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IBM Storage FlashSystem vs. Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    IBM Storage FlashSystem

    Score9.2 out of 10
    N/AIBM Storage FlashSystem, an all-flash storage array, delivers ~2 PB of effective capacity per single rack unit. Engineered with unique FlashCore Modules, it offloads data services including compression, encryption, deduplication, and ransomware threat detection ensuring optimum performance and resiliency.N/A

    Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure

    Score9 out of 10
    N/ANutanix in San Jose, California offers their software-defined Enterprise Cloud as a hyper-converged infrastructure solution. The Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure solution combines the Nutanix Acropolis virtualization solution, Nutanix AHV hypervisor (though Acropolis works with other hypervisors), Prism cluster manager, Nutanix Calm and Nutanix Flow server management, and is available on the Nutanix NX series of server hardware appliances, as well as third-party OEM appliances.N/A
    Pricing
    IBM Storage FlashSystemNutanix Cloud Infrastructure
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    IBM Storage FlashSystemNutanix Cloud Infrastructure
    Free Trial
    YesNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    IBM Storage FlashSystemNutanix Cloud Infrastructure
    Considered Both Products
    IBM
    No answer on this topic
    Nutanix
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    100%
    Would buy again
    55 Answers
    94%
    Would buy again
    17 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    98%
    Delivers good value for the price
    52 Answers
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    15 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    55 Answers
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    18 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    98%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    45 Answers
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    12 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    94%
    Implementation went as expected
    46 Answers
    94%
    Implementation went as expected
    15 Answers
    Features
    IBM Storage FlashSystemNutanix Cloud Infrastructure
    Enterprise Flash Array Storage
    Comparison of Enterprise Flash Array Storage features of IBM Storage FlashSystem and Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure
    Feature
    IBM Storage FlashSystem
    8.2
    158 Ratings
    8% below category average
    Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure
    -
    Ratings
    Flash Array Performance9.0153 Ratings00 Ratings
    Flash Array Integration8.3149 Ratings00 Ratings
    Data Compression7.8153 Ratings00 Ratings
    Non-Intrusive Upgrades9.1145 Ratings00 Ratings
    Simplicity8.8155 Ratings00 Ratings
    Power Savings6.6148 Ratings00 Ratings
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    Everpure FlashArray
    Score8.2 out of 10
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    Score8.4 out of 10
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    User Ratings
    IBM Storage FlashSystemNutanix Cloud Infrastructure
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.1
    (158 ratings)
    9.0
    (77 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    7.6
    (6 ratings)
    8.2
    (6 ratings)
    Usability
    8.8
    (23 ratings)
    9.3
    (9 ratings)
    Availability
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    8.6
    (2 ratings)
    Performance
    9.3
    (21 ratings)
    8.5
    (51 ratings)
    Support Rating
    9.1
    (6 ratings)
    9.7
    (54 ratings)
    In-Person Training
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    8.6
    (2 ratings)
    Online Training
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    9.1
    (3 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    9.0
    (3 ratings)
    9.1
    (2 ratings)
    Configurability
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    8.6
    (2 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    9.0
    (3 ratings)
    5.2
    (2 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    5.1
    (2 ratings)
    9.1
    (2 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    8.9
    (2 ratings)
    5.2
    (2 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    5.2
    (2 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    IBM Storage FlashSystemNutanix Cloud Infrastructure
    Likelihood to Recommend
    IBM
    IBM Storage FlashSystem is the only good option. It is possible to do with other brands but not with the same compatibility and support. So in the IBM i world, there is not that much options if you want reliable products, performance and compatibility with overall system: IBM Storage FlashSystem product is the one. You may need to adjust performance to your needs and IBM has a complete range of systems for entry (FS5X00), mid-range (FS7X00) or high-end (FS9X00). In IBM i world, IBM Storage FlashSystem is the best, but knowing the product, I would probably recommend it for other platforms. And many of my customers are using it as a cross-technology platform (mainly virtualization on x86 like VMWare).
    Incentivized
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    Nutanix
    For an organization that requires top-notch performance HCI, Nutanix is the best. You may start with 3 nodes and expand the cluster as required. The management through Nutanix Prism Central and Element was so easy that even a Junior Engineer was able to handle it. The Nutanix platform is not suitable for organizations with a small budget and fewer requirements for high-performance infrastructure, as the Nutanix solution itself is suited for enterprises.
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    Pros
    IBM
    • Extremely fast storage
    • Scales up as needed. Add flash core modules easily and increase volumes very quickly.
    • Applying firmware updates to IBM Storage FlashSystem is very easy to do and can be done without any downtime.
    • Replication policies are very versatile and also easy to setup.
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    Nutanix
    • One-click upgrades; whether it's hypervisor, firmware, disk or other updates. This feature has drastically decreased complexity and administration time.
    • Data Locality. Not all hyperconverged technology is created equal. When I first purchased Nutanix they were the only vendor (and as far as I know, still are) that made sure the storage a VM used was on the same host that VM was running on. Given a normal operating state, the [storage] network is literally only used for replication data.
    • They got rid of traditional RAID. Nutanix uses software to determine where a VM's storage should be written and replicated to. This dramatically decreases I/O when changing the number of nodes in a cluster, be it on purpose or during a failure scenario. Ex. adding a new node: If one uses RAID arrays then enough space has to be set aside to create a new array that includes the new node, then all the information has to be copied over, and the old array destroyed. RAID arrays do not grow and shrink gracefully so Nutanix has designed a better solution.
    • The Nutanix management interface was built on HTML5. No more flash headaches!
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    Cons
    IBM
    • Definitely we need to be able to extend a volume that is part of a mirror pair or Policy-Based Replication(PBO) on the fly.
    • Expansion of mirrored volumes/volume groups should resynchronise only the changed data (Almost like making use of change-volumes) and not trigger a full resync.
    • Please allow us to select downloading drive microcode also from Fix Central directly onto the flashsystem like with updates.
    Incentivized
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    Nutanix
    • Can be priced high at times.
    • The one downside I have working with Nutanix is the sales team. They seem to try to add in extra goodies to sales quotes or push for extras that you don't really need and you have to tell them to take them out. Don't be afraid to push back on them.
    • Need to analyze sizing with sales team to ensure right sizing.
    Incentivized
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    Likelihood to Renew
    IBM
    As flash technology evolves rapidly, vendors should [adapt] to the changes and onboard them in their products. IBM is a bit slow in adopting advanced technology in [its] portfolio. Even though the current product is good, my decision is purely based on how the transformation of the product [is] being produced and supplied to [the] end-user.
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    Nutanix
    AOS definitely make our dev/test virtual environment management much easier than before. And the consolidation the test/dev environment from Azure and Cisco UCS, we have less need to transfer large amount of data between different hardware platforms which was very big challenge. To expand the capacity is very easy to archive as well.
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    Usability
    IBM
    The integration into our SVC and the midrange systems are very well working. We do use cross site replication and global mirror which in turn is easy setup and the consistency groups are well maintained. The storage does global mirroring but also internal cross room replication as well. The integration of cloud object storage also helps in tiering the overall system.
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    Nutanix
    It's not out of the box easy, but once you get the fundamentals the steep learning curve flattens out and the processes to get things done and how it works becomes very apparent. It's wrapping the slight change in workflow from prior VM management methods took time to unbox and apply the Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure way
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    Reliability and Availability
    IBM
    Yes. The last really issues I've seen in the environments of my customers were back in the "Storwize" era of systems. Issues with code updates or sometimes rarely failing critical components. BUT: since every component is at least dual redundant even back in that day real outages were very rare. And today in the "FlashSystem Era" the systems are so reliable and available even during code updates there are no complaints. I think the 5 or 6 9s are completely achieved.
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    Nutanix
    So far no issue on availability during no issue on network or power outage
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    Performance
    IBM
    Latency and throughput have been excellent. The compression is done natively on the NVME modules so we do not see an impact there. the distributed parity does not seem to impact write speeds at all. We have found database performace has increased quite a bit over our old hybrid storage solution.
    Having a single tier of performance makes it easy to set up SLAs for workloads.
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    Nutanix
