Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) Reviews

One of the components that we like about using Nutanix Acropolis AOS is its ability to interact with hardware. You don't have to go into different systems, all your locked files and everything for the hardware is directly available.

Our use cases are for data storage. We use the total Nutanix system in connection with Inuvika. We are busy phasing out all our work stations, where we basically go back to the principle of old bank terminals. When you boot up, you're going into the Inuvika environment, which runs five physical servers on the Nutanix. The accessibility of the performance and upgradeability of the system increase about five-fold where you don't have to upgrade workstation performance, you only add an additional Nutanix server node if you want to increase your performance on your users' workstations. An important feature for me that comes with a hypervisor, as well as the AOS in combination with everything, is the backup redundancy, as well as the encryption component on the server that we use quite extensively. Since we've installed Nutanix our downtime was about 40 minutes to an hour, and that was just to do a memory upgrade on the system.

In terms of how Nutanix Acropolis AOS has improved our organization, for starters, the one major thing that comes up again and again is stability. Our downtime is literally based on hardware upgrades that need to be done. Acropolis is very, very user friendly.

You don't have to physically have a super IT guy to manage the system. You can actually give it to a younger guy to manage and there won't be problems. And if he makes a mistake, it's very, very easy to fall back and sort out the mistake.

The features that I have found most valuable depend on the scenario. The nice thing with the Acropolis design is that in a specific situation where you've got either the problem or you need to adapt quickly in connection with the setup in the environment, they really work through everything. 

The total solution is valuable, you can't split it up. The nice thing with the AOS, as well as basically the entire Nutanix system is that you are not time bound to increase your entire node or service setup. You can add additional nodes as time goes past. It's not like VMware, for example, where it looks like you've got a time period where you have to finish your entire setup, otherwise the upgrades and the newer hardware and that kind of stuff become a problem. Nutanix is very, very backwards compatible, as well as forwards compatible.

In terms of what I would like to see improved, I would say the life cycle management. I don't know if it is because they changed to an LCM from the previous way of upgrading the hardware or software but sometimes it feels that it needs a wizard that says, "Check this, check this," telling you your options. The only thing that's a bit frustrating for me is the life cycle management interface. That's the only thing on the entire system that frustrates me. I'm very, very happy with the other stuff.

We've been using Nutanix Acropolis AOS for roughly four years now.

We are currently using the full setup of the system and it's very stable.

We are using the latest version. We update our system on the LTX every time a long sported version comes out and it's very stable.

We are running on-premise. We're running roughly 40 servers on it, which is a combination from Linux, our PBX system, Windows Operating Systems and additional data software that we've built on our own distro's on the system itself.

Nutanix Acropolis AOS is very stable.

Since we started it up, the only time that we had any problems on it or downtime, if I can put it that way, was literally to upgrade the memory. That's it.

In the last three years since it's been running, it was peace of mind. We didn't have any problems and even with Nutanix overseas, we had a faulty memory module and the system worked perfectly, and they sent us a new memory module. We sent the old memory module back and that process with Nutanix support was magnificent, zero frustrations.

It is very scalable. We see the scalability in two places. Point number one for scalability, if we need additional hardware by installing an additional node, it's not painful at all. You just put in the node, you tell your Acropolis to find it, integrate it with the system, and everything operates seamlessly. It automatically balances all your virtual machines between all your nodes that you've got at that stage.

Additionally, I used it in our environment a lot as an additional backup for our remote sites. Where we basically have two Nutanix nodes on each remote site and because data in South Africa is very expensive we don't have a lot of bandwidth between our sites. So during the evenings, I replicate everything to our primary server setup that we've got and it works perfectly, no problems.

We have 6,000 units or servers. We are running currently from high performance users right through to just Word and Excel people. We are in the area of 250 users that are running on the system.

Nutanix is at the core of our business. So if the Nutanix falls over, our entire company will go offline.

