IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe vs Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) comparison

IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe vs. Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)

January 2023

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Categories and Ranking

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Market share comparison

As of June 2024, in the NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays category, the market share of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 8.0% and it increased by 55.6% compared to the previous year. The market share of IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is 6.8% and it increased by 78.1% compared to the previous year. The market share of Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) is 4.9% and it increased by 29.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays

Unique Categories:

All-Flash Storage

1.0%

Software Defined Storage (SDS)

6.4%

HCI

8.2%

Featured Reviews

Daniel Aramayo

Implementation and Support Engineer at PRACSO S.R.L.

May 21, 2021

Reasonably priced, scales well, and offers good stability

We primarily use the solution for cluster applications and databases. We use the solution on the DBA and those that use double machines Being able to have broken files on-site on the same appliance is quite useful. The newer version of NVME has a really noticeable difference in quality versus the…

A highly scalable solution requiring an easy setup while also offering its users a reliable long-term technical support

Foluso Jibowo

Product Manager at Hiperdist Ltd

Apr 4, 2023

I would tell those planning to use the solution in the future that since many people would not be able to purchase IBM FlashSystem 9100. It is better to purchase IBM FlashSystem 9500. I also recommend other organizations embrace IBM FlashSystem as it is one of the best solutions in the market in terms of cost, performance, reliability, availability, support, and the fact it is supported on a hybrid cloud. FlashSystem is a software-defined storage from IBM. IBM is constantly investing and improving its storage portfolio. Since most organizations are looking at digital transformation nowadays, it is the best time to deploy and use IBM FlashSystem in their environment. Overall, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.

Easy to use and reduces downtime but needs better resource management

VinodYadav

Senior Manager at Cyfuture India Pvt Ltd

Aug 29, 2023

We like the pay-as-you-go model. The solution has many valuable features. There's 24/7 support and a dedicated account manager. The solution is easy to use and the pricing is affordable. It provides a single platform from which to manage the databases. Applications of any category can be run on Nutanix. It's reduced downtime for our customers. We can monitor all of the servers from one place and get notifications and alerts to help with workflow. The product has helped us prevent and block attacks effectively. Applications are consolidated thanks to Nutanix. It's nice to have consolidation. We were able to eliminate some of our client's legacy infrastructure. We're able to use VMware and Nutanix infrastructure in parallel with ease. We have been able to migrate services to Nutanix easily. It's helped clients save money. Clients who have not been satisfied with the costs and high expenses have been pleased with the cost savings by moving to our Nutanix cloud. It is important for our customers that Nutanix Cloud offers a variety of cloud operating models across on-premises, Edge, as well as multiple hosted managed and public clouds. It provides good security. We can effectively prevent attacks. There's less chance of hacks or threats.

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"We're able to get higher-density workloads on the same infrastructure, and we have a smaller physical footprint. The performance is excellent – during our test the bottlenecks are never on the X array, it just keeps picking up the pace to match what you need. The real-time visibility is a differentiator in my opinion."

"The latency is good."

"Technical support has been helpful and responsive."

"The solution is scalable."

"The high availability of the product is the most valuable feature."

"The standout features for us in Pure FlashArray X NVMe are its robust DDoS protection, seamless transparent failover, and failback capabilities ensuring high availability."

"The most valuable feature of this solution is reliability."

"What I really like about this program, is that it is easy to use and easy to configurate."

"The most valuable feature of IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is the snapshot. We use it daily for all of the storage units."

"IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is easy to use and comes with good performance."

"There are many valuable features of IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMele I have found to meet my needs. Specifically, the maintenance cycle is a standout feature of this solution. The main component of the IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is the maintenance of the batteries, which have a predetermined and reliable four-year life cycle. This is in stark contrast to other solutions that may use spinning disks, which can fail unexpectedly, causing unwanted downtime and maintenance. Having a predictable maintenance cycle is a significant advantage and has made this solution a preferred choice for me."

"Its ease of use, performance, and hardware compression is very useful feature."

"It is a very stable product. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten because we did not face any issues in the last three years."

"A key feature is that compared to storage systems that we've been familiar with over decades, IBM simply does not fail. The reason is that IBM is the only manufacturer that engineers its own flash module, and there is a key architectural difference from everything else that we have seen in the market. The difference is that the flash module has the computational capability, which allows reliability and capacity enhancements to be uploaded from the main controllers and run in each module. So, each of the flash drives becomes its own little storage system, and that is extremely effective architecture. In this field, with this type of system, IBM has made a statement. They've never had one of these modules cause an outage. So, the failure rates on these things are just in a whole different universe from what we were accustomed to."

"It's easy to use, has good stability, and many features."

"It is a very stable solution."

More IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe pros

"It's much easier and faster even when you want to create a server from a template or clone."

"One major thing that comes up again and again is stability. Our downtime is literally based on hardware upgrades that need to be done. Acropolis is very, very user friendly. You don't have to physically have a super IT guy to manage the system. You can actually give it to a younger guy to manage and there won't be problems. And if he makes a mistake, it's very, very easy to fall back and sort out the mistake."

"Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure's most valuable feature is the flexibility to move the VMs easily, keeping everything together."

"We like that the size of the box is 1U or 2U only, and all the servers are fit into that box. The ease of operation is there. All the servers and the SAN storage are inside the box."

"One-click setup is a valuable feature because it allows us to set up a server automatically with a single click."

"The most valuable feature is Move, which allows you to migrate virtual machines from VM to AHV."

"The architecture of Nutanix is the best, and the virtualization we get, out of the box, is an advantage. Also, dedupe and compression are done natively, inside the platform, so there are no additional licenses. That adds value to it."

"Acropolis AOS's networking concept is excellent."

More Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) pros

Cons

"We have run into a couple of instances recently where we are running out of space. So we have had to buy some more packs for it and they have deployed fine and it has increased smoothly."

"It's more multi-tenant functionality in their Pure1 manage portal that is lacking."

"Right now, the box itself is just strictly working as a backend storage system. It would be fantastic if we could access it directly like a NAS device through network access or SIS drives. I think they have an interface, but I am not sure how good it is. If we could address a box directly on the network without having to go through a server, it would be great. The replication schemas could be improved. We are not using replication on the storage level right now. We use a different type of replication. If their replication would be as good as the one that we have, I would probably run the replication schema because it might be faster, but I don't know that for a fact. So, I cannot say that they have good replication. All I can say is that they need to inform us better."

"We would like to see more visibility into garbage collection and CPU performance in the GUI."

"In the future, I would like to see integration with enterprise backup systems."

"Every time I think of something that needs to improve, they're one step ahead, which I love. The only area I wish to see improve, I believe is coming, is in the FlashBlade product. Blade implementation fell short on a few of the services."

"There is room for improvement in the pricing of the product."

"I want to see Pure Storage not only be for fast storage, but I want to see it be for the entire data center."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

"In the future, the limitation is upgrading the same storage by adding a shelf to the desk. There is a limitation in the backend connection between the storage and extended shelf."

"I would like to see IBM products become more affordable because they can be quite expensive, which limits their accessibility to a broader customer base."

"The efficacy of the GUI in IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe could be enhanced, and it would be beneficial to include a feature that can prevent ransomware attacks."

"The ZIO interface could be improved."

"I'd like to be able to connect to tape drives behind the storage device to back up the tape if need be. We have all of our storage running in all-flash, and we make a copy on tape. Currently, when we want to hook up tape drives, we have to add some extra equipment, which is a little bit complex. We want IBM to add a feature where we could install a tape into the storage so that we can connect it through a single pane of glass. We'd like to have a feature in the IBM flash storage system so that we can connect backup tape drives through the IBM storage system and we can manage the backup tape from the storage system."

"The storage system itself should have built-in capabilities for different ransomware attacks."

"I would like to have replication functionality built directly in the product, rather than having to use a separate device for this."

"There is a tool provided by IBM for repairing batteries which can only be utilized by those who have an IBM technical advisor under service contract. However, for individuals who do not have such a contract, the tool can be difficult to use and requires a zip file copy. I believe that it would be greatly beneficial if the tool were made more user-friendly and accessible for all individuals who need to repair batteries."

More IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe cons

"The GUI for this solution needs improvement."

"The ability to create clusters faster would be nice to see in a future release."

"There is a feature that exists used for disaster recovery, but it requires an extra license. It should be included with the regular normal standard license."

"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."

"The product could be improved with more security. The product needs a bit more experience in the market. I think you don't have the possibility to add other hardware. It could be improved with the ability to add and extend."

"They could improve the graphical user interface."

"It would be great if they could improve the GUI features."

"Nutanix should improve AHV to support migration VMs between clusters and storage containers. Migration between containers is possible, but it requires shutting down the VM. The procedure is long and there is no migration between clusters at all."

More Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool is an investment that we've budgeted for. While the prices may be higher than those of other vendors, we see it as a market leader with benefits. We don't regret purchasing it."

"Pretty much everything that you need is licensed when you buy the product. Licensing to me is different than the maintenance cost, but they can bleed into one another. We buy the product, and we expect three years of support bundled into what we negotiate on our storage arrays. I would start to see maintenance costs going into the fourth year, but we're not there yet."

"Given its price, Pure is not the first option."

"They can tout the functionality and cutting edge technology that they have, but that's where the price tag comes in. The cost is high, but I think as they grow their business and get more customers that it will probably go down a little bit."

"We pay approximately $50,000 USD per year in licensing fees."

"With VMware, we pay $300,000 annually."

"The support cost per array is about $20,000 a year for 24/7 support."

"The licensing is on a yearly basis."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

"The price of the FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is reasonable."

"Compared to other solutions, the cost of IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is reasonable, with a one-time payment of around $70,000. However, additional support is available for $25,000 for three years. The overall maintenance cost is steep."

