Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) Reviews

We use Nutanix for management and capacity planning.

I like the analytics and the interface. Nutanix is easy to deploy and manage. 

Nutanix is one of two stacks where you can run everything you like. It would be nice if you could run it without the Nutanix appliance. Some clients don't use Nutanix engineering server hardware, so it would be helpful to run the Nutanix software for demos and tests. 

I have been using Nutanix for about three years. My boss started looking into Nutanix in 2013 or 2014. We were one of the first Nutanix partners in the area.

Nutanix is highly stable.

I rate Nutanix 10 out of 10 for scalability. Nutanix is highly scalable on the right version with the right hardware. 

I rate Nutanix support nine out of 10. They have specialized engineers for various clients, so when you open a ticket, only one technician will be working to resolve it. 

Positive

I rate Nutanix eight out of 10 for ease of setup. Setting up Nutanix is relatively easy if you know about networking.  It's not rocket science. You need to know the type of licenses you'd like to use and what the company shares. Before the initial implementation, you need to take time to plan. After that, the implementation could take a couple of hours or up to three days. 

I rate Nutanix 10 Cloud Manager Intelligent Operations 10 out of 10. You can operate Nutanix blindfolded. It's easy. 

Whenever we face any challenges related to the movement of virtual machines from one cluster to another, we are using Prism Pro. It makes our life easy because with the help of the Prism Pro, we can manage the movement of virtual machines between clusters. We can validate and do complete health checks of physical hosts and logical hosts, as well as of the complete compute storage and other components. All those are converged and are a part of a single solution. With the help of Prism Pro, we are able to simplify our operations and administrative tasks.

It is deployed in an on-premises data center. Both data centers have a couple of pairs of clusters, and the clusters are interconnected, just like the data centers are connected. Both clusters are replicated between themselves to have their data synchronized and updated so that in the event of a failure in one of the data centers, the other data center can take over.

Its top benefits include:

• Time savings
• Simplification of operations
• Environment stability
• Application accessibility

We can assess the performance and the capabilities of the host. We can initiate sessions, and we can evaluate those sessions with the help of the Prism Pro dashboard, which helps with capacity planning. We can forecast our capacity planning, and we have complete infrastructure visibility through the dashboard to get an understanding of how to utilize our hardware and applications in a better way to gain maximum performance. It helps with ROI and achieving long-term goals. It also increases employee productivity and workforce satisfaction. 

It saves cost. After using this solution, we have clear-cut savings of more than 40%. It also saves time.  We were able to see the results within 45 days from the time of its deployment.

It simplifies the administration and reduces human errors. It simplifies operation by providing a single dashboard. It also encourages the use of more automation.

Its integration with third-party tools is very easy. We have complete visibility. We can very nicely use the solution in our ITSM model. We are using third-party tools from different vendors for more insights, and with the help of automation, we are able to do application optimization, alert optimization, etc.

We are using it to manage VMware and Nutanix. The important part is that we don't have to depend on a multi-vendor management prototype. We can extend support to third-party vendors as well.

It reduces our overall power consumption. We follow the go-green environmental approach. We like to utilize the resources in a more efficient way. With this solution, we are able to save power.

The fact that NCM is sold as one product with multiple tiers is very important for us. A single-vendor solution is easy to manage. A heterogeneous type of environment is very difficult to manage because we require different types of skill sets, and managing the solution becomes more complex.

We are using Prism Pro, and the features related to the reporting capabilities, health checks, and automated alerts to Nutanix call-home are very important. We are using it as a management and reporting tool, and we are able to get a complete overview or summarized form of clusters that we are using in the production.

It has been helpful for forecasting and planning. It has also been helpful for analytics. With the help of this solution, we can have a better understanding of how much storage we are utilizing and how many processes are currently in use. Based on this information, we get a better understanding of how much expansion we need going forward, which is very important because ultimately it saves cost. It simplifies operations and helps with more revenue and productivity. It brings stability to our production environment. With the help of forecasting and capacity planning, we can achieve all of our long-term organizational goals. 

It is more cost-centric as compared to other solutions. It provides us with a holistic view of all the applications that we are using, and the most important point is that everything is converged. It is a one-box solution. It fits well with our requirements, and we are happy to have this type of solution in our production environment.