At this stage it is not necessary to increase usage, but they're talking about opening additional branches, then we will be looking at another two or three nodes within the next two years.

Technical support is excellent.

I'm thinking about the two situations that we had. One was the memory problem that we had, and this guy from America explained in detail everything that he did. How the testing principles worked, how the process operated and he put us in connection with all the correct people. The entire process in that case was extremely streamlined and extremely user friendly. Then our second scenario that we had was in connection with upgrade faults that I made, and they explained what happened and how to fix the problem. So yeah, they are excellent.

The initial setup is straightforward.

In South Africa, we've got this saying for the test principle, keep it straight and simple. That is the principle that I followed with it.

Our deployment took us longer to get all the cabinets prepared for the servers or for the nodes than it actually took to set up the entire Nutanix system. I think it took us about half an hour to 45 minutes since we started, and we started installing our first VM on the system.

In the setup, there are literally two people responsible.

I am the IT manager and we've got my 2IC, and we're the only two that work with the servers on all six primary sites.

We did it through Pinnacle Micro and the guy helped us extremely well and was extremely knowledgeable about the Nutanix product and the systems around it. They were extremely knowledgeable in the Nutanix environment and with the processes and risks that need to be assessed. It was an excellent experience and not only the fact that they actually came out and talked to us, it wasn't all over the telephone.

We were running a stand-alone service originally. So we saved a lot of money on hardware upgrades that we needed to do. We saved a lot of money on energy consumption. As you know, power or electricity in South Africa is getting extremely expensive. We are now running at about 20% of our original power consumption and that also includes cooling the server room, reduction on security (physical security not cyber security). So all those components played a major role in ROI. Except for our hardware upgrades and that kind of stuff, we've saved about 200,000 Rand.

Our license is Rand based. I can't remember because we bought the license with other software as well. We did the licensing and it includes the support and everything over a five year basis.

We previously looked at VMware to build our hyperconverged environment. We started looking at costing and lifetime of products and it was quite shocking from my point of view. Because I feel a server must at least have the ability to run for five to seven years and then have scalability. And the thing with VMware is you've got quite a short shelf life on the setup. Meaning, you've got five years and if your system is not fully built, you start from scratch.

VMware versus Nutanix - number one, the cost is much lower with Nutanix. The hardware needed for operating the system is much cheaper and that played a major role in the choice that we made between Nutanix and VMware. The other major thing is the support that we got from the Pinnacle Micro guys. Actually, that's one of the major points why we made the choice for Nutanix. They were very, very intuitive with your company, they knew what we needed, what possibilities to look at, what risks to assess, that kind of stuff.

Before choosing Nutanix I also played with VMware's ESXi open source setup. I also played with Nutanix's open source setup. When we setup Nutanix, it was a lot more intuitive and a lot more user friendly, versus the setup from VMware, which is not bad either. I'm not saying it's a bad product, don't get me wrong. It's just different.

The biggest lesson I learned from using Nutanix Acropolis AOS was that at the stage when we looked at it, Nutanix was still relatively young - so don't underestimate the underdog.

My advice to anyone considering Nutanix Acropolis AOS is that you won't go wrong. It's an easy, maintainable system, it's user friendly. They designed quite an excellent product and with the support and the knowledge from the guys, you're not going to have problems in setting up a system like Nutanix.

On a scale of one to ten, I would put Nutanix Acropolis AOS in the area of eight to nine.

It is so high because for starters, I have not really had problems with Nutanix at all in the greater picture. We've had one or two incidents, which were mostly from our side, except for the memory situation, which was hardware related and not software related. They were always before the schedule on turnaround time for repairs and getting everything sorted out and repaired and up and running. I know a big thing is that local suppliers play a big role in support of hardware and so forth, but we didn't have any problems right through the bank.

We have a very large deployment of our own, and we also sell a fair amount of it to our clients.

We deliver VDI systems over this and other similar technologies. We only work with hospitals. This is all in healthcare. We've essentially created private CloudOp architecture that we sell to hospitals for specialized VDI environments, and this is the product that we use.

