Nutanix Unified Storage Valuable Features

GK
Cloud Operations at a consumer goods company with 10,001+ employees

What I found to be the most valuable features were better performance and uptime. Performance, in terms of block storage, provided a good amount of IOPs, which was essential for our tier application. The other important aspect was meeting our SLA's uptime requirement. This ensured that our platform, applications, and customers were effectively served.

View full review »
Randy Rose - PeerSpot reviewer
Director of Operations at a computer software company with 51-200 employees

Nutanix Unified Storage is easy to use. New employees are able to come up to speed fairly quickly with regard to the day-to-day administration processes.

Because Nutanix is web-based, I can be in Illinois and check on the data center in Michigan. If we have a problem that one of my engineers can't solve, then they can call me, and I can take a look at it. The remote availability features are great.

I used Nutanix Data Lens a little bit, but my security engineer has been playing more with it. He has not said anything bad about it.

Nutanix Unified Storage helped remove siloes in our organization. IT doesn't have to operate as it did 10 years ago, where you had a team dedicated just to storage, one team that was just hardware, or one dedicated to certain applications. With Nutanix, everybody learned all the different ins and outs. We're bringing on a whole new data center and will be doing replication between the clusters and between the data centers. Everyone has come up to speed pretty quickly, and I don't have to pigeonhole a person. Everyone can jump from console to console and learn it fairly quickly.

View full review »
GE
Section Manager for Platform Team at Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission

The life cycle managers of the PCMs are very impressive, and I like them. They make our lives easy when managing patches and security updates when they come in. A life cycle manager helps to consolidate different vendors.

Also, because the management is simplified, I can depend on one or two people. We are able to reduce contractors and FTEs. We used to be a team of more than ten people, and now we are a team of six. As such, we are able to save about $400,000 a year.

We have to run mandatory disaster recovery processes every year. It's very important that Nutanix Unified Storage is able to manage and run our storage from any location.

Nutanix Unified Storage removed siloes from our organization’s storage.

View full review »
Buyer's Guide
Nutanix Unified Storage
March 2024
Learn what your peers think about Nutanix Unified Storage. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2024.
765,386 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Vinicius Sondermann - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud Analyst at Fundação Instituto Oswaldo Cruz

I appreciate its storage licensing model, as it offers flexibility. With this model, you purchase a specific amount of storage and have the freedom to allocate it to different services as needed.

One notable feature is the ability to set hard limits on data consumption. Also, its compatibility with data lakes. This allows for data inspection within the cluster, providing a solution for potential attacks on object storage buckets.

View full review »
Juan-Contreras - PeerSpot reviewer
System Administrator at a educational organization with 501-1,000 employees

Currently, the most valuable aspect of our Nutanix implementation is its file storage functionality.

View full review »
AF
Cloud system engineer at a consultancy with 1-10 employees

Unified Storage's centralized management features enable us to accomplish whatever we want in terms of operations and migrations. It's easy to manage the environment. Scalability is also a valuable feature. Unified Storage is highly flexible and stable. Scaling up the environment is simple, and we can scale based on our workload, which can be unpredictable. 

Nutanix's SaaS-based data security solution is great. It protects us against ransomware and global data threats. Everything is protected. It also provides cloud-hosted analytics. The Data Lens monitoring services are working well for us. We can view all the analytics from within the centralized management platform, which is convenient for users. The security features are all there. We feel comfortable knowing that we get a high level of detail at the security level. Data Lens' rating is centralized and everything is easy to use. 

View full review »
Faisal Shaheen - PeerSpot reviewer
Systems Administration Manager at Elsewedy Technology

The most valuable feature is Nutanix's file analytics. I like the ability to manage all my file servers from a single platform. I can see which owners have access to files and track changes. 

View full review »
JJ
Network Administrator at a healthcare company with 501-1,000 employees

The scalability, ease of use, and technical support are the most valuable features of Nutanix Unified Storage. Whenever we encounter an issue, we call their support team and they are great in assisting us. We are able to quickly scale our environment to meet our annual demands without incurring high costs for replacement or addition. We do not have to remove anything, we simply add on as needed.

View full review »
Mohamed_Attia - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Android Developer at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

The Nutanix block files are the most valuable feature.

View full review »
AG
IT Operations at a engineering company with 5,001-10,000 employees

The features that are most important to us are related to integration with the cloud platforms like Azure and AWS, although it supports Google Cloud as well. But the most important point is the simplicity of the API integration. We can leverage the API integrations and connect our hybrid-cloud network environment with Nutanix's cloud storage.

We also use Nutanix Data Lens to boot our virtual machines and to create zoning. 

In addition, we can manage and run the storage from any location. The solution gives us the capability to operate the complete unified platform from the cloud. We can create the logical chunks in the storage, and we can map the different types of pools to any resource, residing in any environment, irrespective of location.

And for managing unstructured data, like audio, video, and images, we create different types of tiering or pools in Unified Storage. On the basis of those pools, the data is classified and we use the classifications to connect the storage pools to their respective endpoints.

