Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs Rubrik comparison

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Executive Summary

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

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, Nutanix, VMware and others in HCI.
To learn more, read our detailed HCI Report (Updated: March 2024).
765,386 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
"Virtualizing data infrastructure with StarWind Virtual SAN improves efficiency and reduces operational costs.""Active-active work mode leads to true redundancy of storage and allows us to distribute the load between multiple nodes.""Their support staff is comprised of true experts who can also communicate clearly.""The failover protection and the ability to expand storage and nodes with no downtime are by far the best physical features we have benefited from.""The support team is available to solve any problem efficiently.""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.""The fact that I can now count on a true failover solution is what is most appealing.""StarWind Virtual SAN is a highly flexible solution, as it can be deployed on physical servers or on top of virtual machines running on hypervisors such as VMware vSphere and Microsoft Hyper-V."

More StarWind Virtual SAN Pros →

"This is a complete, very user-friendly product.""The most valuable features are the user-friendly dashboard and that we don't need to move resources manually when adding new nodes into running clusters.""Some of the most valuable features of Nutanix Acropolis are that it's free from Nutanix and it's very stable.""It has seamless expandability.""In general, being able to patch and not having to pay for SanDisk is the best thing about hyper-converged.""Its most valuable feature is simplicity. It is so easy to use. Upgrades are easy. It is easy in terms of disaster recovery, failover, database provisioning, and reporting. Everything about it is just simple.""They have one of the best technical supports in my experience.""The most valuable feature I have found to be the Acropolis Hypervisor (AHV)."

More Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) Pros →

"The live mounting and compatibility of different operating systems is great.""The most valuable feature has been the Live Mount feature.""They have a great PowerShell module and easy mediums to speak to the people who create and enhance them.""What I like about Rubrik is its strong focus on security, particularly in combating ransomware threats.""The solution’s ransomware recovery, from a security perspective, is one of the biggest features of the product. We don't have to worry about the operational complexity of air-gapped backups and can rely more on the immutability approach. It is a highly valued feature in this solution.""Product support team is excellent, with issues typically being resolved on the same day.""In the event of any issues or questions, the support is top-notch. We rarely need to use support, but when they are needed, they are always quick to respond and very knowledgeable.""The most valuable feature is the archive to cloud location and the automation around the PowerShell script. There are also reports and dashboards."

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Cons
"This product would benefit from having automated alerting functionality.""I would love to see more vendor selection to be available for the HCA/vSAN appliances.""They need to improve the speed of the interfaces, thus allowing for better traffic on the network.""Proper training sessions should be included with the licensing.""The documentation can be better for the free tier.""New versions of this solution should be tested more thoroughly before the release as we had a few problems with one version due to a bug.""Geolocation could be better, for example, for site mirroring for DR purposes.""Sometimes documentation on their site can be out of date."

More StarWind Virtual SAN Cons →

"The new features are not free. You need to pay for each feature.""I'm not very technical, so I don't know if there are any features that are really lacking. Our customers seem pleased with it, and I haven't heard of any downsides.""The solution doesn't support older systems, which can be a problem for some organizations who wish to implement it. It became a problem for us due to the fact that some of our systems are older.""There are other services that Nutanix has that could be improved, but I'm not very familiar with the other services of Nutanix, such as Era and Flow. However, they seem a bit hard for us to implement and integrate with the Nutanix Acropolis AOS and other Nutanix tools. We would not dare to implement those other Nutanix solutions into Nutanix Acropolis AOS right now. The implementation of that tool could be the problem, I am a bit hesitant to implement the other tools into Nutanix Acropolis AOS.""One thing to keep in mind is that only experts can use it. It has to be in the proper hands, instead of going to XYZ people just for some cost savings. So lift-and-shift and migrations might be tricky, because it is not like a VMware.""I would like them to update their licensing to provide more features with their basic license.""The productivity and work efficiency of Nutanix Acropolis AOS could improve.""This solution would be improved with built-in integration with Rubrik."

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"Rubrik needs to continue to listen to their customers and what they want/need, not just care about money and the bottom line.""The product’s user interface needs improvement.""It is a lot more expensive than other solutions, but you get what you pay for.""The reporting, in particular the customization of reports, needs to be improved.""The web interface could benefit from some improvement, particularly in terms of alerting and dashboard clarity. The cloud web interface is somewhat confusing and could use more development attention. Additionally, it's essential to ensure that local on-premise management options remain available alongside cloud-based solutions, as internet availability can affect backup management. Regarding features, cross-hypervisor restore functionality would be a valuable addition, allowing for greater flexibility in restoring VMs across different environments.""Could be improved from an analytics point of view.""I would like to see the entire Office 365 product suite backed up by Rubrik. For instance, they do SharePoint and Exchange online, but they don't back up Microsoft Teams. So, I would like to see more of the Office 365 suite added into their backup capabilities.""It is already very well furnished, but live mounts for Nutanix AHV would be amazing."

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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 →

  • "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 →

  • "When we compared the overall costs, Rubrik was cheaper because the engineering and operational side required FAR LESS dedication. So, all in all, they actually were cheaper than the competition."
  • "It’s simple, straightforward, and we were able to see 50% hard savings."
  • "The setup cost is a bit high, but the solution is an all-in-one solution."
  • "Rubrik is an all inclusive price. No additional implementation costs or licencing."
  • "The cost was less than our previous provider, and this is a much better product."
  • "Rubrik is not cheap. Hopefully, you can archive your data on cheap storage to keep the investment minimal."
  • "The product is not cheap, but for good reason. It simply works and is very fast."
  • "It is a great value, but its cost is still a bit high."
  • More Rubrik 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:It is easy to use and can monitor system synchronization and check Storage status. StarWind Virtual SAN (VSAN) combines… more »
    Top Answer:The cost of this is less than you expect. Since they're selling a software stack, you do need to consider your own… 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 »
    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 »
    Top Answer:Veeam Backup & Replication provides an easy-to-set-up solution to the issue of data storage and recovery. Setting it up… more »
    Top Answer:What I like about Rubrik is its strong focus on security, particularly in combating ransomware threats.
    Top Answer:Rubrik is quite expensive for small businesses. The licensing cost varies based on factors like data volume, required… 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.

