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reviewer1855257 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Specialist at a energy/utilities company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Real User
Upgrading our clusters is a very seamless, straightforward process
Pros and Cons
  • "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."
  • "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."

What is our primary use case?

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.

How has it helped my organization?

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

What is most valuable?

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.

What needs improvement?

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. 

Buyer's Guide
Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM)
March 2025
Learn what your peers think about Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM). Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2025.
864,155 professionals have used our research since 2012.

For how long have I used the solution?

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.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

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.

How are customer service and support?

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.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

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

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.

How was the initial setup?

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.

What about the implementation team?

We worked directly with the Nutanix support team.

What was our ROI?

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.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

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.

What other advice do I have?

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.

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
System Architect at Imam University
Real User
Helps me with essential knowledge and planning for projects
Pros and Cons
  • "It is a scalable solution."
  • "The solution's virtualization could be even better."

What is our primary use case?

We use the solution for virtualization purposes.

How has it helped my organization?

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

What is most valuable?

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

What needs improvement?

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

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using the solution for two years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

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

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

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

How are customer service and support?

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

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

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

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

What was our ROI?

The solution generates a high return on investment.

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

The solution's price is reasonable.

What other advice do I have?

I rate the solution a nine 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
Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM)
March 2025
Learn what your peers think about Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM). Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2025.
864,155 professionals have used our research since 2012.
reviewer2183874 - PeerSpot reviewer
Director of IT at a transportation company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Comes with runway features that help predict strategy for optimization
Pros and Cons
  • "Nutanix Cloud Manager's runway features are a big help in predicting strategy for optimization."
  • "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."

What is our primary use case?

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.

How has it helped my organization?

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.

What is most valuable?

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.

What needs improvement?

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.

For how long have I used the solution?

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

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

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

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

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.

How are customer service and support?

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.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

How was the initial setup?

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

What was our ROI?

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.

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

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

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

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.

What other advice do I have?

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.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
reviewer2183826 - PeerSpot reviewer
CIO at a government with 10,001+ employees
Real User
A sustainable solution with a straightforward initial setup
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable feature of Nutanix Cloud Manager is the flexibility we're finding in expanding our technology and our support."
  • "Nutanix Cloud Manager could partner with more partners to bring technologies that align with the area's policies and business needs."

What is our primary use case?

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

What is most valuable?

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.

What needs improvement?

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

For how long have I used the solution?

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

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Nutanix Cloud Manager is a stable solution.

What do I think about the scalability of the 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.

How are customer service and support?

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

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

How was the initial setup?

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.

What was our ROI?

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

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

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.

What other advice do I have?

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.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Sr. Network Systems Administrator at Moda Health
Real User
Top 20Leaderboard
Saves man-hours with excellent speed on outcomes and provides a continuous validation process
Pros and Cons
  • "It's easily expandable storage-wise and compute-wise."
  • "There's the split between Prism Central and Prism Element and having to know which interface I need to get into to do certain feature sets or just having to switch between those having all the feature sets available under for some central, area would be my biggest ask. They've been moving towards that more and more."

What is our primary use case?

The company went with Nutanix and hyper-converged. Just the sheer number of disparate vendor products and hardware the company had to deal with was a lot. The solution was used for consolidating everything into a much more easily managed payment class. Prism brings it all under one umbrella.

What is most valuable?

Prism Ultimate is where it can't get any better. We've got all the feature sets available.

We use the runbook on occasion and we don't really use a lot of automation.

We did some site migration activities with a large number of guest systems that needed to be relocated, it was pretty convenient. I don't remember experiencing any issues. We did a pretty big data center relocation and we used Nutanix protection domains to do most of that. We ran into a couple of issues outside of any automation and those were just our own configuration issues that we quickly figured out.

The speed of the outcomes we've received using the solution's low-code automation would be as expected. We have no complaints about the processes with Nutanix.

The man-hours saved are pretty important for us. We have a pretty large environment for our team to handle and anywhere we can optimize tasks more efficiently and not have to do them in scheduled maintenance Windows after hours is a big plus.

Monthly, as far as general maintenance, the systems used to have to be babysat by somebody. We save probably twenty to twenty-four hours a month in man-hours, just on being able to schedule and automate a mundane task that used to have to be handled with kid gloves.

As far as maintainability, we do tasks more efficiently and we've saved money. The ability to even just have the built-in monitoring and alerting system that is in the product by default, just by running the infrastructure under, is great. Prism Nutanix saves us quite a bit of effort and time. I don't know if you could really put a number to that time.

We use the solution to manage both Nutanix and VMware infrastructures. We are in the process of progressing towards getting as much as possible off of VMware ESX and onto AHV. We currently have about 70% on Nutanix and the remaining on ESX.

It's great that the solution can manage both of those infrastructures. It's a lot more efficient and convenient to have all of this in one payment class rather than have to monitor two separate infrastructures.

The solution helps provide a continuous validation process and it's pretty impressive. Just what you get by bringing that infrastructure under the umbrella of Prism without having to do any monitoring setup at all, covers more than 90% of what we really need. This feature's effect on our validation time is exceptional. I would say that it probably reduced it by more than half.

The solution is better than expected in terms of helping our team address our current automation needs while planning for future expansion.

Its speed when delivering infrastructure as a service has been good. We haven't had any complaints about the performance or implementation of new systems with this product.

What needs improvement?

We haven’t really gotten into the solution's capacity planning and runway analytics to help forecast storage and compute needs. Since I came in, we have been doing a lot of forklift upgrades and data center relocations. Most of the clusters have been in so much flux that the runway and those estimations haven't been accurate enough simply due to the fact that we pull the carpet out from the data and change the environment so often. Hopefully, once we have one more major cluster to put in, we'll get most of the rest of our PSX environment over. AT that point, those forecastings will be valuable to us. However, our environment and underlying hardware have been in so much flux, that nothing could really give us real accurate forecasting.

There's a split between Prism Central and Prism Element and having to know which interface I need to get into to do certain feature sets or just having to switch between them having all the feature sets available would be my biggest ask. They've been moving towards that more and more.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using Nutanix and Prism for nearly five years now. I came in about two years after the implementation started. It's the same product that we've been using for three years, just with a new name. We have been using the Nutanix Cloud Manager version for the past several months.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability is incredible. We are on Lenovo OEM and the only issues we've experienced since I've been on board for three years, have been related to some Lenovo firmware issues in our environment that would have caused a host outage. We've had other issues with the Nutanix solution, however, those have not impacted production or impacted the host.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability is great. It's easily expandable storage-wise and compute-wise. We can do that comfortably without fear of the impact on production. We do a lot during production hours that used to have to be done outside of production hours on maintenance Windows.

How are customer service and support?

In my more than twenty-five years of experience in the industry, I would say the technical support goes above and beyond any other vendor that I've ever worked with. It's probably one of their strongest points.

There have been multiple times when we've called in about some issue and the techs look into it and ensure that everything else on that cluster is copacetic as well. They won't look just at the problem. They'll say: "Hey, I noticed this, let's take care of that while we're in here." They're not trying to blow you off.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

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

The company never used a hyper-converged solution like Nutanix previously. There was a traditional three-tier and Nutanix was brought out to consolidate.

I have not used any other solutions like this. This was my first introduction to any type of hyper-converged solution.

How was the initial setup?

I wasn't a part of the initial setup. I came in two years after it was implemented.

The product requires maintenance. In this case, considering the breadth of our implementation, typically it's only one man dedicated for an hour or two a week. This is just to ensure things are kicking off as expected and things have been completed as expected.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

I know the company was looking at other companies. I don't know which ones, however, as that was all pre my history with the organization. Likely, at that time, Nutanix was probably the best solution available.

What other advice do I have?

I'm a customer and end-user and we're in a long-term stable release. 

There's a lot of naming in Nutanix. There's Prism Element and there's Prism Central. This depends on how wide a view you're taking. We use both here.

Prism Pro and Prism Element are different levels of feature sets in Prism. Ultimate has more features available than Pro has, however, it's the same product overall. Prism Element is tied to a cluster of Nutanix-based systems and Prism Central is a collection of those clusters. That gives a view of the entire environment. We are Prism Ultimate licensed.

We use a private cloud as our environment is all internal to our organization.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Private Cloud
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
Moses Ramushu - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Support at a hospitality company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Makes things easier and simpler for us to troubleshoot
Pros and Cons
  • "It is easy to access. Since it is web-based, you just punch in the API and it gives you all the servers in the company. The solution has helped optimize database performances."
  • "The design could be more user-friendly. There is always room for improvement when it comes to a site being more user-friendly."

What is our primary use case?