In terms of the version, we have very significant installations of it for our clients. It is part of a product and service for which we work with our clients. I would assume we have the latest versions.

It is less expensive than VMware products. It is also a little bit more flexible, but it really comes down to price for us. 

The software-defined networking should be improved. It is quite substandard as compared to the VMware variant. The software-defined networking is quite limited, and we usually use other products to do that. We're aware that Nutanix is working on that and will be coming out with better solutions, and we can't wait because to do a fully software-defined architecture, the abstraction layer needs not only software-defined storage, which you have, but also the software-defined networking piece.

We have been using this solution for about four or five years.

It is quite stable. We had no problems with it.

So far, it hasn't been a problem for us. It is able to do all the expansions that we've needed.

It is adequate. It is no better or worse than VMware's support.

It was straightforward.

We started with a combination of consultants and Nutanix's professional services group, but now, we're supporting it all internally.

It is less expensive than the VMware alternative.

You need to understand abstraction and virtualization properly to be able to deploy it properly. You should look at it as a real alternative to VMware.

I would rate it as an eight out of 10. It is less expensive than the VMware alternative. I wouldn't say it is better than the VMware alternative. If you consider VMware's software-defined networking piece, VMware has an advantage, but its cost is significantly less. For that reason, I would give it a high rating.

We replaced our three-tier-solution with Nutanix and kept our VMware ESXi licenses. These will be gone with the new cluster.

We use it for general virtualization, host our Windows fileserver virtually, and do VirtualDesktops with Citrix there.

We have two nodes equipped with one nVidia M10-GPU each to get 3D-acceleration to boost the CAE-Terminal servers. This means that VMs like AD-Domain controllers, Exchange-Servers, SQL-Servers, and various Application Servers are running side-by-side with our SAP-Systems leveraging the  SAP ASE Database (no HANA, yet) virtually on vSphere 6.

We were content with the previous solution, which was NetApp Storage and Dell Blade-Servers for compute. We did not miss a thing besides the performance. Now, after three years in production, we would not go back to that solution.

Nutanix gives us fewer headaches with managing and other administrative operations. Having a single-vendor-solution is much more straightforward. We don't have to deal with VMware because it simply is not necessary, besides setting up new GPU-machines.

Creation of VMs can be done with Prism Element, the web management for each Nutanix Cluster. Nutanix also covers any problems we have with the ESXi software. 

The integration with their own AHV hypervisor is awesome. Talk about invisible infrastructure.

The most valuable feature is the integration of all parts in Prism Element, the browser-based management tool. It gives you detailed information about the environment, helps you drill down on alerts, and keeps the solution up to date with LCM (Life Cycle Manager).

When using Nutanix AHV as a hypervisor, it is the management tool for that too. When you chose another hypervisor it just does basic tasks like VM creation, reconfiguration, and start/stop. It is just enough to keep everything in this "single-pane-of-glass" tool.
Going AHV is just easier. No additional management for VMs. Everything you need is done with Nutanix Prism Element or through an SSH connection.
We are beginning to leverage Powershell and their REST API to do things which integrates more tightly with our own process.

I would enjoy an advanced mode where experienced users can leverage their knowledge to do advanced things currently only allowed using the command line tools on the CVM.

While using the Shell is okay for such advanced things like take a disk image as a ground for a Calm blueprint it would be easier to get it done via GUI. Even more so if you just follow the directions of a colleague.

Currently, that kind of task is limited to the shell.

We have been using Nutanix Acropolis AOS for over five years and are in the process of switching to a new cluster.

Unless you opt for the short-term support path (STS), stability is a given with LTS versions. You get not every feature available, immediately, but that is no concern for stable systems.

You cannot download older versions with known critical bugs. The Life Cycle Manager (LCM) supports you with checks to hint at known compatibility issues. I noticed the hint to update Nutanix Files in order to support the AOS upgrade I was planning. Directly in Prism Elements!

