NetApp HCI [EOL] vs Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) comparison

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23,349 views|8,922 comparisons
94% willing to recommend
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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between NetApp HCI [EOL] and Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, VMware, Nutanix and others in HCI.
To learn more, read our detailed HCI Report (Updated: May 2024).
772,679 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Q&A Highlights
Question: What Is The Biggest Difference Between NetApp HCI and Nutanix?
Answer: The biggest difference is the ability to scale compute and storage independently. NetApp can scale up the storage without the need for extra CPU (and hence VMware licenses for ESX). Nutanix does have a storage node, but it has limitations. Another key difference is the NetApp uses an inbuilt method for the central storage plane and doesn't use VSAN which saves on licensing. Cost wise, Nutanix is almost always more expensive than alternative solutions.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"StarWind allowed us to deploy highly available shared storage within our budget.""Ten gigabit Ethernet compatibility, support, ease of use, and management are some positive features.""We have experienced multiple hardware failures at one site and the fault-tolerant volume worked exactly as expected with zero downtime.""The most valuable features are high availability and real-time replication between two servers.""The user interface for this application is amazing.""It has allowed me to effectively and confidently manage the maintenance of hosts where I can power off a host and have its VMs migrate to another one.""This software lets us maintain storage redundancy across both of our Hyper-V hosts, so if one goes down the environment fails over to the other and we have minimal to no downtime.""The ability for us to manage all of our nodes from the same console makes systems administration very easy."

More StarWind Virtual SAN Pros →

"The most valuable aspects are that it's an all-in-one solution and it's very self-contained.""Our goal with NetApp HCI is to have no single point of failure.""The solution integrates well with all the other applications that we use on our environment.""It is highly scalable. Their support is also extremely good.""The most valuable feature is the software design storage that really provided a faster, agile, easier to scale up and out storage path.""The most valuable feature, currently, is the density of the system as hardware. I'm able to leverage the density of the product and remove bigger hardware which requires more space, cooling, and power costs, obviously. There are cost savings, obviously.""We're trying to move to a much more API-driven management of all of our products, and NetApp's product is, from all the SDS providers we have seen, the most fully-baked API out there.""HCI has helped with storage persistence across private and hybrid clouds for the last year. It's faster and more reliable with minimal downtime, as it doesn't require any maintenance."

More NetApp HCI [EOL] Pros →

"It has a user-friendly dashboard and interface.""The initial setup is straightforward.""The simplicity when it comes to building your own automation has been excellent.""Acropolis' main advantages are high performance and availability.""The most valuable features are easy cloud administration and management.""Nutanix does a superb job with technical support.""We are suggesting Nutanix to the management because of scalability and time efficiency.""Best features are around data locality, compression, and deduplication."

More Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) Pros →

Cons
"Sometimes documentation on their site can be out of date.""Management tools could be improved, sometimes the usage seems to be slowed down and confusing. A native web interface could also be an option. I love to see in the future port of the software on a general Linux distribution like RedHat or Ubuntu in order to avoid windows license costs. I would also like to see features like erasure coding implemented. On the VSAN software, I would like to see some improvements in the storage pools (eliminate the usage of the file as a data container and use the raw partition).""For the StarWind VSA vSphere solution, I would like to see a simpler and automated virtual machine installation process in terms of network settings.""There is one issue as far as licensing goes and that is a lack of documentation online for users when transitioning from the free version to the paid version, or vice versa.""While it is possible to implement disk encryption in StarWind using Windows Bitlocker, such a solution can be a little tricky to manage.""Server-side snapshots are one thing the Linux appliance can't do yet.""The StarWind Management Console is available only for Microsoft Windows/Windows Server, and should also be available for Linux and macOS, as it would reduce implementation costs.""While StarWind.com excels in numerous areas, there are a couple of notable functionalities that it currently lacks. One of these is duplication, which could be an invaluable feature for data redundancy and backup purposes. The ability to duplicate data across different storage locations can be crucial for safeguarding against data loss, and its absence is a minor limitation in an otherwise stellar offering."