We use it for our service, running everything through Nutanix.

How has it helped my organization?

It is easy to access. Since it is web-based, you just punch in the API and it gives you all the servers in the company. The solution has helped optimize database performances.

Nutanix helps us save on Tier 1 storage, which is very important to us. As a company, you need backup. Working with this solution is easy and fast.

As a company, backup is very important. Anything can happen to a company so you always want to have backup. The important part is that this solution is cloud-based. Therefore, if a fire happens, you still have your backup.

Since last year, we haven't really worked after hours.

Nutanix has 100% improved our team's ability to troubleshoot operational issues. This is excellent for business. It now makes things easier for us to troubleshoot, helping us know where or what the problem is. It makes things simpler.

What is most valuable?

It provides healing to the system. If there is something wrong with the system, then it gives you an alert and decides what the problem is. It tells you in detail if there is something wrong with your server.

It is not time-consuming. It makes things easier for the company, because now you know exactly what is wrong because it tells you what it is. It is easy to access.

We use it with SQL Server workloads. This solution is good and quite fast for that.

What needs improvement?

The design could be more user-friendly. There is always room for improvement when it comes to a site being more user-friendly.

For how long have I used the solution?

My company has been using it for about six months.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I have been very impressed with the stability.

How are customer service and support?

Customer service has been good. So far, I can't complain. I haven't picked up anything that I might complain about since everything is running smoothly and has been simplified. I would rate them as nine out of 10.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

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

This has been an improvement for me because I am used to old physical servers.

How was the initial setup?

I was not involved in the initial setup. Everything was already up and running when I started using it.

What was our ROI?

It has helped us cut deployment times.

Nutanix has decreased the time it takes to snapshot and clone databases. Because of this, the business is running smoothly. Everything happens quickly, so it is quick to do things on this platform, i.e., less time-consuming.

The increased backup frequency has helped to limit data loss.

When it comes to data management, the solution has reduced time spent on operational database workloads.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We use Veeam for the backup and restore of databases.

What other advice do I have?

This is the way to go. Technology is growing and improving. I feel like a lot of companies in my country are still stuck in the old way of using physical servers. Whereas, we now have something like this that makes things simple with a feature that sends alerts. In a way, it is running the whole infrastructure.

There is always something out there that can improve your life, simplifying your life. There is always something out there that you can learn about.

It has improved my life and the way the company is running. We use it almost every day.

There are about 10 of us using it, including support, system engineers, my assistant management, and management.

I would rate this solution as nine out of 10.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Private Cloud
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
Gøran Fjermedal - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior IT-Consultant at Byggma ASA
Consultant
Single package with everything from one vendor is helpful, and analytics help forecast our needs
Pros and Cons
  • "One of the most valuable features is the hardware and how they have set it up to be pretty redundant. If something goes down, you can just swap it out and you're back online. If a drive or even a whole node goes down, it's pretty easy to get it back up and running."
  • "I would like to see a desktop application for administration of the solution. That's the thing I missed the most. Other solutions have a client that you can install on your computer. You can actually connect to and do the administration from an application instead of using a web portal, which is what Nutanix provides."

What is our primary use case?

I use the VM efficiency to figure out what services are over-provisioned. I've also been experimenting with the reports. In addition, I've been using it as a way of collecting all the data from all the different clusters into one portal.

What is most valuable?

One of the most valuable features is the hardware and how they have set it up to be pretty redundant. If something goes down, you can just swap it out and you're back online. If a drive or even a whole node goes down, it's pretty easy to get it back up and running.

Also, you don't have to actually mess around with external storage. Everything is in one complete package. The fact that the solution is sold as one product with multiple tiers is a seven out of 10 to me, on the important scale. If you get everything from one vendor, you have one place to turn if you have problems or if you need replacement parts. The whole "one-vendor" thing is pretty neat. Regarding the hardware, when you have everything in one package, everything is good to go. We haven't needed to purchase any other solutions for the type of automation this solution is intended for.

I've used the capacity planning and Runway analytics to help forecast storage and compute needs a few times, but just to check that we are a couple of years away from even having to think about it. It has been pretty good for helping our team address current needs while planning for future expansion.

What needs improvement?

