Nutanix 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.
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VMware Workstation Pro
Score 9.0 out of 10
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VMware Workstation Pro is virtualization software which allows running multiple x86-based operating systems on one PC. Users can run Windows, Linux and BSD virtual machines on a Windows or Linux desktop.
I would highly recommend using Nutanix HCI for any of your infrastructure needs. I would highly suggest saving money and using the free included AHV hypervisor. The performance is incredible, and the data reduction capabilities are on par with vSAN. I would only recommend using ESXi with Nutanix AOS if AHV does not yet support some one-off configurations or if you still want to use horizon while the frame is still growing.
I would not recommend using a VM as a complete replacement for your everyday driver, but I would recommend it for testing. One way that I use Workstation Pro is with testing GPO's. I can make a change to a user or computer GPO, take a snapshot, reboot the computer to pull the GPO, see if it worked. If it didn't, I revert to the last snapshot before the GPO was pulled, make some changes to the GPO again, and test on the test VM. The same style of testing can be used with creating and changing scripts for computer changes. We have a whole computer setup script that installs software and changes a ton of settings. On a VM you can test over and over to make sure the script runs how you want it to and revert if you didn't like the script outcome. Especially handy with software installs, so you don't have to wait for a program to uninstall and then edit the script and run the script again. Using snapshots save me so much time in testing!
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!
It provides a great remote access tool for accessing and managing servers in virtual environment. With the security risks surround remote desktop this provides a good alternative to do the same functions.
The app itself is very lightweight and easy to install/maintain.
Sandbox testing can be a time consuming thing to setup and do. Workstation makes this easy to create, use, and put away. This make you more willing to put new things in the sandbox and test them before production usage.
The cost of workstation is very affordable for the functionality that you get and you can try it for free before you buy it.
We use it to run apps that can be difficult to setup or conflict with other apps. We just spin this app VM up run it, and then shut it back down. The startup and shutdown is very quick.
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.
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.
Nutanix AOS performance is light years ahead of HPE. We were nervous about using Nutanix AHV but it has been a vast improvement and saves on cost. Applications has been much improved and end users have commented. It has also freed up time for our Network Administrators and made their lives easier.
Modernizing with HCI, which creates private cloud-like data centers, is, for many organizations, the first step in their digital transformation. Companies that have kept their eye on the long game and made decisions based on a fully-developed ROI analysis have found themselves uniquely positioned to make the critical operational changes the COVID-19 situation has demanded.
I haven't had to call VMware Workstation support. The majority of the time, whenever I have a problem, I can perform an online search and find the answers I need. Online forums and users with similar situations are generally sufficient to answer any questions I have had, though, from previous experience at another company, their support is outstanding and responsive to circumstances. However, that is generally for a paid support contract and should be expected when you are paying for that support.
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.
We've decided to go for both VxRail and Nutanix AOS to make sure we can get the best deals from both sides. I appreciate this may not be a path most companies can go down, but always good to have a bit of healthy competition between vendors to ensure you're getting the best pricing from both sides!
VMware ESXi is more enterprise based whereas VMware Workstation offers capabilities at a lower cost and smaller scale. VMware Workstation Pro is also user friendly and easy to install. It can be utilized on a regular desktop system as the name implies. It helps with also demonstrations when needed to clients without having bulky hardware every time.
