Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) Reviews

The first use case, we mainly want to use it for our Citrix profiles. So that will be the main usage of files and maybe also other applications. 

Before, we had the classic Windows file server. Because Windows file server is just that, one alone, and we want to be able to replicate, recreate it, etcetera. So we tried to use Nutanix Files. Our use case is also that we can then fulfill files replicated on Rubrik.

We also use it for objects, because we can't back it up on a Rubrik, we have another cluster, which then functions as the backup for the object storage.

We haven't already seen the benefits because we're still in the engineering phase. The main focus is that we have failover in place. We always have access to the data, and we're not blocked in case of that.

The best feature is that it's on Nutanix itself. In comparison, if Windows file server gets killed, then all the data is gone but for Nutanix, it's on another layer. 

It gives more security that the data isn't going to get lost. 

The replication is better solved if we have Nutanix Unified Storage because one file site storage solution has at least three VMs. If one VM doesn't work, it gets replicated on the other two, which means we always have access to the data in comparison to Windows File Server.

It's a little bit slow because there's so much in the underlying layers that even after talking with Nutanix support, I couldn't really grasp it. 

There's still a little bit of a learning curve, but the support was really helpful.

We only started engineering with it this year. Our project is now in the phase where we engineer Nutanix Unified Storage, mainly files, but also a little bit of objects.

We have issues with stability sometimes. I found one specific issue kind of bizarre where in one of our clusters, the underlying inode was full.

I thought, for example, the inode, after some time, would delete all data so that it doesn't get full. But in that case, it was full. Then, the whole cluster shut down. It also deleted one of the other files that Nutanix needed to work. Even the support guys didn't under how it happened but they were able to fix it. 

The tech support is very good. One time, I didn't have the Zoom session on my computer. So the guy I talked with told me what I had to do, and I could also ask questions about the template, in terms of how it works or what it is exactly. 

It was really helpful to be able to show the person on the other side what exactly was happening when I asked questions. They were helpful.  

Positive

Initially, we deployed everything through Prism Element, where it functioned perfectly.

Our Nutanix partner told us to do it over Prism Central because if you do it over Prism Elements, then it's tough. You have problems managing it from Prism Central. 

Our focus is not on detecting and blocking ransomware because the Nutanix cluster we are building doesn't have access to the Internet. To be able to go to the server itself, they have to overcome a lot of clogs or boundaries.

I had to do with the licensing for Nutanix Objects Storage (NOS). While NOS comes with one terabyte of free space, if you actually want to use it, even just for development reasons, we have to buy some terras, or otherwise, it wouldn't work.

Overall, I would rate the solution a seven out of ten. With the migration from Prism Element to Prism Central, some things don't really work, but they are always trying to modify it and make changes.

We are a managed services provider, and we customize solutions for every use case. For example, we have a client who built up file servers on Azure and found it very cost prohibitive. Thus, they wanted to move back into Nutanix Unified Storage to reduce costs. Our clients have seen a 7% to 10% reduction in storage costs. We have been able to achieve a 4:1 compression using Nutanix Unified Storage.

We have one client who is currently doing a POC with Nutanix Data Lens.

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.

Nutanix needs to improve their cybersecurity options at the storage level.

We've been working with this solution for a year.

We have not seen any issues with the stability of the solution.

The initial setup is pretty straightforward. With a few clicks, you can stand your storage up. It reduces the overall life cycle of deployment within the ecosystem.

We have seen an ROI. When we build a solution for a five or six-year contract, we factor in the total cost of ownership. The total cost of ownership for Nutanix is very competitive.

Compared to other solutions, Nutanix Unified Storage is cost-effective and efficient. It also has good performance.

I would recommend Nutanix Unified Storage and rate it a ten out of ten. You will be able to bring in scalability and flexibility. 

I use the solution for user home directories, profiles, and general file storage.

The product is very easy to manage. File Analytics allows us to track who's doing what. We can set up scenarios based on what the product alerts when somebody creates or deletes a bunch of files.

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

We originally deployed the file server VMs from Prism Element. So now we have to go back to Prism Element to manage them. Since then, Prism Central has gained the ability to manage file servers. It would be great if we could import older file servers into Prism Central to avoid having to manage things in two different places.

We have issues with software updates occasionally. The new features seem to be rolled out before they go through quality control.

I have been using the solution for three years.

The core infrastructure is rock solid. I don't ever have a problem with it.

The solution is extremely scalable.

The support is top-notch. I've never had a problem with the support. Whenever I have an issue, I typically get a federal person right away, and they work with me until the issue is solved.

Positive

Previously, we used Synology, QNAP, and NetApp. We switched to Nutanix Unified Storage because of its ease of management.