For Nutanix, there are options to go with different types of hardware vendors for using the AOS operating system. We can deploy it on Dell, Lenovo, or IBM servers. If Nutanix had its own server, it would be good.

We have been using this solution for the last two years. We have been using the Nutanix Cloud Manager version for the past several months.

There have been no issues related to its stability. We haven't faced any challenges in our deployed solution. On a periodic basis, we receive notifications from Nutanix about any vulnerabilities. Whenever a vulnerability is identified, we immediately get a notification to apply a patch and fix it. The system is up to date, and there are no vulnerabilities. It is stable, and we haven't faced any challenges in accessing applications. The overall performance related to the CPU memory, IO processes, and storage is at an optimal level, and we don't have any challenges. We are good.

In terms of scalability, it is very flexible. There are no challenges. It is a highly scalable solution, and expansion and migration are very easy. Everything is good.

Their technical support is excellent. If we need any support, they have 24/7/365 support. There are multiple ways to reach the support, and we get immediate assistance. In case of any criticality, they are able to manage the issue. They were able to resolve small, moderate, and high-level issues in a quick manner. We didn't face any issues related to escalations or unavailability with them.

Their knowledge is wonderful. Their technical teams are well-equipped in terms of skills. I would rate them a 10 out of 10.

Positive

Before this deployment, we were not using any similar solution.

It was straightforward because there was no migration or extension involved. We were using the solution as a first-time solution. So, everything had to be put in place new, and everything went well. We didn't face any challenges in terms of setup, deployment, and support. The deployment went well in a simplified case-to-case manner, and the operations have been very smooth. It didn't take more than 60 days.

Apart from the post-sales training where our resources got trained by Nutanix, our technical team members are also getting trained on a regular basis. We have regular schedules for technical training of our teams.

Its acquisition and support cost is nominal. It is not too high, and it is not too low. It is within the budget, and there are no issues on that part.

We looked at solutions from Cisco, Dell, and Nutanix. That's all. We chose Nutanix because of the cost and also because of the complete package. It included a multi-year support contract, and it is an all-in-one-box type of solution.

It is easy to migrate and expand. Most of the things are web-based. So, it is easy for anyone to understand and stabilize the operations. Our applications ran very well on the platform during the PoC. They are running well now too. These were the factors for using this solution.

This solution is very unique for our office. No other vendor has this type of solution in place, even though they are claiming to have a converged solution. As per our understanding and observation, Nutanix has a unique and excellent solution in place.

I would rate it a 10 out of 10 because everything is stable, and we are able to achieve all of our objectives. We are happy customers.

Initially, we deployed one cluster. Then, we deployed another two to three clusters. The main use case was to have a single console with all the alerts as well as viewing each cluster from a single pane of glass. That was one of the primary reasons for moving to this solution.

We are on the latest version because our company states that we need to upgrade every 30 days. Therefore, we are on a 30-day cycle, using the latest version of it. If Nutanix releases a new version, then in the next 30 days, we are on that version.

That solution gives requirements based on usage. It has helped us with workload and capacity planning. This is helpful for us to effectively plan. 

The main selling point was the one-click centralized upgrade. Upgrading our clusters is a very seamless, straightforward process. We don't have to go through each individual server or cluster. We just do it in one click using Starter. Without logging into individual servers, we can do an upgrade. This makes our 30-day patching cycle easy for us, rather than going through a painful, time-consuming task.

The Capacity Behavior Analytics has been a good feature that we have been able to use.

It provides centralized upgrade simplicity as well as getting alerts and updates on a single pane of glass. That makes it very easy rather than missing any notifications or alerts. The alerts help if you don't log in everyday since you are notified of everything in Prism Pro. 

We use the capacity manager, which we rely on. It gives us centralized management, and that is key for us. Everybody logs into the centralized console to find out if there is a problem. If someone needs to do a deep dive or troubleshooting, the central management lets them narrow down to the task or performance issue that they are dealing with.