More StarWind Virtual SAN Cons →

"HCI has not enabled us to consolidate workloads or break down silos and has not increased application performance. It has also not resulted in more efficient use of compute resources.""The deployment process has room for improvement. I would like for it to be a cookie-cutter deployment.""There's a limitation with a block in the file. That's where I see that it's not very efficient for upgrades and for management.""The problem is that it needs to be much more stable, for example, when I want to do the upgrade to 1.7 that just released, I also need to issue a ticket to the support guy in India and he asked me to deploy another mlock. There are a lot of manual steps compared with other products.""My biggest pain point is the installation part. I would like to see the appliance itself remove the entire switch that goes behind it and figure out how to do all the cluster interconnects within the box itself.""I would like to have the ability to replicate to multiple sites.""The price should be lowered. It's a little expensive.""The networking needs improvement."

More NetApp HCI [EOL] Cons →

"I'm sure there are a lot of things that could be improved, but I'm actually very satisfied with this product. There may be some possibilities to move the virtual server dismounting points or to move the server from one group to another, but I can't think of any special improvements or update features.""If we can have certified compatibility with other companies, such as Oracle, then it would let us know that they function correctly together.""There is a lot of functionality in Prism Central, but sometimes you want to see those features in Prism Element.""Usually, there are separate administration teams that take care of servers, but in our organization, servers are usually looked after by the application owner. However, the application owners cannot reinstall the software, OS, and other things. That only aligns with the role of the HCI administrator. If these rights can be provided, it will be very easy.""The product requires a lot of resources.""It's lacking in some features but overcompensating in others.""One of the improvements I would like to have is related to naming. It is getting confusing because they are using three-letter acronyms, which are more or less misleading. What I do not like is that they changed names and reused names. They had a meaning in the past and they are still using the names for something similar.""The product needs improvement in the areas of SAN attachment for high capacity and high I/O profile workloads."

More Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "The setup cost is very low. The pricing is great."
  • "We are happy with the price."
  • "The license is reusable. We can always rebuild it and apply the license. Then, boom, we get new servers, apply the license, and we're back up and running."
  • "The pricing is fine for the work that it does."
  • "When we did all the analysis for StarWind, it was approximately 20 percent less than any of the other solutions that we looked at."
  • "The scalability limitation for us is its licensing. At some point in the fairly near future, we will probably have to upgrade our license so we can store eight terabytes instead of four. We are currently at four terabytes, but we're starting to knock on the door of that capacity."
  • "The pricing is excellent. It will run on anything. You don't have to buy a $100,000 server, with hardware you don't need. You just pay for the license and you're good to go."
  • "The licensing is a bit weird. If you license the standard version of StarWind, it allows you four terabytes. Then, they have a pro version, but with the pro version, the only difference is it doubles the terabytes to eight."
  • More StarWind Virtual SAN Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "This solution saved our organization time (35 percent) and money. We have a hefty group of developers, and if you multiply that by 30 to 35 percent, that is quite a bit of money."
  • "Where we lost nearly 75 percent of our infrastructure due to a malicious attack and were able to recover two and a half hours into it due to the integration, it saved us and all of our customers. Because we were able to recover so fast from the attack, the solution paid for itself right there."
  • "There are the overall infrastructure costs. Even though the initial costing was higher, we calculated for year-to-year for five years. That brought us into a position where we decided, we have to go for HCI rather than having distributor systems."
  • "All the licenses are included when you buy the program."
  • "You still have to pay for the licensing for VMware and Red Hat licenses separately. It's not all inclusive at this point."
  • "This solution reduced our maintenance costs. We were going to have to pay one to two million dollars to put in compute nodes. We are avoiding those costs."
  • "Licenses run on a yearly basis, and there aren't any additional fees other than the standard licensing fee."
  • "The licensing fees are renewed annually."
  • More NetApp HCI [EOL] Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "Able to grow with smaller, more linear increments of investment"
  • "The basic license that comes with the box allows basic virtualization features but advanced automation features would require an upgrade of licenses."
  • "I know Nutanix and VxRail have similar prices and licenses. Nutanix is a go-ahead if AHV is used as hypervisor because it is already embedded in the price."
  • "While cost may seem higher than your traditional 3-tier architecture, you need to look at the bigger picture. You're not just buying hardware here. You're buying a complete environment."
  • "Setup cost is minor, pricing is quite a bit (we have a 7-node-cluster for about 450K EUR with 2 vGPU-nodes for Citrix) but that includes hardware, software, and support."
  • "The price is good but I think there is still room for improvement on the price."
  • "Extra features should not be so expensive. We would love to be able to use or even just try some of the extra features without having to buy them. Buying those features is just as expensive as buying vSphere licenses, so the cost savings is nullified."
  • "Work close with your InfraTeam and discuss with Nutanix the best way to achieve sizing and price that are right for you."
  • More Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Comparison Review
    Anonymous User
    Originally posted at www.storagegaga.com/dont-get-too-drunk-on-hyper-converged/ I hate the fact that I am bursting the big bubble brewing about Hyper Convergence (HC). I urge all to look past the hot air and hype frenzy that are going on, because in the end, the HC platforms have to be aligned and congruent to the organization’s data architecture and business plans. The announcement of Gartner’s latest Magic Quadrant on Integrated Systems (read hyper convergence) has put Nutanix as the leader of the pack as of August 2015. Clearly, many of us get caught up because it is the “greatest feeling in the world”. However, this faux feeling is not reality because there are many factors that made the pack leaders in the Magic Quadrant (MQ). First of all, the MQ is about market perception. There is no doubt that the pack leaders in the Leaders Quadrant have earned their right to be there. Each company’s revenue, market share, gross margin, company’s profitability have helped put each as leaders in the pack. However, it is also measured by branding, marketing, market perception and acceptance and other intangible factors. Secondly, VMware EVO: Rail has split the market when EMC has 3 HC solutions in VCE, ScaleIO and EVO: Rail. Cisco wanted to do their own HC piece in Whiptail (between the 2014 MQ and 2015 MQ reports), and closed down Whiptail when their new CEO came on board. NetApp chose EVO: Rail and also has the ever popular FlexPod. That is why you see that in… Read more →
    Answers from the Community
    Miriam Tover
    Ahmed Gomaa - PeerSpot reviewerAhmed Gomaa
    Reseller