View full review »
DV
Infrastructure Engineer at a hospitality company with 5,001-10,000 employees

The most valuable features of Nutanix Unified Storage are the unified dashboard and the ease of administration.

View full review »
MA
IT Admin at a sports company with 501-1,000 employees

I like Nutanix Prism Central. The primary benefit is that we can manage everything from the same page. It also gives you the data in graph form on the main page, so you can keep a close eye on what is happening. You can watch for high utilization and see the disks and reports in the central console. It's a resilient and highly stable application 

The modernized infrastructure and data services feature is the most beneficial to me as an administrator. We derive business value in terms of storage because we have the option of using Windows Firewall.

Nutanix Unified Storage allows us to consolidate our data platform within the Nutanix cluster itself without using external storage. You can work with all types of unstructured data seamlessly with Unified Storage. There should be no problem with that. There are no issues with audio, video, uploads, downloads, etc. 

It's a flexible solution. This is what I understood as I was reviewing the documentation today. Nutanix is trying to simplify storage and has many options for scalability. 

View full review »
JT
Senior Systems Engineer at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees

With the current version of Nutanix Unified Storage, we've implemented a new feature called Data Lens that provides powerful capabilities for reporting file usage and identifying abnormal trends. These trends could include unusual file deletions, large-scale file access events, or potential indicators of cyberattacks like ransomware. Additionally, this data lens can help detect malicious insider activity, such as a disgruntled employee downloading sensitive company information before termination. The real-time alerts generated by this system enable us to swiftly address and mitigate such threats.

View full review »
RS
IT Support Supervisor at a local government with 201-500 employees

The integration with Prism Central makes it a lot easier to manage, so we just have a single pane of glass location that we can go to. We do not have a separate admin console or anything that we have to use.

It also replicates a lot of the features that NetApp had in terms of tiered storage and snapshots but at a much cheaper price.

View full review »
MakhloufMimouni - PeerSpot reviewer
Virtualization systems Engineer at Freelance Consultant

What I found most valuable in Nutanix Files Storage is its high availability and ability to scale out with many VMs.

View full review »
SB
Chief Technology Officer at PBG Networks

The most valuable feature is that it is highly available, solving the pain-point of delaying updates to Windows-based file servers during production hours. And then the second one would be ransomware protection and analytics. It gives you great visibility and protection on your file shares that are otherwise the most common sources of vulnerabilities.

View full review »
PP
Cloud Architect at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

We have been able to improve efficiency metrics such as performance, dedup, and energy savings by using Nutanix Unified Storage.

One of our clients has 14 different locations, and having a single pane of glass with Nutanix Unified Storage would be a great help for them. We would not have to create 14 different consoles.

View full review »
JG
Senior Systems Engineer at a computer software company with 51-200 employees

The solution's deployment and scalability are the most valuable features. The solution is simple and robust.

View full review »
Vishnu Mohan - PeerSpot reviewer
Service Delivery Manager Cloud and DCO at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees

What I like most about Nutanix Files Storage is the way it makes copies of the data. The solution also has high availability, which is excellent.

Another valuable feature of Nutanix Files Storage is self-service, so users won't have to depend on the IT team much. Users can independently work with the solution.

View full review »
JB
Manager of Server and Storage Infrastructure at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees

One of the things that really sold us on Nutanix Unified Storage was File Analytics and Data Lens. We could always tell how much storage we were using, how many files we had, and even the age of the files, but we could never get a good handle on who was doing what with them. This has been a huge issue for us. For example, if someone moved a folder, we would not be able to tell who did it. We did not have a good way of auditing what was going on with the systems. This could become an issue in a ransomware attack. It would make it more difficult to figure out when we got infected and where we need to roll back to in order to recover. Nutanix File Analytics and Data Lens give us that information. In addition, Data Lens has a mechanism built in to prevent a ransomware attack from getting a foothold on the system. It can shut it down before it does a lot of damage.

Nutanix Unified Storage does a very good job of unifying our organization's block, file, and object storage. It puts it all in one place. From one platform, we can deploy S3-type buckets. We can provide iSCSI-level block storage if we need to. It does a great job with home folders and departmental shares, which is what we mostly use Nutanix Unified Storage for.

We can manage and run its storage from any location. Nutanix Unified Storage does a really good job of that, especially with the newest version of Files, 4.3. You can run it on NC2. That opens up a whole new possibility for us down the road when it comes time to do a refresh on the hardware. As our data centers age, it also gives us another option. We would have to decide whether we want to spend millions of dollars updating our data centers or looking at a cloud-based solution. NC2 provides a lot of advantages over just a standard native AWS or Azure deployment.

As part of our organization's ransomware protection strategy, our security department has a number of ransomware appliances that do scanning. We have antivirus running on the various shares and workstations. What's really exciting for us with Nutanix Unified Storage is that we get another tool to help prevent a ransomware attack. In case something gets through the security's appliances or something slides in through the back door, we have an additional tool to look for that ransomware attack and recover from it quickly.

