NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP vs Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) comparison

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP and Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Software Defined Storage (SDS) solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.
To learn more, read our detailed NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP vs. Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) Report (Updated: May 2024).
772,679 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"The most valuable features are that it's reliable, simple, and performs well.""The FlexClones make all the management easier for us.""The most valuable feature of this solution is that it makes our data readily available and we don't have to go through a lot of trouble to access it.""CVO gives us the ability to access data as quickly as possible, which is critical because of the mission set we handle. Some things cannot wait. For example, we tried having the data in the cloud itself, but it took too long for us to retrieve it from cold or deep storage. If we have it ONTAP or on-prem, it's so much easier to pull it within minutes.""The ease of use in terms of how the product works is valuable. We are able to work with it and deploy the storage that we need.""If you have a fair amount of experience with NetApp, you can work on it very easily.""The storage tiering is definitely the most valuable feature... With respect to tiering, the inactive data is pushed to a lower tier where the storage cost is cheap, but the access cost is high.""ONTAP is great for helping you migrate on-premise workflows to cloud environments."

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"The most valuable feature I have found to be the Acropolis Hypervisor (AHV).""It is very easy to clone systems using the solution.""The fact that there is only one interface to deploy a complete solution for maximum storage is fantastic.""One of the most valuable features is the One-Click Upgrade. When I need to update the system, I do it with one click. This product is amazing because everything is easy to manage, from network management to snapshots.""One of the most valuable features is that it can be applied at any scale.""Its low maintenance is a key feature. It is easy to install, upgrade, and scale by adding more blocks.""Technical support is okay.""It has centralized management. It is easy for an engineer to manage. More work goes to patching, upgrades, and maintenance. Nutanix is very easy to upgrade. It takes one click. Engineers do not need to spend additional time with Nutanix for upgrades. With one click, it will complete the upgrade and show the results. Other hypervisor solutions are not like this, specifically since you must do all the components one by one."

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Cons
"We have used technical support. As long as they don't call me at four o'clock in the morning to tell me that a drive failed and they are sending me another one, I like it. They have a tendency to do that.""Not a perfect ten because it's not very efficient with upgrades and management.""In terms of improvement, I would like to see the Azure NetApp Files have the capability of doing SnapMirrors. Azure NetApp Files is, as we know, is an AFF system and it's not used in any of the Microsoft resources. It's basically NetApp hardware, so the best performance you can achieve, but the only reason we can't use that right now is because of the region that it's available in. The second was the SnapMirror capability that we didn't have that we heavily rely on right now.""The product is more restricted with underlying cloud.""The key feature, that we'd like to see in that is the ability to sync between regions within the AWS and Azure regions. We could use the cloud sync service, but we'd really like that native functionality within the cloud volume service.""It definitely needs improvement with respect to clustering and with respect to more collaborative integrations with Azure. Right now, we have very limited functionalities with Azure, except for storage. If CVO could be integrated with Azure that would help. When there is any sort of maintenance happening in the cloud, it disrupts the service in Cloud Volumes ONTAP.""I would like some more performance matrices to know what it is doing. It has some matrices inherent to the Cloud Volumes ONTAP. But inside Cloud Manager, it would also be nice to see. You can have a little Snapshot, then drill down if you go a little deeper.""Something we would like to see is the ability to better manage the setup and tie it to our configuration management database. We manage our whole IT infrastructure out of that database."

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"I would like to see more Kubernetes and container-related workflows and multiple cloud-partner management. I would also like to see how they will synergize all these AI/ML functionalities that are available on other platforms.""They have offered some new features that I have not deployed so I assume that these issues might have been addressed already, but, at my time there was a networking problem.""This solution would be improved with built-in integration with Rubrik.""The self-service side of the product needs to be improved. We should be able to add two-factor authentication and more security layers to it.""The productivity and work efficiency of Nutanix Acropolis AOS could improve.""As of now, Acropolis and VMware cannot talk to each other. Until we have some kind of interface, it would be much better for Nutanix if they built an interface which can talk. Otherwise, if I have a VMware stack and I already have a Nutanix stack, I create containers, I create clusters on VMware, I create clusters on Nutanix. All of these clusters cannot talk to each other. Then it has to be then subverted as a parallel execution. What happens then is that I have to work in two different environments within my data center. Practically, they are two different data centers but physically and logically, they are one. If they cannot talk to each other that creates a lot of issues. That is something which Nutanix has to develop because for Nutanix it is very simple. For example, Oracle is using a function called GoldenGate. They have a feature called GoldenGate which allows them to talk to various different environments which must really help.""We have a team that does the implementation of the solution for our customers, it is better to have professionals handle the process.""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."