    NetApp is all flash based on SolidFire Storage . support only VMware
    but Nutanix can work with VMware , Hyper-V, Nutanix AHV . Also it can be Hybrid Or All Flash.

    ArchiSolut677 - PeerSpot reviewerArchiSolut677
    Reseller

    If your prime consideration is initial cost then Nutanix with it's ability to provide a non-Flash solution is going to be the answer.
    The NetApp HCI solution with separate compute and storage nodes enables scaling in either resource type without needing to include the other. This could reduce TCO over a period of time as requirements change. As the storage is non-virtualised more CPU resources are made available to service user workloads. Native connectivity to hyperscalers and design guides for Private Cloud and an expanding hypervisor landscape.

    Dominik Oppitz - PeerSpot reviewerDominik Oppitz
    Real User

    Ahmed Gomaa, I am sorry, but this is plain wrong.

    NetApp HCI supports not only VMware, HyperV, and KVM but has also the unique ability to connect physical hosts without performance penalty or license overhead.

    The biggest difference in terms of architecture is that Nutanix needs a Controler Virtual Machine on every host, beeing a legacy HCI architecture. NetApp HCI is references as "disaggregated HCI" as compute nodes serve only compute and storage nodes serve only storage. This allows us to scale compute and storage independently, so no HCI tax wasted.

    THE biggest difference in terms of performance is that IOPs are guaranteed in the storage subsystem of NetApp HCI. This is a game-changer for a datacenter as it enables private cloud admins to guarantee SLAs - not just bet on them.

    For small environments without the need for VMware Nutanix may be a good choice. But data locality (data needs to reside on the hosts it is read from (kills this solution in my perspective for larger deployments). Even with a prism - making the administration of multiple Nutanix clusters nice and shiny - there are still several clusters in place. With NetApp, HCI there is no need for this. You can consolidate workloads on a massive scale.

    The biggest difference in terms of hybrid multi-cloud is that NetApp HCI can speak natively with ONTAP systems via SnapMirror and it integrates directly into all hyperscalers. Ultimately the management of containers can be done within one pane of glass - regardless of where the containers live - OnPrem on HCI, GCS, AWS, Azure.