That is simply amazing. Of course, one would visit the "upgrade paths" and "software interoperability" pages in the support section of https://my.nutanix.com .

Scalability is the true nature of HCI solutions like Nutanix AOS. Just add a node. Done.

Nutanix support is the most amazing. Sure, you pay big bucks for that but it is worth every dime. Fast pick-up times even for lower rated tickets, great knowledge of the support team. If your question is not support related they connect you with a sales engineer to talk about it.

Positive

We used NetApp Storage in conjunction with Dell Blade-Servers for compute and we switched from vmWare to Nutanix AHV as a hypervisor.

My advice is to get your first cluster up and running with a partner experienced to do so. We got lucky with our Nutanix partner company but ask for their level of experience. Don't get me wrong: it is not hard to set up but you should have support from experienced consultants who are familiar if something goes south.
If anything goes south, call in to Nutanix support. Your partner can help with that

We implemented with a nutanix partner where we did the PoC with. The setup is quite straight-forward and done in a matter of 3-5 hours. 
Their knowledge was really helpful to guide through some of the questions that came up.

The pricing of Nutanix is not cheap but there are options available. Don't cut short on support contracts, as the (pricey) ultimate support offering is worth every buck.

You have to realize that Nutanix AOS is the basic platform for your environment. If you need to cut costs then use Nutanix AHV as a hypervisor free of charge. Most applications are running with that. If it runs on ESXi then it most likely runs on AHV, but check with your other application vendors.

We explored the options by re-iterating our previous solution and came short of delivering support for additional demands like VDI. Re-Iterating also meant up-staging storage because of the ONTAP-OS upgrade. So, a change was due, either way.

It is difficult for me to point to areas that need improvement. AOS is constantly on the move to new heights. It is considered even on a feature level with vSAN, while far ahead of that in regards to performance and resilience.

See Nutanix Principal Architect Josh Odgers CloudXC | By Josh Odgers – VMware Certified Design Expert (VCDX) #90 for a detailed explanation on that topic.

Again - can't say this enough - talk to Nutanix support if you have trouble determining the exact order in which product to update/upgrade. A call beforehand spares you a headache. Literally.
But, again, the support area is massive. Onboard with your block/node serial there and you are welcomed with an extra onboarding page on what is what. Best I have ever seen!

We use Nutanix Acropolis AOS for hyper-converged purposes. We install servers on this Nutanix Acropolis AOS.

The most valuable features of Nutanix Acropolis AOS are storage and hyper-converged. The solution is easy to use and the administration is very good.

In the next release of this solution, they could improve by being more competitive with VMware. I would like all third-party solutions to work well with Nutanix Acropolis AOS.

I have been using Nutanix Acropolis AOS for approximately one and a half years.

Nutanix Acropolis AOS is a reliable solution, it has not ever failed us.

Nutanix Acropolis AOS is a scalable solution.

We have 5,000 people using the solution in the university where it is installed. They connect to the website which is connected to the Nutanix Acropolis AOS servers.

The technical support agents are very professional.

We were using VMware previously. However, we moved all of our guests to Nutanix Acropolis AOS

Nutanix Acropolis AOS initial installation was simple.

The company that installed Nutanix Acropolis AOS for us did it in a few hours, which included the storage and all of the HCI. Our experience with the installation was excellent.

I would advise others this solution is simple to use, it is good.

I rate Nutanix Acropolis AOS a ten out of ten.

What I like best about Nutanix Acropolis AOS is its simplicity. It's simple to install and simple to understand.

As Nutanix Acropolis AOS is on the expensive side, one of its areas for improvement is the price.

An additional feature I'd like to see in this product in the next release is for it to have integration with other cloud providers, e.g. Amazon, Azure, etc. Currently, it's only for private cloud, so it would be better if we can benefit from integrating Nutanix Acropolis AOS with other cloud providers.

