We performed a comparison between Cisco Hyperflex Hx Series and Nutanix Acropolis AOS based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison of Results: Based on the parameters we compared, Cisco Hyperflex Hx Series seems to be a superior solution. All other things being more or less equal, our reviewers found Nutanix Acropolis AOS to be more difficult to deploy than Cisco Hyperflex Hx Series. Additionally, Nutanix Acropolis AOS lacks the level of integration that Cisco offers.
"I've had to open a few support cases over the years due to administrator errors, and the support received was top-notch."
"The fact that I can now count on a true failover solution is what is most appealing."
"We can lose a site or even two of our three, and we would lose no data and have no outage."
"You can turn your local disk storage into high-availability iSCSI storage."
"This solution enables us to make better cost-effective use of our existing hardware and leverage the current infrastructure at a higher level than we could before."
"They offer top-tier support."
"StarWind vSAN has allowed us to leverage our server infrastructure more completely without the need to add more hardware."
"Immediately we noticed huge performance gains, even on older hardware and once we implemented a 10GB link between both servers, the sync was near-instant after the initial sync was complete."
"The solution is stable."
"The management from the switches to the hyper-convergence solutions are quite good and well-developed."
"The ROI we have seen from the high performance that has saved us time and money."
"The compute storage and virtualization come all in one box."
"The technical support has been very good for this solution."
"Cisco HyperFlex HX has improved the way our organization functions in the way that the time to deliver a VM takes me five minutes. In comparison, my cloud team's response is a couple of days based on all their overhead policies, procedures, and ticket requests. This is substantial."
"The UCS, which is by far the best management tool there is on the market, regardless of vendor. It's the only tool I see that gives you the opportunity to size and scale all the assets and capacity you have in your data center, from a unified view."
"The most valuable feature of Cisco HyperFlex HX is that it is self-contained."
"Acropolis AOS is scalable to nodes and the cloud."
"The tool is simple, stable, and easy to upgrade. It also requires few resources to manage, which simplifies our work. The solution's ease of upgrading is its valuable feature. AHV, provided by Nutanix, is excellent in performance and ease of use. It's based on an open-source product called KVM, which I also use for other services."
"Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure has a simple, user-friendly GUI, and I also like the remote recovery capabilities. It provides a single platform for managing databases."
"The solution remains stable across versions."
"Everything is core centralized on the UI."
"It consolidates our servers, and improves our electricity consumption and cooling as well."
"The most valuable feature is the one-click to update the firmware and software."
"In general, being able to patch and not having to pay for SanDisk is the best thing about hyper-converged."
"I would like to see more monitoring and alert tools."
"I would like to see more user-friendly dashboards in future versions."
"I'd love to see native export of metrics (via Prometheus or something of that nature) to allow us to get more metrics available on our existing dashboard software."
"I would love to see more vendor selection to be available for the HCA/vSAN appliances."
"Regular updates to the software are required, and subtle design changes would be welcome."
"The main thing I would like to see improved is the level of documentation."
"It would be great if it provided thin provisioned virtual disks."
"Geolocation could be better, for example, for site mirroring for DR purposes."
"It is quite new solution, so it is not very stable."
"If we could have just a single pane of glass, where everything can be managed through that one app, rather than have multiple apps, it would be great."
"The solution's price could be affordable."
"One of the biggest problems with HyperFlex HX is that if you want to adjust your solution in terms of processing power, memory, or disk capacity, you have to buy completely new hosts. From a financial perspective, it can be very expensive to do so, and from a legal perspective, there are all kinds of compliance issues we would have to sort out before buying any new solution or application."
"Maybe a better version is required to gather all of the information to allow HyperFlex to bring everything online more rapidly."
"I would like for them to develop integration with other technologies, like SD Access. It's still lacking an enhancement management player."
"Its price could be better."
"Cisco is a bit more challenging in terms of deployment. The admin must be knowledgeable in order to complete the task. Without that knowledge, it will be difficult to complete."
"This solution offers excellent functionality but could use a stronger interface."
"The price could be lower."
"If we can have certified compatibility with other companies, such as Oracle, then it would let us know that they function correctly together."
"Notifications could be improved as they're not currently very useful."
"The patch updates of Nutanix Acropolis could be improved. I'm work on the corporate side, but I get feedback from our IT team that patch updates and other updates are taking a significantly longer time. This definitely needs to be resolved. We are in discussion with Nutanix regarding certain configuration issues we are having, so maybe something can be changed to ease these patch updates."
"The storage and back-up facilities could be improved. We need day-to-day encrypting of the database."
"One disadvantage of Nutanix Acropolis AOS is it doesn't support external storage. Connecting external SAN storage to Nutanix, it's not supported."
"We have a team that does the implementation of the solution for our customers, it is better to have professionals handle the process."
More Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) Pricing and Cost Advice →
Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series is ranked 8th in HCI with 90 reviews while Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) is ranked 2nd in HCI with 194 reviews. Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series is rated 8.0, while Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series writes "A fast and easy deployment that allows secure access to our medical applications ". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) writes "A powerful solution with easy deployment, upgrades, and management". Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series is most compared with VMware vSAN, VxRail, Dell PowerFlex, HPE SimpliVity and Dell vSAN Ready Nodes, whereas Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) is most compared with VMware vSAN, VxRail, HPE SimpliVity, VMware vSphere and Proxmox VE. See our Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series vs. Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) report.
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With Nutanix you have the freedom of choice. You can deploy it with several server hardware vendors or completely in the cloud.
I don’t know Hyperflex at heart, though.
Also, support at Nutanix is outstanding.
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 hyper-converged infrastructure at scale. We looked into it but then ultimately chose Nutanix Acropolis.
We liked Hyperflex’s virtualization feature and the unified network fabric it provides. The Integrated Managed Controller was a nice feature to have. It is expandable, stable, and has good redundancy. If you require more processor cores per box, Cisco HyperFlex is a good solution for you. Support will depend on the type of contract you have, with some requests taken care of immediately and others taking longer according to the engineer’s expertise.
While Hyperflex is designed for any company size, I wouldn’t recommend them for small businesses. It also requires a solid knowledge of Cisco products, as the UI can be difficult to manage. Upgrading to a newer version can also be cumbersome and could use some improvement.
We chose Nutanix because it is easier to use and is more cost-effective. Nutanix allows us to deploy, run and scale applications both on-premises and in the cloud. It has excellent support. You can log the query straight to a technical expert, which is good if you have staff not familiar with AOS. It is easy to scale by adding new nodes, and the company is constantly adding new features.
Nutanix is not for everyone, though. The Nutanix Cloud System can be complex to maneuver when at the command line or when troubleshooting.
Conclusions
Nutanix is better for medium-sized companies and when you need a cost-effective solution. Cisco Hyperflex is a complete solution but is better suited for large enterprises. It works better if you are already a Cisco user.