The initial setup was super easy.

The product is pricey. The pricing makes sense when running Nutanix Clusters just for files, but when running it to do everything, the per-terabyte limit gets a little pricey.

We use the solution mostly for SMB shares. Our environment was built using Nutanix. Since Nutanix Unified Storage was built into the platform, we decided to go with it.

By implementing the solution, we want to get rid of traditional NAS, consolidate everything into a single platform and alleviate having to run file shares based on regular Windows VMs. The product provides a single platform for file storage. We run our VMs and have our file shares on the same hardware. It's all protected at the same level of redundancy.

Nutanix Unified Storage has made it very intuitive for the administrators to have a simple console to log in and ensure everything's up and running. We have ransomware protection enabled within files. We also have backups. We are a lab, so we don't have any off-site storage.

The solution narrowed the gap between file administrators and Windows administrators. Typically, file shares are managed by Windows administrators. Now, the same admin can manage the virtual infrastructure and the Windows domain infrastructure in the same place.

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

The solution helps our organization to store very critical data.

Implementing Nutanix Unified Storage has resulted in a reduction in the number of storage nodes by 13%.

Nutanix Unified Storage is a stable solution that provides good storage and efficiency.

I have been using Nutanix Unified Storage for three years.

Nutanix Unified Storage is a very stable solution.

The solution's technical support is good. We opened some cases on the website, and the support team responded very quickly.

Positive

The solution’s initial setup is easy.

We implemented the solution through an integrator company, named Microdata.

The solution's pricing is better compared to other products.

Before choosing Nutanix Unified Storage, we evaluated other solutions. We chose Nutanix Unified Storage because of its quality.

Overall, I rate Nutanix Unified Storage a nine out of ten.

We have a practice of testing different solutions and we completed a POC of Nutanix Unified Storage. 

The capability of Nutanix Unified Storage to store unstructured data is impressive. We have CCTV camera footage from each office location, and we can efficiently manage all the instructional data from a single interface. This is in contrast to Cisco, which represents a more complex system to manage.

Nutanix Unified Storage demonstrates resilience. The solution has the capability to duplicate data across multiple node storages, ensuring that if one node fails, the data remains accessible.

Having the capability to consolidate our storage through Nutanix Unified Storage gives us the assurance that we can oversee all our data under a single management team, rendering it more dependable.

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.

The concept of using the Gflag should not be employed in unified storage, as storage is a particularly sensitive domain. Allowing the use of the Gflag compromises the integrity of the Nutanix system and its established standards. While we do employ the Gflag to meet customer requirements, it's important to note that during maintenance activities, it becomes necessary to reset the Gflag to align with the customer's expectations. Thus, on one hand, the Gflag serves to support the customer, but on the other hand, customers become more reliant on the assistance of the Nutanix support team.

I have been using Nutanix Unified Storage for one month.

Nutanix Unified Storage is stable.

With Nutanix Unified Storage we can scale up and down accordingly.

The technical support is good. Our sole concern arises when we require assistance from them on weekends. We've noticed that the engineers' response time is slower during weekends.

Furthermore, when we ask for feedback regarding the nature of the issue and its resolution, we are only provided with a summary. This leaves us reliant on their support. They do not share internal articles with us; instead, they only provide generally available ones. If they could furnish us with detailed steps, we could address the issues independently, thereby saving time and reducing our dependency on Nutanix support.

Positive

The deployment took two days. We had several dependencies related to the required port openings that we had to satisfy while also adhering to our organizational standards during the process.

Normally we would only have two people involved in the deployment but because it was a new solution everyone wanted to be involved because they were eager to learn.

I would rate Nutanix Unified Storage a six out of ten because my experience is limited to the POC, and I haven't fully familiarized myself with the solution.

We also use Nutanix NCI and Database Service.

The POC involved a total of five people. One person conducted the testing, while the other four observed on Zoom through their screens.

The primary use case is to offer a highly available Linux-based file server to eliminate the security vulnerabilities of a Windows-based file server and the pain point of having a single file server, which means you can reboot it during production hours. Besides the general performance and security improvements, it also adds analytics audit trails and, most importantly, ransomware protection. For example, it’s not uncommon for a client to migrate their Windows file shares to Nutanix Files and then File Analytics detects and blocks dormant ransomware files.

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.

We would love to see the analytics and ransomware protection extended beyond just file servers to virtual machines, but they have a different product that covers that.

I have been using it for a few years. 

As the solution is highly available, it's infinitely more stable than a single file

server.

It is a super scalable solution.

The customer service team is most excellent, and a primary factor when choosing Nutanix.