"There are pricing options from the mid-rand to the high-range, of which the suitability depends upon the requirements."

"Compared to its competitors, IBM's offering is the most cost-effective."

"The solution's price is competitive."

"The price of IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is less than Dell. For upgrades, the Dell solutions are more expensive."

"The tool's pricing is competitive."

"Price-wise, the solution offers excellent pricing to its users. In short, the prices offered by the solution are competitive compared to similar solutions."

More IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe pricing and cost advice

"Able to grow with smaller, more linear increments of investment"

"Work close with your InfraTeam and discuss with Nutanix the best way to achieve sizing and price that are right for you."

"My advice is to get the ultimate license, as it is worth it."

"Our licensing fee on the total setup up was about R900 000."

"The cost of Nutanix Acropolis AOS is reasonable."

"Many of my customers have issues with Acropolis' licensing model because they are charging the customers based on two things— the CPUs and the capacity in the solid stack disk — and that's a problem. Nutanix's competitors are not licensing that layer, so this is something that they should change. They should abandon this licensing model because it's too complex. Technical support is bundled with the subscription."

"In terms of the solution's licensing, it's quite comprehensive."

"There is a license required for this solution and my clients usually purchase a two-year license with extended support. The price of the solution could be reduced, it is more expensive than competitors."

More Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) pricing and cost advice

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Use our free recommendation engine to learn which NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays solutions are best for your needs.

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Comparison Review

it_user244362

Managing Consultant with 51-200 employees

Aug 30, 2015

Nutanix vs. VMware EVO:RAIL vs. FlexPod

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…

What do you like most about Pure FlashArray X NVMe?

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

17%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Computer Software Company

19%

Financial Services Firm

17%

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

Educational Organization

27%

Computer Software Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

Pure FlashArray X NVMe helps to improve our processing speed. It is user-friendly and easy to use.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure FlashArray X NVMe?

The tool is an investment that we've budgeted for. While the prices may be higher than those of other vendors, we see...

What needs improvement with Pure FlashArray X NVMe?

The tool's pricing is higher than competitors.

What do you like most about IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe?

The storage serves the virtual environment. Most of our applications run in the virtual environment, and it serves ne...

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe?

Compared to its competitors, IBM's offering is the most cost-effective. However, in the context of the Egyptian finan...

What needs improvement with IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe?

It's a good system, but some vendors limit specific models from being upgraded to larger capacities. This forces us t...

What is the biggest difference between Nutanix Acropolis and VMware vSphere?

We found the reduced power consumption with Nutanix Acropolis AOS a very attractive feature. We also like the interfa...

How do I choose between Cisco Hyperflex HX Series and Nutanix Acropolis AOS?

Cisco HyperFlex HS series vs Nutanix Acropolis AOS Cisco HyperFlex gives extended hyper-convergence functions from ...

Which would you choose - Nutanix Acropolis AOS or VMware vSAN?

We found the reduced power consumption with Nutanix Acropolis AOS a very attractive feature. We also like the interfa...

Dell PowerStore vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Comparisons

Compared 20% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 17% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 11% of the time

Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 9% of the time

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 9% of the time

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Dell PowerStore vs IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe

Compared 43% of the time

Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform vs IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe

Compared 16% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe

Compared 13% of the time

HPE Primera vs IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe

Compared 11% of the time

Dell PowerMax NVMe vs IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe

Compared 9% of the time

More IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe Competitors

VxRail vs Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)

Compared 10% of the time

VMware vSAN vs Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)

Compared 10% of the time

VMware vSphere vs Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)

Compared 8% of the time

Dell PowerFlex vs Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)

Compared 8% of the time

Hyper-V vs Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)

Compared 8% of the time

More Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) Competitors

Product Reports

Download Pure FlashArray X NVMe product report

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

May 2024

IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe

June 2024

Download IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe product report

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)

May 2024

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) report

Download Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) product report

Also Known As

Pure FlashArray//X NVMe, Pure FlashArray//X, FlashArray//X

IBM FlashSystem 9100, FlashSystem 9100

Nutanix Acropolis AOS, Nutanix AOS, Nutanix Acropolis

Learn More

Pure Storage

Video not available

IBM

Nutanix

Overview

Pure Storage FlashArray//X is the world’s first enterprise-class, all-NVMe flash storage array. It represents a new class of storage – shared accelerated storage, which is a term coined by Gartner – that delivers major breakthroughs in performance, simplicity, and consolidation.

IBM FlashSystem 9100 combines the performance of flash and Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe) end-to-end with the reliability and innovation of IBM FlashCore technology and the rich features of IBM Spectrum Virtualize - all in a powerful 2U enterprise-class storage system. Providing intensive data driven multicloud storage capacity, FlashSystem 9100 is deeply integrated with the software defined capabilities of IBM Spectrum Storage allowing you to easily add in the multicloud solutions that best support your business.

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

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company

Information Not Available

St. Lukes Health System, the City of Seattle, Yahoo! Japan, Sligro, Empire Life, Hyundai AUS, and many others.