There are some cases when there are multiple alerts for the same issue. For example, if I forget to put it in hosting maintenance mode, then I start getting multiple, duplicate alerts for the same host, which we don't want. If I have already received an alert, I don't want another alert. So, there are sometimes false positive alerts because of update activity where we forgot to put it in maintenance mode, then we get multiple alerts or emails. 

We have been using Nutanix Prism Pro for a year and a half. We have been using the Nutanix Cloud Manager version for the past several months.

The environment is pretty much stable, though at a year and a half, it is still new for us. In my experience, it is stable. We find it a very stable solution compared to other vendors. I think we have the best solution.

We worked with the Nutanix Community team to find some templates. Based on our organization's specific security standards, we then created a standard template that we use when deploying.

Finding any type of documentation in the support portal is easy. Everything is available online. If you are stuck with something, needing documentation or some kind of guide, those are readily available.

The tech support has been really good. I have worked with Dell and their support is not as easy to use when you need something, have to find a solution, or are stuck on something. Whereas, the Nutanix support is very helpful. As soon as you open a case with the support team, they provide support based on the case's priority level. The Nutanix solution and support are better than Dell's.

Their technical support has been knowledgeable. They understand us as a customer: our issues and what we are looking for. They are able to provide support in a timely manner based on the kind of support ticket that is open. I would rate them as nine out of 10.

Positive

Previously, we had purchased Prism Pro but had not installed it. When we started increasing the capacity of our clusters, we installed Prism Pro. Then, in the next three to six months, a lot of things had been fixed and streamlined.

Previously, we had a Legacy platform. We would have to do a hardware refresh when hardware went end-of-life. A lot of time was spent doing upgrades. We were having problems with hard disk failure when the environment got to the end of its support life. We wanted a solution that was less time-consuming and more efficient, bringing more simplicity. That is one of the reasons that we moved in this direction.

Moving to Nutanix from our legacy platform has saved us a lot of time (30% to 40% of our time) to focus on other things, such as troubleshooting.

I was involved in the initial phase of setting up the test drive and doing the proof of concept. Also, I was part of the migration. 

We used the Nutanix tool for our migration. We had a deadline and talked with the application owners, which went smoothly. We were able to migrate the workload from our legacy platform to Nutanix. It took almost six months of time to move our workloads from our legacy platform to the Nutanix platform, but it was not that complicated.

We worked directly with the Nutanix support team.

It saves time since it is a single pane of glass. Our efficiency has increased because of that. We don't have to log into multiple servers when we do upgrades. We can do it on one console. This saves us eight to 10 hours a month. Upgrade activity on servers, which was offloaded to the Nutanix platform, used to take hours on our Legacy platform.

We looked at VxRail because we were thinking about having a Dell hyper-converged platform. However, Nutanix Prism Pro was more comfortable. 

One of Nutanix's best features is monitoring a cluster, which is useful. Anyone can manage it. Specifically, you don't need to have someone with VMware or hypervisor background to do it. It is not rocket science; it is very easy to manage. It is easier to manage because it provides centralized administration of the entire environment, instead of having something like multiple vCenters. With this solution, you don't need to log into multiple consoles.

There was a talk earlier that we will plan to use the monitoring automation, but since we have other tools that we use for automation, we don't have X-Play. However, that may change down the line because we want to add more clusters. So, we may need to think about how we can update our license to have X-Play.

We have plans to add Nutanix in our corporate infrastructure too. There, we will be using VMware in Prism Pro for our corporate environment.

Nutanix has a partnership with Red Hat. Therefore, there are some Ansible scripts that we use. Because we have Red Hat Satellite, we use that to leverage some sort of automation for our deployment servers.

I would rate this solution as a nine out of 10.

We use the solution for virtualization purposes.

The solution saves around 15% of standard time for our organization.

The solution is easy to use and has a very supportive team. It helps me with essential knowledge and planning for projects.

The solution's virtualization could be even better. They should improve the upgrade and patch engine features.

I have been using the solution for two years.

It is a stable solution. Although, one of its nodes might break if you don't follow the proper upgrading and patching steps.

It is a scalable solution. Our enterprise has three clusters dedicated to it.

The solution's technical support is good. However, it is complicated to communicate with the customer service team for the contract renewal process.