I've been working with Nutanix Acropolis AOS for two years.

Nutanix Acropolis AOS is stable, because we used it in a production environment. We didn't choose a test solution, e.g. we installed it in a stable environment.

The technical support for this product is very good. We launched a lot of cases with their support team and we received a lot of help from them. They also have a support portal that contains a lot of articles that help you resolve the issues more quickly.

The implementation process was easy for this product.

Pricing for Nutanix Acropolis AOS is higher. It's expensive. This is also one of the reasons why we were looking into other options.

I evaluated VMware and Dell solutions.

I have experience with Nutanix Acropolis AOS, and I have a lot of certification in Nutanix products. I'm a consultant. My customers are enterprise companies. I have a lab where I test the infrastructure before presenting it to a customer.

Nutanix Acropolis AOS is my first hyperconverged solution. The client told our team to search for other solutions, so I did a comparison among three solutions: one from VMware, one from Nutanix, and one from Dell.

My advice to others who may want to use this product is to learn first from the Nutanix University. Nutanix has a great website you can use to be familiar with the basics of the product, then you can do the certification.

I'm giving an eight out of ten rating for Nutanix Acropolis AOS.

Our usage of Nutanix Acropolis AOS focuses on normal workloads for OSS-related applications of our operations support systems, e.g. customer facing systems, DNS, DHCP, and DPEs. The word we mention to our customers that describes this technology is OSS (Open source  software). This is not 5G.

One of the good features of Nutanix Acropolis AOS is the Prism Central. It's a well-designed system. It's a central installation and management tool for more than one cluster. If you have several clusters crossing Europe, you'll have a very fancy, smart, and tiny tool to orchestrate this.

Another feature I find valuable in Nutanix Acropolis AOS is technical, e.g. the rebuild time from the resynchronization between the clusters is fast. If you have an outage caused by a disk failure or a server failure, the system works well and is very fast, because the technology of Nutanix Acropolis AOS is even better than other systems. The system works faster than others.

Whether this system is worth the money will really depend on your goal, on what you want to achieve. The flexibility of Nutanix is very, very good. You have the freedom to use any kind of major vendor, to use it for a hyperconverged installation.

You have the Acropolis hypervisor based on KVM, e.g. the Kubernetes virtual machine. You can also use OpenStack. The system also supports VMware and Microsoft Azure. It also has integration with a hybrid cloud, e.g. AWS. There's also a good integration between the system and Google GCP Cloud. Nutanix Acropolis AOS has finesse. It's very, very good.

The look and feel of the web GUI of Nutanix Acropolis AOS needs improvement, when compared to other systems, e.g. VMware Orchestrator. For example, finding important features of the system should be easier. The features should be made more visible and easier to find, rather than having to figure them out and reconfigure them.

Another area from improvement for the system is hardware integration. I had some issues with the integration with the hardware vendor, in particular, Dell. The integration was really tricky, but the reason could be between the two vendors: Nutanix and Dell, because they have different life cycles for the deployment. The integration issue could be because of the hardware, firmware of Dell, and Dell had a different life cycle for the renewal of an update of the firmware, for the servers like Nutanix. We also had some issues with some Dell-related drivers, and that consumed a lot of time.

A one-touch system for integration could be an improvement. Having a one-touch update is also a very good idea. For example, you'll just need to push the button for the system to be updated automatically, e.g. for updating the firmware, hardware, disk, etc.

Nutanix Acropolis AOS which was integrated with Dell was not running well. What was running well was less than 50%, and the other updates have failed because of issues between the firmware, the server, and the system. This is why hardware integration with this system needs improvement.

I started using Nutanix Acropolis AOS in 2017, so the total number of years I've been using it is five.

I find Nutanix Acropolis AOS stable. In the beginning, we had some issues with its stability, but now, stability for it is good.

The system is very scalable. It's similar to vSAN, but vSAN is a well-known, major vendor for virtualization, while Nutanix Acropolis AOS is better in terms of technical features.