    For me the HCI market is like the automotive market 60 years ago: Germans invented the car, but US-made is cool. Nutanix "invented" HCI, but NetApp wtook it that one step further.

    reviewer938199 - PeerSpot reviewerreviewer938199 (System Engineer with 201-500 employees)
    Reseller

    NetApp are enables to NetApp's customers (Already customers) to reuse their legacy hardware while moving the legacy hardware to DR and using SnapMirror techonology for replication while they will use at Primary site using NetApp HCI . It's reducing to need to buy solution for two sites

    In the other hand , Nutanix have solutions based Hybrid, those are reduce costs , not every customer is need an All flash solution.
    Also , in Nutanix the customer can choose with which hypervisor the would like to run their environment (AHV , VMWARE KVM , Hyper-V etc..)

    it_user902001 - PeerSpot reviewerit_user902001 (Consultant at a tech company with 51-200 employees)
    User

    Wihout any doubt go for nutanix HCI

    Terry Chapman - PeerSpot reviewerTerry Chapman
    User

    My only difference is that Nutanix was still developing features with their software BUT what was there fir what we were accessing was very good. I cannot comment on cost as everyone uses their own vendor pools. You need to test both interfaces in your environment or in the vendors test environment and determine if the solution overall will fit your Architecture and Growth plans.
    Don't forget the learning curve to adapt and the ongoing maintenance costs. Finally Support... call into the support line and see if their response or professionalism with will for you.
    Nothing worse than calling for support and it the company has 9-5 offering lol.

    Ahmed Gomaa - PeerSpot reviewerAhmed Gomaa
    Reseller

    it depends on your needs
    NetApp Is Very Good , but expensive as it's All Flash , based on SolidFire Storage . It will support only VMware
    but Nutanix can be ALL Flash or Hybrid , also can work with Hyper-v , VMware or Nutanix AHV

    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:It is easy to use and can monitor system synchronization and check Storage status. StarWind Virtual SAN (VSAN) combines… more »
    Top Answer:I would highly advise new users to consult the StarWind technical team beforehand. Also, consider the paid version if… more »
    Top Answer:You can maintain and update it with little to no fuss, even the free version is incredibly capable whilst it brings the… more »
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    Top Answer:We found the reduced power consumption with Nutanix Acropolis AOS a very attractive feature. We also like the interface… more »
    Top Answer: Cisco HyperFlex HS series vs Nutanix Acropolis AOS Cisco HyperFlex gives extended hyper-convergence functions from… more »
    Top Answer:We found the reduced power consumption with Nutanix Acropolis AOS a very attractive feature. We also like the interface… more »
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    StarWind SAN & NAS
    Nutanix Acropolis AOS, Nutanix AOS, Nutanix Acropolis
    Learn More
    Overview

    StarWind Virtual SAN provides high availability and fault tolerance for virtualized environments without the need for dedicated SAN hardware. It allows for real-time replication between servers, shared storage for Hyper-V clusters, and enables vMotion and High Availability features for VMware vSphere. The solution reduces costs and leverages existing hardware while providing a scalable and reliable infrastructure. Valuable features include ease of use, scalability, top-tier support, hardware agnosticism, and the ability to use off-the-shelf standard servers to increase storage space. StarWind VSAN has helped organizations improve performance, data availability, and data security while reducing downtime and providing cost-saving storage options.

    NetApp HCI is the only true enterprise-scale hyper converged cloud infrastructure. NetApp HCI comes in a 2 RU chassis with 4 node expansion slots.

    Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) is a top-ranking HCI software, cloud management tool, and Software Defined Storage (SDS) tool that is marketed as the foundation for users' hybrid clouds. It offers a powerful and secure hyperconverged infrastructure to deliver all data and applications at any scale and on any cloud. The solution offers a complete software stack that allows users to unify their hybrid cloud infrastructure. 

    NCI’s services include computer, storage and network, hypervisors and containers, and deployment in public or in private clouds. The product also comes with built-in resilience, disaster recovery capabilities, self-healing, and high-security capacities. It provides further deployment flexibility through several software and hardware options and platforms. NCI includes a full set of enterprise capabilities. It can also be deployed on a wide range of servers from popular manufacturers.

    The capabilities of the product are categorized into three main groups:

    • AOS storage
    • Flexible and open compute
    • Automated and secure networking

    Outside of these categories, NCI also offers other capabilities:

    • Integrated disaster recovery
    • Full-stack lifecycle management
    • VMware with Nutanix
    • Intelligent operations

    Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) Features

    Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) offers its customers various features and tools in each of the previously mentioned categories. The available features for users currently include:

    • High-performance: This set of features utilizes hardware advances such as NVMe and RDMA to accelerate users' most demanding applications with consistent performance. The tools in this feature category work alongside data locality to ensure successful results.