    The performance is nothing short of amazing. This is an HCI solution, and as any all-flash HCI solution is amazingly fast, Nutanix AOS fills local IO requests until its local IO is saturated before reaching out over the network. This lowers latency substantially compared to vSAN.
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    Support Rating
    IBM
    I would rate the overall support for IBM Storage FlashSystem with a 10. The response times have consistently been fast, and the support engineers always come prepared with relevant questions and practical solutions. They demonstrate a deep understanding of the product and our use case, which means issues are typically resolved quickly and without unnecessary back-and-forth. This level of support has been especially valuable for our SAP environment, where uptime and quick resolution are critical.
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    Nutanix
    Our implementation team were great and worked with us and got the program up and running very easily. Every time we called post implementation we immediately talked to an Engineer, which is so unusual in dealing with companies. Everything they have promised they have full filled. I think their support is top notch.
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    In-Person Training
    IBM
    Very good traning by experienced personnel. I attend instructor led sessions on IBM TechExchange and STUs before as well as IBM workshops for FlashSystems at IBM Böblingen which I helped to prepare and improve after piloting them. Absolutely nothing to complain about FlashSystem training in Germany or USA. So: all good here!
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    Nutanix
    We requested more training than typical which was very in depth
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    Online Training
    IBM
    THe training is often selfpaced and easy to follow if you have worked previously with other storage products. The content is clear and contains all the information needed for an admin to learn. However the troubleshooting part is not always included and this is dependent on forums or other sources where the information is not accessible very easily.
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    Nutanix
    A lot of online training courses, most of them are free.
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    Implementation Rating
    IBM
    I was amazed by the way IBM Flash storage provides a huge amount of storage within the limited footprint, it helped us to replace big fat storage arrays, which aided in the process of moving towards lower hardware, carbon, and energy consumption footprint. We can comfortably say that Flash helped us to host applications fast with a blazing speed and user transactions are quite quick.
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    Nutanix
    IPv6 is needed for link local discovery. We do not have IPv6 configured on our network so the easiest way to get our nodes configured and discovered by foundation was to configure the IPv4 addressing within the node prior to trying to discover with foundation.
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    Alternatives Considered
    IBM
    For the past six months, we have been utilizing this technology in our projects to manage a massive workload and produce swift business outcomes on a crucial production database. The IBM FlashSystem 7200, which offers high performance and compression, has so far been a great experience for us. The results and functionality of this product have delighted our consumers.
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    Nutanix
    Nutanix integrates very well with Rubrik for backup and protection of the environment. Nutanix gave us simplicity and scalability compared to VMware and allowed us to extend our infrastructure into the cloud using EC2. One unified management pane for all our workloads, unlike VMWare.
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    Scalability
    IBM
    I'm using cognos - especially cognos reports - as a part of IBMs Storage Intelligence software to manage datacenters and report storage and overall resource consumption to my customers. The software is reliable and - my customers who are using cognos in their businesses - say that they are very satisfied about the scalability of cognos. I can give it only an 8 rating because of the quite heavy resource footprint...
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    Nutanix
    We have scaled our products over the years and continue to do so very easily.
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    Return on Investment
    IBM
    • Easy of use is a key aspect, as we do not have dedicated storage staff.
    • Our RPO has lowered near to Zero, using PBR as replication and this is key for us.
    • DR plan testing has become easier and less time-consuming, allowing us to conduct tests more frequently.
    Incentivized
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    Nutanix
    • We find that return on investment is probably a better metric in most cases.
    • ROI analysis is more than an exercise. Companies must outline what their future looks like, even if it’s vastly different from what they’re used to and comfortable with.
    • As good as your financial analysis might be, displacing status quo infrastructure has a lot of emotions tied to it.
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    ScreenShots

    IBM Storage FlashSystem Screenshots

    Screenshot of Flash Core Module 5th GenScreenshot of IBM FlashSystem 5600Screenshot of IBM FlashSystem 5600 (rear)Screenshot of IBM FlashSystem 7600 and 9600Screenshot of IBM FlashSystem 7600 and 9600 (rear)