    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.

    Rubrik is a backup and recovery solution that can be used as a converged data management platform for physical, virtual, and hybrid environments. The solution works to protect your data and applications from ransomware, operational failures, and rogue employees, and also helps your organization simplify data management and accelerate cloud mobility. In addition, Rubrik is designed for cloud integration and infinite scalability to enable hybrid cloud for all enterprises.

    Rubrik’s software is also built to support most operating systems, databases, hypervisors, clouds, and SaaS applications, and the solution integrates with on-premises hardware if necessary.

    Rubrik Features

    Rubrik has many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:

    • Instant recovery
    • Live-restore
    • Single console
    • Automatic incremental backups
    • Policy-driven automation
    • Instant search
    • Live Mount capability
    • Compliance and capacity customized reporting
    • Quick and efficient snapshots
    • Multiple backup destinations
    • Deduplication and file compression
    • Intuitive web interface
    • Good performance
    • Easy to use
    • Low maintenance
    • Flexible deployment

    Rubrik Benefits

    There are several benefits to implementing Rubrik. Some of the biggest advantages the solution offers include:

    • Single policy engine: Because Rubrik is policy-driven, it functions through a single policy engine that orchestrates service level agreements (SLAs) across the data lifecycle. Management is automated through one programmatic interface.
    • Customized reports: With Rubrik, you can create customized reports and utilize data visualizations.
    • Advanced security: Regardless of location, data remains secure in transit and at rest throughout its lifecycle, as it is stored and backed up.
    • Compliance: With Rubrik, you gain granular role-based access control while automating compliance reporting, which helps complete various industry and internal audits.

    Reviews from Real Users

    Below are some reviews and helpful feedback written by Rubrik users.

    PeerSpot user Chadd B., System Administrator at a manufacturing company, says, “The solution is easy to use with an intuitive web interface, helpful support, good performance, and saves us time. The most valuable feature is the Instant Recovery, where we can restore a VM or SQL database or any server or application, and have it up and running on their appliance within a few seconds. The VM backup and the SQL backup are blazingly fast for both backup and recovery.”

    A Storage Administrator at a healthcare company explains that the solution “Cut our backup management time significantly, and the near-instant recovery reduces our downtime. He also comments that “The scalability is wonderful. That is one of our biggest advantages with this.”

    Burhan S., Systems Engineer at Harvard University, mentions, "There is a live-restore feature, their Live Mount, and the way it works we can instantly recover a VM, a past backup, to be directly attached to our VMware environment. Rubrik will act as a disk for it. It's like an instant restore. Within a few minutes our VM is up and running. And then, if we want to restore it, we can just migrate it to our actual storage."

    Kevin M., Head Of Operations at University of Reading, states, “The solution’s SLA-based functionality means we don't have to manually manage backup windows, and recovery times have been notably reduced. Its web interface is really easy to use. It's just click and go. It's fast and intuitive. We've never had any problems in navigating.”

    Offer
    30-days for free

    Try it today

    Learn more about Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)
    Learn more about Rubrik
    Sample Customers
    Baker Tilly BVI, CMS Internet, Board Harpeth Hall School
    St. Lukes Health System, the City of Seattle, Yahoo! Japan, Sligro, Empire Life, Hyundai AUS, and many others.
    Driscoll's, Red Hawk Casino, Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg LLP, Wabash National, Chateau Ste. Michelle Wine Estates, Galliker Transport & Logistics
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Manufacturing Company10%
    Construction Company8%
    Educational Organization8%
    Computer Software Company8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company18%
    Manufacturing Company9%
    Government9%
    Financial Services Firm8%
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company17%
    Manufacturing Company10%
    Comms Service Provider10%
    Financial Services Firm9%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization26%
    Computer Software Company14%
    Financial Services Firm7%
    Government6%
    REVIEWERS
    University13%
    Comms Service Provider11%
    Financial Services Firm11%
    Healthcare Company10%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company13%
    Financial Services Firm11%
    Government10%
    Manufacturing Company8%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business64%
    Midsize Enterprise22%
    Large Enterprise13%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business25%
    Midsize Enterprise17%
    Large Enterprise58%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business36%
    Midsize Enterprise30%
    Large Enterprise34%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business17%
    Midsize Enterprise36%
    Large Enterprise47%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business24%
    Midsize Enterprise24%
    Large Enterprise53%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business21%
    Midsize Enterprise16%
    Large Enterprise63%
    Buyer's Guide
    HCI
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, Nutanix, VMware and others in HCI. Updated: March 2024.
    765,386 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) is ranked 2nd in HCI with 192 reviews while Rubrik is ranked 4th in Backup and Recovery with 82 reviews. Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) is rated 8.6, while Rubrik is rated 9.2. The top reviewer of Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) writes "A powerful solution with easy deployment, upgrades, and management". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Rubrik writes "Easy to use with minimal training required, innovative, good support". Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) is most compared with VMware vSAN, VxRail, HPE SimpliVity, VMware vSphere and Hyper-V, whereas Rubrik is most compared with Veeam Backup & Replication, Cohesity DataProtect, Commvault Cloud, Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) and Zerto.

    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.