I would like to see a desktop application for administration of the solution. That's the thing I missed the most. Other solutions have a client that you can install on your computer. You can actually connect to and do the administration from an application instead of using a web portal, which is what Nutanix provides.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using Nutanix Prism Pro for a year and continued using it as Nutanix Cloud Manager Starter for the past several months.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I would rate NCM's stability at five out of 10. We started having problems with our nodes about two or three months after we started using Nutanix. We were getting errors. The IPMI (Intelligent Platform Management Interface) stopped functioning. After a long period of troubleshooting, we ended up having to send one of the nodes back for a deep root analysis. They had to send a replacement and try to figure out what the problem was.

I'm sure that kind of scenario isn't very prevalent among their other customers, but that has been our experience with it. We manage 10 nodes with the solution, and something like seven of them have had this problem.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability of the solution is way better than anything else. Everything is plug-and-play. That part is pretty awesome.

How are customer service and support?

Their tech support is pretty good overall. It depends on who you end up with. In about 30 percent of my cases, I've been lucky to get a person who speaks English very well and is awesome in every way, knowing absolutely everything. Every time that I get one of those guys, I instantly go into the survey they send, when they close the case, and praise them in the highest way.

If the English of the support person is worse than mine, or their vocabulary, pronunciation, or even the quality of audio is worse than what I have, it's pretty hard to get my meaning across. That has happened in about 20 percent of my cases. The person doesn't understand what I'm saying and I've been forced to escalate the case to get someone who has more knowledge and better English.

And in 50 percent of my cases, they have been totally fine.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

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

We swapped out Hyper-V with products from Nutanix to try something else. It was time to upgrade and then Nutanix seemed like a good alternative.

How was the initial setup?

When we ordered the solution, we had a pretty good understanding that we would get something where we could just plug in the network and power cables, turn it on, and it would be already set up in almost every way. We thought we were only going to need to do a bit of tweaking, providing IP addresses and the like. But what we got was pretty bare. There was nothing on them. We had to go through the whole setup with Phoenix.

We had to do it twice. The first time, one of our guys did everything and it seemed to be okay. But then the guys from Nutanix called and said, "No, we have to do this together because we want it to be set up the way it's intended to be." That's pretty fair. But the guys from Nutanix actually managed to mess things up in a huge way. So we had to set it up again. And that speaks to how complicated the setup is when you compare it to the other solutions.

I set up fully-functioning VMware and Hyper-V solutions a good number of years ago when I was young and didn't have as much experience, and both were no problem. But Nutanix is a step up regarding how complex it is.

You should get a hold of someone who is crazy good and then never ever lose their contact info. I have one guy now that I email every time there is something complex that needs to be done. If we are digging into config files that are deep within the OS, I always contact him because I know that he knows everything.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

I have used Hyper-V with SCVMM. Part of that has some features that are similar to NCM, but they are different products with different features. I've also used vSphere from VMware, which has some of the same features, like the overall control over your VMs, data collection, and reporting.

Nutanix is pretty different from the others because it collects everything and displays it in a very nice way. To summarize the difference, you get the feeling that Prism Pro is new and more modern. The user experience and the user interface are more modern, and it's certainly easier to use.

The other side of that coin is that sometimes it fails. It's something like Mac and PC: If something fails on Mac, which doesn't happen very much, it's harder to figure out why. You might have to contact support and get them to fix it. A PC is harder to use, but if it crashes, it's easier to find out why. Prism Pro would be "Mac" and the others would be "PC."

Nutanix isn't as easy if you want to try to troubleshoot, at least not for me, because it's all based on CentOS. It's Linux-based. With Linux, it's easier to do things, but it's way easier to royally mess everything up if you make mistakes. You have to be pretty sure of your skills with Linux-based systems to try to troubleshoot things yourself. I've been using Nutanix a lot for a year now, and I'm just barely starting to get the hang of it.

The setup of Nutanix is harder than both VMware and Hyper-V, but Nutanix is the easiest to use among the three. However, the learning curve for Nutanix is pretty steep. The interface itself is pretty good and easy to use, but if you start working with the CLI, which you have to do somewhat frequently, it suddenly becomes way harder to figure things out.

Have we experienced increased uptime since we went to Nutanix? No, we haven't. It's pretty much the same with Nutanix as it was with Hyper-V regarding uptime. What has improved is the ease of use. And there is less cabling and fewer points of weakness.

What other advice do I have?

We went big on the specs for the servers so when you have what feels like unlimited resources, you don't need to set up the whole automation part of it.

