Item: Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure
Rating: 10
Author: George Pickersgill

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We've implemented 3 blocks of 3 nodes into our primary datacenter and have the same setup in our secondary datacenter.

The hardware will be used to host our production hypervisor and guest VMs and will be our primary solution for DR.

The decision was made to purchase and implement the solution primarily as part of a hardware refresh but also to consolidate and improve our DR stance.

Pros and Cons

Support - Nutanix allows you to log the support query directly with a technical expert so you are in good hands from the get-go.
This came in super useful for us as none of us had working experience with AOS prior to this implementation.
Alerting/Reporting - there's a fantastic report engine built into Prism that populates generated alerts with links to KBs to resolve them. It's also very easy to get an idea of capacity usage over time this allowing for easier planning/diligence for other projects and BAU.
Leap - I can't stress enough how impressed I am with this DR automation. I've got peace of mind that if everything did go wrong on a Sunday morning, I'd still be able to recover the estate in time to take mrs shopping.
The technology can also be used for pre-change testing as it's very easy to failover to a test bubble and work on the 'live' server without touching prod (thus allowing one to prove that a certain change doesn't pose any risk)
Install additional capacity - all that's required to add new nodes into your current cluster is to IP them via the BIOS and then click through a short wizard in the GUI. I added in 6 nodes with around 2 hours' worth of effort.

Operating systems - there are 5 different operating systems that comprise the Nutanix solution (AOS being just one of them) and it can be daunting or feel convoluted at times trying to decide which one to use at the command line, or when troubleshooting. On the plus side, their support team is always readily available if we can't work something out or need a solution quickly.
Prism Element/Prism Central - Nutanix sells their solution as a 'single pane of glass management' which is only half true.
To install and configure, one interface with Prism Element but to access the premium features requires an entirely different console. That's where Prism Central comes in and use requires an entirely separate installation, configuration, and also considerations for upgrade.
It would be very helpful if those features could just be made available in Prism Element dependent on the level of license installed.

Return on Investment

Storage management
Capacity management
Disaster recovery
Life Cycle Manager (the ease at which we can upgrade to the latest and greatest OS/Firmware variants)

Alternatives Considered

Rubrik

The only other hyper-converged I have used is Rubrik so my comparison here won't be very good I am afraid.

The two products seem comparable in terms of them just being a service in a box but of course one of them is a very good backup solution and the other is a very good infrastructure solution.

Key Insights

Do you think Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure's feature set?

Yes

Did Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure again?

Yes

Other Software Used

Rubrik, VMware vCenter Server

Likelihood to Recommend

Very suited to companies with a medium-size infrastructure and upwards.

Especially suited to those companies with an eye for growth given the ease of installation for new hardware.

Key Differentiators

Product Features
Product Usability
Product Reputation

Product usability - we changed from being entirely VMware centric with a support team all well versed in that technology over the using Nutanix. Something we were all new to at the time.

The product is very easy to get to grips with and allows a gentle learning curve.

Nutanix provides a very in-depth KB and lots of training materials on Nutanix University to ease that process through.

Support Rating

Nutanix provide top tier support - their only rival in this field in my experience is Rubrik.

Their sales and the aftersales team really put the effort in to make the initial install an easy process to complete and support we've required post that has been expertly handled.

Their support's first point of contact is the equivalent of 3rd line at other vendors and they're always more than willing to explain concepts to help us better understand the issue/solution provided.

Performance

Generally the performance has been very impressive. Sometimes VMs reboot so fast that I question if I have actually rebooted them.

Leap is very very fast and in my testing, I have been able to failover application/service lines to DR and have the service back online in around 7 minutes.

The only fault I have been able to find was while doing SQL-specific load testing. We've got an all-flash array in Nimble and I compared like for like testing on Nutanix disks and the Nimble always performed better. That's not to say that Nutanix was not up to scratch, just that our current SAN did perform better.

Nutanix AOS - Simplicity and Complexity in a Box (inside another box)

Modules Used

Overall Satisfaction with Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure