buy a hypervisor, it is a very expensive product; however, if you look at the entire solution as a whole, totality, it is less expensive. Because when we compared the prices of VMware and Nutanix as a whole bundle, there was a difference of around 25%, with Nutanix being 25% less expensive because you are purchasing the entire package.

Based on my experience, if you want to buy virtualization and other things, it is a little pricey, but it showed us what the value is.

Price can be a bit slow if you want to break into the market, but it is a premium product, it is pricey.

I would rate the pricing a three out of five. It is expensive, but it also provides the value for money and performance that you require as a hyperconverged and virtualization software.

We were looking for a turnkey solution for a hyperconverged system. 

There were several options available, including Nutanix with VMware vSphere as the virtualization layer, Hyper-V as the virtualization layer, and AHV as the virtualization layer.

Certain feature sets are only available with AHV hypervisors when it comes to Nutanix clusters. 

Because they have revisions for backup, and their availability, I would rate Nutanix AHV Virtualization an eight out of ten.

The solution's most valuable feature is Prism Central. It has a feature which allows you to upload the firmware software with just one click, requiring no downtime.

Nutanix AHV Virtualization's price is very high. 

I have been working with the product for seven years. 

I rate the solution's scalability a nine out of ten. Its scalability features support our company's growth by making the platform very easy to access with no downtime and no prerequisites. It allows expansion, similar to expanding the cluster.

Nutanix AHV Virtualization is easy to install and takes only a few hours to complete. 

I rate Nutanix AHV Virtualization's pricing a five out of ten. 

I rate the overall product a nine out of ten. 

Customers often choose Nutanix AHV Virtualization for its leading position in the hyperconverged segment. The primary use case is virtualizing workloads, whether migrating from a physical environment or transitioning from other virtualization platforms like VMware or Hyper-V.

Nutanix AHV Virtualization is a private cloud platform offering integration with various public cloud providers. This integration allows for a multi-cloud approach. In my opinion, Nutanix AHV Virtualization's strength is its storage. It innovates and excels in the hyper-converged storage segment, making it the number one choice in this area. 

Honestly, there's a lot to work on the product, especially for someone like me who has worked on VMware. VMware offers a significant level of customization when configuring virtual machines, and that level of detail is not as pronounced on Nutanix AHV Virtualization. 

I have been working with the product for six years. 

I rate the tool's stability an eight out of ten. 

I have not contacted the tech support team yet. 

The tool is pretty easy to set up. While I haven't deployed it for a customer, I have set it up in my home lab. It may require some resources, but the process is straightforward overall if you have the correct equipment and follow the deployment steps. I rate it a seven out of ten. 

Depending on the customer's environment and other details, people can set up Nutanix AHV Virtualization clusters in a week or two. Assuming all prerequisites are in place, one week should be sufficient to deploy it. 

The tool is not as expensive as VMware. It is essentially KVM, a Linux-based virtualization with a rebranded version and a web interface. While it does the job, it may not offer the same level of detail as VMware.

The solution's pricing is cheap for a new customer but becomes expensive during renewal. Especially when a customer plans to expand their environment, feedback in the market from end customers and partners becomes crucial. There have been instances where customers who chose between Nutanix AHV Virtualization and VMware opted for Nutanix AHV Virtualization due to cost considerations. Yet, as they aimed to scale, the pricing factor became a more significant consideration and changed their mind. 

The product stands out in the hyper-converged market due to its user-friendly nature. Automation minimizes manual configuration tasks, reducing the operational burden and making it less headache-prone for administrators.

In light of recent developments, especially with Broadcom's acquisition of VMware, there's a sense of uncertainty and potential disruption in the market. Broadcom's history, as seen with the Symantec acquisition, raises concerns about the impact on licensing renewals. VMware no longer selling perpetual socket licenses adds to the uncertainty.

In such a scenario, Nutanix AHV Virtualization appears to be stable. Unlike VMware, it hasn't undergone frequent changes in ownership. We have small, medium, and enterprise businesses using it. 

When considering it, it's important to assess third-party integrations. While the product has a mature platform with an expanding ecosystem, it may not be as mature as VMware regarding integrations. Therefore, potential buyers should ensure their desired integrations have native support within the tool's ecosystem. Whether it's an existing backup solution or other third-party products, compatibility checks are crucial before adopting Nutanix AHV Virtualization to avoid any issues with integration.

I rate the overall product an eight out of ten. 

Our primary use case is virtualization and Citrix Workload (VDI and SBC). 

Less clicks, more time, and more holidays. ;)

The main benefits are that it is easy to use, automation, VM-centric view, is low cost, secure, and provides high performance. 

There is no USB mapping at the moment. 

I have been using this solution since 2013. So, it's been over ten years now. 

I would rate the stability a ten out of ten.

I would rate the scalability a ten out of ten. We have around a hundred end customers and thousands of users. 

The customer service and support are the best. 

Positive

We use VMware vSAN also but we prefer Nutanix solution. We work on both solutions but we try to quit VMware vSAN for Nutanix solution.

The initial setup was easy and straightforward for me. It took a couple of minutes. 

We are the system integrators. So, we also provide maintenance for the solution. We have a team of up to ten engineers for many customers.  

We have seen ROI in terms of stability, performance, cost-saving and time-saving. 

The solution's licensing cost is nearly the same as the other solution. I would rate the pricing a seven out of ten, with one being expensive and ten being cheap.

We did not evaluate any other solution as Nutanix is simply the best.

I highly recommend using Nutanix to other users. Overall, I would rate the solution a ten out of ten. 

The solution is used for virtualization.

The dashboard of the solution is one of its strongest points.

Pricing is an area that needs improvement. In future releases, I would like to see a better pricing policy. The solution's scalability needs to be improved.

I have been using Nutanix AHV Virtualization for eight-plus years. I am using the solution's latest version. Also, I am not using it, but my team does use it. My company has a partnership with Nutanix.

Stability-wise, I rate the solution a six out of ten. There are some issues with the availability of the services, which we are trying to sort out.

Around 10 to 20 people, who are managers and developers, are currently using the solution in my organization.

Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a six out of ten. It's not a very scalable product.

The support team is helpful, and I rate the support a nine out of ten.

Positive

The initial setup was easy. For maintenance, ten engineers are needed.

The pricing depends upon the licenses, considering the number of devices.

I rate the overall solution a seven out of ten.