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
Eduardo-Penedos - PeerSpot reviewer
Telcommunications expert at a tech vendor with 5,001-10,000 employees
Real User
It has nice-looking dashboards and automated reporting
Pros and Cons
  • "The solution has automated reports and workflows. You can configure it to automatically send out reports to the business units responsible for managing cloud costs, so you don't need to log into the tool to get information. Cost Governance's user interface and dashboards are beautiful. The customers love it because it's easy to use. They can run it and get a report an hour later to immediately see the savings."
  • "Azure has a public cloud offering, and it also has a CSP model that allows Microsoft partners to provide Azure as a service to their customers. Cost Governance only works on the standard public cloud, not the CSP model. When I was at my previous company, we frequently got requests for Azure CSP support. We also got some requests for Alibaba Cloud and Oracle Cloud, but Azure CSP was the biggest one."

What is our primary use case?

Cost Governance is a SaaS solution that helps customers optimize public cloud services. Most customers don't have a clear idea about workload sizing. We measure the usage compared to what has been defined and recommend ways to optimize.

You can use Cost Governance to perform cost governance in multi-cloud environments. It supports the three big public cloud providers — Azure, AWS, and Google Cloud Platform — and private clouds for Nutanix environments. 

How has it helped my organization?

Cost Governance helps customers improve cloud performance and save money. Many customers have idle public cloud resources. Maybe someone creates an object and forgets to delete it when they are no longer using it.

The solution detects all the unused resources and recommends removal. It can even remove objects automatically, which translates to huge savings. It can also save you lots of money by suggesting that you use a pre-paid reserved instance instead of buying on-demand cloud resources. 

What is most valuable?

The solution has automated reports and workflows. You can configure it to automatically send out reports to the business units responsible for managing cloud costs, so you don't need to log into the tool to get information. Cost Governance's user interface and dashboards are beautiful. The customers love it because it's easy to use. They can run it and get a report an hour later to immediately see the savings.

What needs improvement?

Azure has a public cloud offering, and it also has a CSP model that allows Microsoft partners to provide Azure as a service to their customers. Cost Governance only works on the standard public cloud, not the CSP model. When I was at my previous company, we frequently got requests for Azure CSP support. We also got some requests for Alibaba Cloud and Oracle Cloud, but Azure CSP was the biggest one.

For how long have I used the solution?

I start working with Cost Governance (formerly Beam) a little more than a year ago. They don't have that many products because Nutanix is about a decade old. They've only begun to increase the portfolio in recent years. I was a portfolio specialist for a year, so I know most of the core solutions well.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is Software as a Service, so there is nothing to scale. We can target customers with a small cloud footprint or customers that are huge. There is no need to scale anything because it's SaaS.

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

Of course, Cost governance is my first choice because I was selling it. However, I was competing with solutions from VMware and other vendors. At that time, we believed our product was much better, and our customers gave us feedback that this was the best solution.

How was the initial setup?

I rate this solution a 10 out of 10 for ease of deployment. Setting up the solution is straightforward because it's SaaS. You can sign up for a 14-day free trial by going to the website and registering your public account. It takes a couple of hours for Cost Governance to gather information and perform the computations. You don't need a dedicated person to deploy, manage or maintain it. Typically, each organization has someone who oversees public clouds and cost management. 

What was our ROI?

Customers need to consider the total cost of ownership and how much they'll save using this solution. It has some advanced cost comparison features that aren't being utilized by many customers at the moment. You provide a specific workload, and the solution tells you where the workload will be the cheapest in your multi-cloud environment, including the private cloud.

For example, if you want to build an ACM, Cost Governance can say that will be cheaper if you deploy on-prem or in Azure. Most customers are not there yet, but if a customer is in that process, the value for the money will be a perfect 10.

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

I rate Cost Governance an eight out of 10 for pricing. There are different plans, so you can pay monthly or yearly. You can also sign a three-year contract. It's quite flexible.  I can't give it a perfect 10, because customers always want a cheaper solution.  

What other advice do I have?

I rate Nutanix Cost Governance a nine out of 10. I stopped short of rating it 10 because the lack of support for CSP was costing us some sales to big companies that had those types of contacts with Microsoft partners. Cost Governance's one shortcoming is a lack of support for specific environments. When I left the company, they planned to add support for those cloud environments, but I'm not sure if they've been publicly released yet. 

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Partner
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: March 2025
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.