    • Foolproof resiliency: These Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure features protect data and keep it available by facilitating advanced distributed consistency algorithms. Users can utilize these features to protect their data from issues like bit rot, hardware failures, and even entire site failure.

    • Flexibility: This set of features allows storage to be sized for the needs of each organization and expanded promptly and easily so that the organization and its data can grow. The features offer flexibility to users in terms of applying storage policies logically on a pre-workload basis, instead of being tied to hardware.

    • Hypervisor choice: Users can choose from the leading hypervisors - Microsoft Hyper-V or VMware ESXi. They can also leverage the built-in hypervisor AHV that Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) provides.

    • Integrated virtualization: These features offer simplified automation and AHV streamlined operations. The services in this category are optimized for high performance and reliability.

    • Kubernetes: Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) offers features to build and deploy cloud-native applications on intelligent distributed infrastructure. Apps can be integrated with cloud-compatible storage and both building and deployment can be achieved within the same platform.

    • Microsegmentation: Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) offers features to prevent malware spread and reduce attack surfaces by leveraging machine learning (ML).

    • Virtual networking: This set of features allows users to easily implement multi-tenancy in their environment or stretch networks across clouds.

    • Centralized network management: Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) provides organizations with a way to manage networking configurations centrally. Users can utilize it across their human-computer interaction (HCI) environment with simple virtual switch management.

    Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) Benefits

    The product offers various benefits to users who utilize its capacities. Some of these include:

    • NCI reduces technology sprawl and frees up technical resources to allow organizations to focus on other activities, potentially reducing costs for the business.

    • The product allows customers to deploy, scale, and bridge to the public cloud to be able to react in evolving business environments.

    • Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure improves data availability while simultaneously protecting it against several kinds of failures and attacks.

    • The solution offers high-performance, resilient distributed storage for all workloads.

    • Working alongside Nutanix Cloud Platform, NCI offers simple management of data from one console.

    • Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure works by the zero trust philosophy, protecting users' apps and data through specially designed security protocols.

    Reviews from Real Users

    According to Gerhard J., an IT manager at Q4 Fuel, Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) provides serious reliability and stability across the entire system makes for ROI.

    A solutions architect at a computer software company describes NCI as a stable, straightforward to set up, and scalable solution.

    Sample Customers
    Baker Tilly BVI, CMS Internet, Board Harpeth Hall School
    American Showa, Children's Mercy, Coca-Cola, Consultel Cloud, Evangelische Landeskirche in Wurttemberg, Imperva, Surface Mount Technology
    St. Lukes Health System, the City of Seattle, Yahoo! Japan, Sligro, Empire Life, Hyundai AUS, and many others.
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Manufacturing Company11%
    Construction Company8%
    Educational Organization8%
    Computer Software Company8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company18%
    Manufacturing Company9%
    Government8%
    Financial Services Firm8%
    REVIEWERS
    Transportation Company15%
    Manufacturing Company15%
    Financial Services Firm10%
    Insurance Company10%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Manufacturing Company14%
    Computer Software Company12%
    Government11%
    Financial Services Firm11%
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company16%
    Comms Service Provider10%
    Manufacturing Company10%
    Financial Services Firm9%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization27%
    Computer Software Company14%
    Financial Services Firm7%
    Government6%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business65%
    Midsize Enterprise22%
    Large Enterprise13%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business25%
    Midsize Enterprise18%
    Large Enterprise57%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business22%
    Midsize Enterprise25%
    Large Enterprise53%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business22%
    Midsize Enterprise14%
    Large Enterprise64%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business36%
    Midsize Enterprise30%
    Large Enterprise33%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business17%
    Midsize Enterprise37%
    Large Enterprise46%
    Buyer's Guide
    HCI
    May 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, VMware, Nutanix and others in HCI. Updated: May 2024.
    772,679 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    NetApp HCI [EOL] doesn't meet the minimum requirements to be ranked in HCI with 32 reviews while Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) is ranked 3rd in HCI with 194 reviews. NetApp HCI [EOL] is rated 8.0, while Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of NetApp HCI [EOL] writes "Ease of provisioning has allowed us to implement large installations in a very short time frame". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) writes "A powerful solution with easy deployment, upgrades, and management". NetApp HCI [EOL] is most compared with , whereas Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) is most compared with VxRail, VMware vSAN, VMware vSphere, Dell PowerFlex and Hyper-V.

    See our list of best HCI vendors.

    We monitor all HCI reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.