Likelihood to Recommend I think Nutanix AOS is a great product and, I would recommend it to anyone. The only reason I did not give it a 10 out of 10 is because I don't do that for any product. Every product has room for improvement.
Read full review It is best suited when you want to have different operating systems on your laptop or desktop. You can easily switch between operating systems without the need to uninstall one. In another scenario, if you expect some application to damage your device, it would be best to run the application on the VM such that the damage can only be done to the virtual machine. It is less appropriate when time synchronization is very important. At times the VMs run their own times differently from the host time and this may cause some losses if what you doing is critical. Another important thing to take note of is the licensing of the application you want to run your VM. Some licenses do not allow the applications to be run on virtual servers so it is not appropriate to use the VM at this time.
Read full review Pros One component to support both compute and storage needs for virtualization. Easy expandable as business needs arise both at the node level and larger with blocks. Well outlined interface with good historical data. API tools are available to obtain logging information from Nutanix that can be used with other monitoring tools such as Splunk. Read full review It is simple to install - there is no advanced knowledge required to begin building virtual computers It is easy to use - adding new virtual machines is simple with wizard-based deployment It enables easy portability - moving virtual machines from one host to another is straight-forward and simple It is free Read full review Cons Nutanix has a huge learning curve. We purchased the on-line training course when we moved to the platform and it was literally weeks of instruction. It was so extensive, in fact, that we ran out of time to complete it before the test. Operations that cannot be done from the browser require running commands from a terminal emulator; perhaps owing to the newness of the platform, documentation is not robust. I highly recommend you buy the tech support. Software updates are sometimes rushed to release. I've gotten to where I wait at least a few weeks after release before installing them, as I've run into significant issues with buggy software. Such installations have required time-consuming tech support calls to resolve. While the promise of perpetual VM uptime is being fulfilled, the dashboard frequently reports issues that need to be resolved. Because of significant hardware redundancy, the cost per byte of storage capacity is high. Read full review I have had issues in the past when it has come to resizing VM disk storage. The issue is entirely detailed here: https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/9103 -- the problem was caused because of having existing snapshots (which error message output was not detailing). I haven't had to deal with the issue due to my dynamic disk sizes not being small from the start anymore (this is mostly an issue for my Windows VMs where the base disk may need significant size for the OS). It looks like, for a resize, that a merge of all snapshots has to occur first -- one user on that list details a workaround to maintain snapshots by cloning the VM. (Note: 5.2 was just released a few weeks ago, and looks like it should prevent the problem happening in the future by properly informing users that it isn't possible with snapshots). Certain scenarios, like resizing disks, required dropping into a terminal as there were no options to previously do so via the GUI. According to some recent posts, I've seen that v5.2 has added disk management stuff like that to the GUI (or will be adding it). I'm comfortable with dropping into the terminal, but in a teaching scenario or when evaluating the learnability of the tools, it complicates things. Read full review Likelihood to Renew We made a huge financial investment with this platform (four clusters, all-flash storage array), so we're in it for the long haul. Luckily it's a beast. I've had to use support more than any other platform I've administered, but the help has been very good. Nutanix continues to add features and innovations which increase the ROI
Read full review I give this rating because virtual box is inexpensive but there is another product such as vm ware that can also be used
Read full review Usability While you are going to have to comfortable with CLI to perform a lot of functions, the truth is most of the day-to-day work is done right through the web interface. That's one area that has improved a lot in the two years I've had it: how much can be done through the browser as opposed to the command line. And I still would like to see the system better documented. The articles often seem to presume a high level of knowledge about the system, making it difficult sometimes to complete tasks that I would like to be able to perform without contacting tech support.
Read full review Easy and quick to use. Runs at sufficient speed even with 5/6 VMs running, and can handle a bridged network with ease. Easy to disassociate from the host to ensure the environment built within VB is quarantined should anything happen, meaning no risk to physical hardware. Quick to pick up. Quick to add new machines. Cloning feature very quick and comprehensive. I've never had a VM crash or freeze.
Read full review Reliability and Availability Dependency on the Host OS means it is as reliable as it is possible to be. Application errors are beyond the purview of the application.
Read full review Performance Due to the cool DFS architecture, Nutanix has good read performance for loads. In general, everything works well. We only ran into problems with very specific workloads that did not allow multithreading. It is also worth noting that loads should be tuned according to best practices for best performance, which is not always an easy task.
Read full review No issues, especially with the extensions addons.
Read full review Support Rating Nutanix [AOS] is a leader in the HCI industry and it becomes evident after deploying the software. The solution runs effortlessly and can scale seamlessly. We ran the Nutanix solution on Lenovo Servers and since Lenovo has a close working relationship with Nutanix, you can procure the Nutanix software directly from Lenovo as part of your Lenovo HCI solution. The advantage of going this route is that the hardware has been tested and verified by Lenovo that it is thus certified for Nutanix. The support is then also directly with Lenovo for both hardware and software.
Read full review Oracle have a very fast response rate and a strong user community. One can geet help from many sources if they choose to research for themselves.
Read full review Implementation Rating We really enjoy using virtual box. We do not require to buy expensive hardware but instead we can minimize costs and maximize profits.
Read full review Alternatives Considered We looked at both Simplivity and Cisco
HyperFlex . Both are pretty good in their own right. Simplivity was very 'efficient' in the way they handled data, but we didn't like the idea of a propitiatory hardware card. Cisco's
HyperFlex was our second choice, but we were so impressed with what Nutanix had done for us already, that we were already leaning toward that.
Read full review VirutalBox is very similar to using Vmware with the slight difference in appearance and what might be considered a less polished look. However, what it lacks in polish and looks it makes up for in functionality, easy of use and the wide range of operating systems and features it supports without the need of buying the full professional edition
Read full review Scalability The only problem I have found is that the deployment is dependent and intrinsically linked to the Host OS. This is different from bare metal solutions which remove that dependency on a Host OS. The latter is more reliable and removes a layer of potential failure.
Read full review Return on Investment It is a highly redundant solution Nutanix [AOS] provides a simple easy to manage HCI platform with a reduced TCO and an increased ROI Centralized management solution of consolidated sever and storage solution in a virtualized environment which minimizes wastage of valuable resourses Offers businesses the agility and flexibility to run other virtualized platforms on the Nutanix environment Read full review For personal use, there is no monetary investment, I am running 5 CentOS servers flawlessly in my home lab. Saves a ton of money in an enterprise environment by not having to purchase physical test servers. (Cost of Enterprise product is way lower vs Cost of standing up physical servers and/or cloud servers) Makes virtualization very easy and friendly for everyone for test instances. Read full review ScreenShots