Technical support for Nutanix Acropolis AOS was very good. Their engineers have very good skills, e.g. in every case, they will try to solve an issue.

Technical support from Nutanix was better than VMware technical support. VMware was also very good, but the Nutanix support team had more initiative. Nutanix takes more care of the open tickets. I'm giving them a thumbs up as they're good.

I was involved in the deployment process for Nutanix Acropolis AOS. The system is working okay. It's good. The deployment the first time was a bit tricky, but we had good support from our vendor. I was able to run the installation by myself, with some support. You have to do some preparation for the installation to be good.

You have two Nutanix Acropolis AOS license models. One model is coupled with the hardware appliance, e.g. it's the appliance approach, depending on the vendor: HP, Dell, and Supermicro carry these appliance permit licenses. The other model is the software only model.

We had the first model that was coupled with the hardware from a vendor. For Nutanix Acropolis AOS itself, the pricing was okay, especially because of its features and how you can use it for a lot of hypervisor technologies. The cost, however, when coupled with the hardware vendor was high.

On our project, the renewal was from the hardware vendor and it was expensive. The software was okay, e.g. it had normal pricing.

You can choose to pay the license yearly, or you can pay every three years, or every five years. It depends on how deep your pocket is.

I evaluated VMware vSAN.

Nutanix Acropolis AOS is deployed on hardware, without a layer in between. It's server hardware installed.

Nutanix Acropolis AOS was good, e.g. from its performance running faster than VMware ESXi on a vSAN, so I'm rating it an eight out of ten.

Our company is a partner with Nutranix. We propose solutions like Nutanix Acropolis AOS to our customers.

We replace and patch HP servers at one of the biggest telecom providers in Sri Lanka.

The technology of Nutanix Acropolis AOS is the most valuable feature. You don't need multiple screens to manage.

This solution is better than its competitors.

Nutanix Acropolis AOS is new technology in a competitive market. Pricing is too high for a new product and requires better discounts to be able to compete with IBM, Dell EMC, and HP.

Nutanix is a stable product.

Customer support at Nutanix is good, we have no complaints.

The initial setup of Nutanix Acropolis AOS is quite easy it takes about three days.

We used local people that were trained by Nutanix. Once deployed it takes two or three people to maintain the solution.

VMware licenses are quite expensive. Customers are getting cost benefits while using Nutanix. The licenses are billed annually.

We also work with SimpliVity and VMware.

If you are looking for flexibility, space-saving, power-saving, and the best ROI, this is the solution to use.

The solution is new in our market so there are no local representatives here.

Because this is a new product it is not yet certified with a lot of ERP vendors in this region.

I would rate this product an 8 out of 10.

We use Nutanix Acropolis AOS for compute virtualization. The main purpose was to replace FlexPod. The important problem we were trying to solve was to replicate between the two data centers. However, we encountered some issues.

I have been using Nutanix Acropolis AOS for approximately two years.

Nutanix Acropolis AOS has very good stability.

The scalability of the solution had some issues because there were many VMs and the replication ran into some bottlenecks. It was an issue that was known to Nutanix and it was not disclosed to the customer.

The support is very good, responsive, and helpful. Even with the issue we had,  where they did not disclose beforehand, they were very quick and helpful with fixing it.

I have used HPE SimpliVity previously and Nutanix Acropolis AOS is better.

We had a service provider do the implementation of the solution for us. They were able to do it quickly.

The amount of people needed for the deployment and maintenance depends on the size of the implementation. We had 30 or 40 hardware systems and they're servicing them with a team of six people.

Nutanix Acropolis AOS is affordable, it has good value. The final price depends a lot on the hardware used, it's an appliance in the end. Whether you use HPE as the hardware vendor or Supermicro as the hardware vendor, it really depends on what hardware is used which is the main cost.

I rate Nutanix Acropolis AOS a seven out of ten.