Positive

We switched to Nutanix because of its flexible pricing model compared to other vendors.

The solution generates a high return on investment.

The solution's price is reasonable.

I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

I use Nutanix with Citrix. Sometimes, I need to expand the workload.

I like being able to expand my workload with Nutanix Cloud Manager at the best cost.

Our IT team has been able to focus on best practices by using Nutanix Cloud Manager's built-in playbooks.

I've been using Nutanix Cloud Manager for approximately two years.

I have not had any issues with the stability of the solution.

I have 30 clusters and have not had any problems with scalability.

I have not had any problems with technical support. They always responded in a timely manner. Thus, I would rate technical support a nine out of ten.

Positive

I previously used VMware but switched to Nutanix.

In Brazil, Nutanix Cloud Manager is not cheap. However, Nutanix offers different options such as long-term contracts.

On a scale from one to ten, I would rate Nutanix Cloud Manager a nine.

We use Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) mainly for the centralized management of multiple clusters. We're running two clusters under the solution right now, and we'll be expanding to three probably within the next couple of months.

Using Nutanix Cloud Manager gives me another engineer on my team. The solution allows us to have constant eyes on the environment, and we're exploring some of its additional features for automation for management.

Nutanix Cloud Manager's runway features are a big help in predicting strategy for optimization. They help us so that we don't find ourselves in a patch, and we have time to budget with senior management for additional acquisition if required.

If you're still running tiered architecture for the storage, it would be good to give stats on the amount of data that is warehoused in the cold tier versus the hot tier. Additionally, it would be helpful to get some visual appreciation of the dataset and identify which VMs are harnessing the bulk of it. You could see an element of this feature in Prism Element that wasn't available in the Prism Pro or NCM.

I have been using Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) for around two to three years.

Nutanix Cloud Manager is a completely stable solution, and I haven't had any issues. We always read the release notes before running upgrades.

I would expect Nutanix Cloud Manager to scale. Since our shop is pretty small, we would not plan to scale the solution, but based on what I've read, it is a scalable solution.

Nutanix Cloud Manager's customer support is fantastic. Most of the time, it's a one-call resolution. Fortunately, I don't have to call them very often. I've never had anybody that was difficult to work with, and they always seemed eager to help and follow up.

Positive

Nutanix Cloud Manager's initial setup was relatively straightforward. We worked with our SE when it was being deployed.

We have seen a return on investment with Nutanix Cloud Manager. It makes centralized management and viewing much easier without needing to bounce into different systems constantly.

Nutanix Cloud Manager is an expensive solution. However, its value is worth the cost versus trying to aggregate it across multiple other solutions.

We did evaluate other options before choosing Nutanix Cloud Manager. We looked at standard three-two-one solutions, but Nutanix Cloud Manager stood out because of its simplified management nature.

I advise users know their goals for utilizing the product ahead of time. Doing this will ensure that when they are deploying and want to create the playbooks, they will get the most value out of the implementation.

Overall, I rate Nutanix Cloud Manager an eight out of ten.

We are an education institute, and we use Nutanix Cloud Manager to manage student applications, employee applications, and for other educational purposes.

The most valuable feature of Nutanix Cloud Manager is the flexibility we're finding in expanding our technology and our support. We can't mess with the student's data, and we need to protect the data of many students within our data centers to ensure continuous business. One of the benefits of using NCM is the ecosystems we have within the organization and other organizations.

Nutanix Cloud Manager could partner with more partners to bring technologies that align with the area's policies and business needs.

We've been using Nutanix Cloud Manager for six to seven years now.

Nutanix Cloud Manager is a stable solution.

Nutanix Cloud Manager is a scalable solution. We are using six nodes and planning to add more features like the video in the future.

Nutanix Cloud Manager's technical support is reachable and solves the problem in a matter of seconds.

Positive

From the documents I'm reviewing, Nutanix Cloud Manager's initial setup was a straightforward process. There were no issues in the solution's implementation.

We're seeing a return on investment from Nutanix Cloud Manager, but since ours is an educational business, there's not much to assess.

Nutanix Cloud Manager's pricing is fair at the moment. However, its pricing should be reassessed, and different pricing categories should be set for different business needs.