Positive

It requires a bit of understanding of how Nutanix works. If you're familiar with Nutanix or a Nutanix partner, integrating is fairly straightforward.

For clients running Nutanix, the licensing cost for Files is a small add-on cost.

It does not require extra maintenance than any other software product. One needs to patch it periodically. Every client we've migrated from Windows file server to Nutanix file servers has said, I wish I'd done this sooner. I recommend exploring this as soon as you read about it. It solves issues left out in the wild by Windows file servers that no one is addressing and does so in a super powerful way.
I rate it ten out of ten.

I work with Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) for many cases. Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) can meet any storage need that a company has, such as traditional block storage for NFS or virtualization. It can deliver a file solution for different kinds of needs of a company, and even objects for backup, for logs, for data lakes, for image repositories. It's a very popular solution in Brazil for medical companies that need to store diagnostic images for a very long time. It can handle any kind of data usage, even for containers and Kubernetes. It's a very flexible and scalable solution.

The performance of Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) for high throughput and low latency requirements is the main point. When we work with centralized storage, traditional storage, we have a limit to the throughput that we can achieve with the size of the controllers. With Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS), we can scale this out and have as many controllers as we need and scale this live on production with no need to stop, no need for data migration. With large amounts of files, this is game-changing.

The main feature of the solution is the live migration that we have and the scalability from both a virtual perspective and the hardware perspective. Since last year, we have had a migration tool for migrating files from a traditional file system or an NAS solution. We migrate the file system with all the permissions and the SMB profiles. We migrate the file system as a copy and paste from a Windows or a NAS solution to Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS).

My impression of the cybersecurity features of Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) for dealing with unstructured data and ransomware threats is that it operates with the same approach as its main storage solution. Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) is security-first. It's already built into the system, and new features are developed every month. We can have a solution for micro-segmentation in this solution. We can include our unified storage in a VPC and have isolation or micro-segmentation from those who can access the solution and deliver even more security features to avoid data extrapolation and unauthorized data copying. We have the DataLens solution, which helps us identify threats such as ransomware and rogue behaviors that users might have. It's a very complete solution.

To improve Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS), cost is always an issue for every company, especially when we talk about large amounts of data. This is more a cultural market issue than the price of the solution. The value that the solution delivers is very high. For companies that use data as an asset, for a data lake, for analytics, the return on the investment is almost instant. This is a mentality question that the market has to learn to use. Data Lens is not for a backup repository. It's for a data lake and production data that will be used as an asset.

I have extensive experience with Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) since its launch. Before, the product had other names. The solution for files was called Nutanix Files, then Nutanix Objects. About three years ago, the product was changed to Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS).

I would rate the support for Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) as very good. I needed it just one time, and the support worked wonders with the case that we had.

Positive

The initial setup of Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) is very straightforward. It's the delivery of a virtual appliance just as with the Prism Central and anything within the Nutanix portfolio. The setup is very simple.

I am familiar with the Data Lens: High Cost feature of Nutanix Unified Storage. It has a price barrier. It's not for everyone. It's costly, but it's very powerful. This is a step further than the traditional data analytics that is built-in with Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS). Data Lens takes it to the next level. We have deeper insights and deeper management of the profiles of data use. For companies where data is a resource and asset, Data Lens is a must-have product.

I would rate Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) a ten out of ten.

We primarily use the solution for storage. We've migrated all over all file servers and systems over to Nutanix Unified Storage. 

We had 10 VMs with older technologies. I'm happy to use this as it is really simple and complete. 

The high availability of the storage is important. We have some customer data and it's crucial for us to be able to maintain and secure the data. 

It's a complete product. It works well. 

The security is very good.

We use clusters, and these are not only dedicated to storage. We have VMs, containers, and other types of storage.

The performance has been very good.

We were able to save 20% of our time by using this solution. 

I haven't had any issues with the solution so far.

I've used the solution for three years. 

The solution is really stable. I'm really impressed by the product. 

We've started with three VMs. We now have five VMs in our operations. We have no issues when we try to scale. 

Technical support is good. We've opened cases with them, and my experience has been really good. They are very fast, and they have very good technical knowledge. They come to the calls prepared. 

Positive

We did not previously use a different solution. 

The deployment is very easy. It's no problem to implement it.

I do not have visibility of the pricing and licensing. 

We did look at other solutions. We were able to validate Nutanix against other solutions. It has a complete ecosystem, which is important for us. We wanted more options to extend our environment if we needed to. 

We do not use the solution for AI and data analytics or for preventing and blocking ransomware. 

We have not tried to integrate it with other products. However, I have tried to integrate it with a backup solution, and I didn't have any issues.

I'd rate the solution ten out of ten.