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Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "Purchasing through the AWS Marketplace was good, but it was a test system, not a real purchase."
  • "We purchased the product directly from NetApp."
  • "The deal with the seller was acceptable; the pricing is reasonable."
  • "The AWS consumer-based pricing model makes it easy for developers to use their credit cards to spin up virtual servers immediately."
  • "Compared to other storage vendors, NetApp, is not always able to compete with their pricing. Yet, we acknowledge the ease of use ONTAP brings with the AWS integration."
  • "They allow a special price if you are working closely with them. Since we have a lot of NetApp systems, we got some kind of discount. That's something they do for other customers, not just for us. The price was fair. In addition to the licensing fees, you're paying Amazon for your usage..."
  • "The standard pricing is online. Pricing depends. If you're using the PayGo model, then it's just the normal costs on the Microsoft page. If you're using Bring Your Own License, which is what we're doing, then you get with your sales contact at NetApp and start figuring out what price is the best, in the end, for your company."
  • "In addition to the standard licensing fees, there are fees for Azure, the VMs themselves and for data transfer."
  • More NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP 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 →
    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:So a lot of these licenses are at the rate that is required for capacity. So they're they're able to reduce the license consumption and also the consumption of the underlying cloud storage.
    Top Answer:For enterprise customers, it's a very cost effective. But in the SMB segment, yeah, pricing is a little bit challenge for your time.
    Top Answer:There's not much scope for improvement. I think the solution is more restricted with the underlying cloud. The performance of the single instances depends on the performance of the underlying cloud… more »
    Top Answer:We found the reduced power consumption with Nutanix Acropolis AOS a very attractive feature. We also like the interface that allows you to talk directly to your VM from the present software. We found… more »
    Top Answer: Cisco HyperFlex HS series vs Nutanix Acropolis AOS Cisco HyperFlex gives extended hyper-convergence functions from core to edge and multi-cloud environments. It helps IT and OT teams deploy… more »
    Top Answer:We found the reduced power consumption with Nutanix Acropolis AOS a very attractive feature. We also like the interface that allows you to talk directly to your VM from the present software. We found… more »
    Ranking
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    Rating
    8.9
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    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    ONTAP Cloud, CVO, NetApp CVO
    Nutanix Acropolis AOS, Nutanix AOS, Nutanix Acropolis
    Learn More
    Overview

    NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP is an efficient storage management solution for managing and storing data in the cloud. It offers seamless integration with cloud providers, advanced data replication capabilities, and high data protection. With reliable performance, it is ideal for industries like healthcare and finance.

    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
    1. Accenture 2. Acer 3. Adidas 4. Aetna 5. AIG 6. Apple 7. Bank of America 8. Barclays 9. Bayer 10. Berkshire Hathaway 11. BNP Paribas 12. Cisco 13. Coca-Cola 14. Comcast 15.ConocoPhillips 16. CVS Health 17. Dell 18. Deutsche Bank 19. eBay 20. Eli Lilly 21. FedEx 22. Ford 23. Freescale Semiconductor 24. General Electric 25. Google 26. Honeywell 27. IBM 28. Intel 29. Intuit 30. JPMorgan Chase 31. Kellogg's 32. KeyCorp 33. Liberty Mutual 34. L'Oréal 35. Mastercard
    St. Lukes Health System, the City of Seattle, Yahoo! Japan, Sligro, Empire Life, Hyundai AUS, and many others.
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Healthcare Company20%
    Computer Software Company18%
    Comms Service Provider10%
    Insurance Company8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization46%
    Manufacturing Company12%
    Computer Software Company9%
    Financial Services Firm6%
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company16%
    Manufacturing Company10%
    Comms Service Provider10%
    Financial Services Firm9%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization27%
    Computer Software Company14%
    Financial Services Firm7%
    Government6%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business10%
    Midsize Enterprise14%
    Large Enterprise75%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business9%
    Midsize Enterprise52%
    Large Enterprise39%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business36%
    Midsize Enterprise30%
    Large Enterprise33%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business17%
    Midsize Enterprise37%
    Large Enterprise46%
    Buyer's Guide
    NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP vs. Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)
    May 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP vs. Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) and other solutions. Updated: May 2024.
    772,679 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP is ranked 1st in Cloud Software Defined Storage with 60 reviews while Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) is ranked 2nd in Software Defined Storage (SDS) with 194 reviews. NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP is rated 8.8, while Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP writes "Its data tiering helps keep storage costs under control". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) writes "A powerful solution with easy deployment, upgrades, and management". NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP is most compared with Azure NetApp Files, Amazon S3, Amazon EFS (Elastic File System), Google Cloud Storage and Red Hat Ceph Storage, whereas Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) is most compared with VxRail, VMware vSAN, VMware vSphere, Dell PowerFlex and Hyper-V. See our NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP vs. Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) report.

    See our list of best Software Defined Storage (SDS) vendors and best Cloud Software Defined Storage vendors.

    We monitor all Software Defined Storage (SDS) 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.