When we approached Nutanix Cloud Manager, they presented the technology well. We chose Nutanix Cloud Manager because we found it could be sustainable for the future. Users should consider Nutanix Cloud Manager's use cases and opt for the solution depending on their type of business.

Overall, I rate Nutanix Cloud Manager a ten out of ten.

We use it for capacity planning and we forecast with it. We use the workload reporting, which includes VM efficiencies, and we're able to provide reports that way on capacity, storage, and Runways.

One of the big benefits is that it helps us explain why we are scaling and why we need to do certain things. We can scale out or up and show them why. There's proof before any money is spent. It's had a positive impact.

I can go to management and say, "We need this many sort-only nodes before the end of the year to give you the capacity for what you need to have done. And I can say, "This is where we're going to use up what we have." Sometimes they'll say, "Oh, we won't need it," and we can come back and say, "It's been showing us this the entire time."

We're big on the capacity planning. We're fortunate that we're not restricted by a budget, but we do need to have things budgeted for planning purposes. We need to be able to say, "We're going to need 500 terabytes," or "We're going to need X amount of storage in the coming year." The capacity planning helps us really stay ahead of the curve.

There have been bugs. We've seen what looked like some storage inefficiencies in reports and, when we went in to look, we found they were false alarms. That was something they corrected on the fly.

Overall, it works.

We're using Ultimate within Nutanix Cloud Manager and we've been using the solution since 2017.

It's very stable.

It's also scalable. We use it across multiple locations and multiple teams. 

Unfortunately, we don't have any plans to increase our usage of it. I have voiced some frustrations, internally, over the years, that I have not gotten to expand and use the product the way it should be used. I wish we could have really given it a lot more play in our shop.

Nutanix Calm, is another portion piece I wanted to look at.

I would rate Nutanix in my top two or three in terms of support. I've worked with some vendors that are lacking but Nutanix is not one of them. I've opened a lot of tickets with Nutanix over the years, but I've rated every one of them when I have closed them, and every one has been a 10 out of 10.

When we had the bug with the storage, they approached it as "high severity."

Their support is on par with VMware; they're good. And with Nutanix, it doesn't take as long to get into the upper-tier support. When you get someone on the line at Nutanix, you get someone who can help you with any range of issues and, if not, they Slack somebody immediately.

Positive

We didn't really have a previous solution. Infrastructure-wise, we were three-tier, with storage, switching, and all that is in between those segments. For capacity planning we used SolarWinds, but we never did anything such as scaling out with SolarWinds.

We use Ansible and then we're looking at possibly moving towards VMware Tanzu. We're doing a PoC on it.

The initial deployment can be a little complex. You better bring your "A-game." For me, VMware is simple, the way I break it down and the way we work on it. At the infrastructure level, you can rebuild things easily, but in Nutanix, even when it comes to deploying nodes, or the storage-only nodes, it's a little more complex.

Overall, for the way we use it, it takes a day or two to deploy Nutanix Cloud Manager. There are two of us managing it, but I'm usually the person from our organization involved in deploying it.

We started seeing the benefits as soon as we got it. We started using the forecasting and their sales engineers, who were good, worked with us. They showed us the power in it.

Upgrades happen through Prism Central. Other than the updates, we haven't had to do much in terms of maintenance. It's pretty much hands-free.

Every shop needs more staff and, with our staffing numbers, we have usually had to employ a services reseller or we have worked with the Nutanix team.

Those services came in and set us up, all the way from physical, in the rack, to the NCM portions and bringing it online. They built the management pieces and appliances inside of Nutanix. OSI-wise, we started at Layer 1 and went up from there.

It has helped us forecast and do capacity planning. We haven't been caught in a spot where we needed storage and had to move systems around and make quick changes to get by until we could cut a check to get more storage. It has helped us in the long run. The capacity planning, forecasting, and Runways are worth their weight in gold. NCM has saved us time in IT, and that's money.

It's worth every dime.

The pricing has been reasonable.

Do a PoC, but be mindful that it's not going to cover everything.

Nutanix has always been good. We don't use it to the extent that we probably should, but the GUI is friendly and I can't list anything that needs to be changed. Overall, it has worked for what we need.