Other than testing Nutanix Data Lens, we haven't gotten into it yet. However, it looks very promising. We're very excited about it, and so is our security team.

In terms of removing silos in our organization, Nutanix Unified Storage does a good job. My team manages the virtual infrastructure, and that was one of the reasons why we went with Nutanix Unified Storage over some of the other competitors. We're familiar with Nutanix and the platform. It's easy to deal with, and it makes managing a large system with a small number of employees a lot easier.

View full review »
EK
IT manager at a financial services firm with 51-200 employees

We can utilize mixed storage block-sized objects and combine various databases within a unified interface. 

We can scale up or out without causing any interruptions to our service.

View full review »
MT
Technical Director at a educational organization with 1,001-5,000 employees

The solution is very easy to manage. The replication almost always works without fail.

View full review »
VG
Infrastructure Principal at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees

The reliability and availability are the most valuable features. Reliability is important because it can run my workloads. I need to be able to take advantage of the VMs that are executing on the storage. It has to be reliable. It's also important to have the storage available for scaling VMs on demand. 

We size them accordingly but there's unexpected demand. It's much easier to scale a Nutanix node. Traditional storage doesn't scale so well but Nutanix aggregates it all into one single layer. 

A lot of times we use Golden Images through Citrix and the ability to make those Golden Images available through that entire storage stack is important to us. 

In terms of its ability to remove silos in our company storage, we still need traditional storage but NUS provides availability and single unification. You can scale much more easily versus traditional storage.

I think Nutanix does a very good job with unified storage and they continue to innovate. As they innovate it, there are new features that you can take advantage of. There was something called Shadow Clones that didn't exist with other storages. This feature is relevant for me with what I do with Citrix using the Shadow Clones. It accelerates and makes things more efficient for me.

View full review »
OD
Security and Infrastructure Practice manager at a computer software company with 51-200 employees

The inclusion of it in the Nutanix Objects Storage platform simplifies my process as I am no longer required to acquire a separate platform. Instead, I can simply purchase additional licenses as needed. All management can be performed from a single unified interface, making it a convenient and streamlined experience.

Nutanix Objects Storage added the cluster on Amazon AWS and Microsoft Azure recently, which was a large improvement. The fact that we're constantly making enhancements and improvements is a large benefit.

View full review »
MikeLin - PeerSpot reviewer
President at a comms service provider with 11-50 employees

Nutanix Objects is reliable.

View full review »
Ryan Uy - PeerSpot reviewer
Solutions Architect at Strategic Synergy Inc

The solution's valuable features include reporting, a management dashboard and file analytics. Through the file analytics feature, we can detect any file anomaly.

View full review »
VV
Cloud System Engineer at a consultancy with 1-10 employees

The most valuable feature is the unified dashboard, as it allows us to easily observe everything from a single location.

View full review »
SK
Senior Systems Administrator at a energy/utilities company with 501-1,000 employees

We have been able to save local disk space by using Data Lens. We upload 18 GB to the cloud and are able to save 20% to 25%. We don't need to buy new nodes, so we are able to save money as well.

Nutanix Unified Storage gives us greater visibility into what is in our storage, and we have been able to clean it up.

View full review »
reviewer1475787 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. Systems Administrator at Enercare

We were able to increase the file share environment's overall performance and availability. 

The HA feature (minimum of three instances), as well as the replication to another site using Nutanix Protection Domain (LEAP), is also a great addition to it.

The management interface is great and you have handy access to several details about your file shares. We didn't have any of that in our old file share environment.

View full review »
BM
IT manager at a transportation company with 51-200 employees

The solution has the best features to restore the files. If the users delete the files accidentally, they can restore all the versions of the same file. 

View full review »
EZ
System Administrator at a government with 51-200 employees

Nutanix Unified Storage is a simple, user-friendly, and stable solution. The solution also manages the virtual machine CPU and load balancing.

View full review »
IS
Sales & Marketing Manager at a computer software company with 51-200 employees

The most valuable feature is the easy interface.

View full review »
RS
Senior Field Solutions Architect at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees

The most valuable features are the performance and the integration with other products, such as Oracle.

They have well-documented best practices and the interface is good.

View full review »
AG
Senior Program Officer at a non-profit with 5,001-10,000 employees

The solution is easy to use, share, and manage.

View full review »
AG
Senior Program Officer at a non-profit with 5,001-10,000 employees

Nutanix Files is a complete solution in the Telco Machine and offers a host of benefits. These include easy management, upgrading and analytics of new data. 



View full review »
it_user1161660 - PeerSpot reviewer
System Engineer at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

The most valuable features are the interface and support. It is very simple to use.

The redundancy is very good.

View full review »
Buyer's Guide
Nutanix Unified Storage
March 2024
Learn what your peers think about Nutanix Unified Storage. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2024.
765,386 professionals have used our research since 2012.