Nutanix AHV Virtualization Reviews

Nutanix AHV Virtualization is used for the migration from the physical to the virtual.

Nutanix AHV Virtualization has good performance and can be used for backup and disaster.

It would be better if the solution's replication to another site could be efficiently optimized.

I have worked with Nutanix AHV Virtualization since 2015.

Nutanix AHV Virtualization is a stable solution.

Nutanix AHV Virtualization is a very scalable solution. Most of our customers for Nutanix AHV Virtualization are small and medium-level businesses.

The solution’s initial setup is easy.

Around 15 engineers are needed to deploy the solution.

Nutanix AHV Virtualization's Series 1000 is cheaper than other competitors. If you start to use the Series 3000, it'll be the same or sometimes higher. We have to pay a yearly licensing fee for the solution. Clients must pay for another license if they want to use more features.

VMware vSAN is better than Nutanix AHV Virtualization because it improves every year.

The solution's maintenance depends on the project, but I think one person is enough for one cluster.

Before choosing Nutanix AHV Virtualization, users should know their workload.

Overall, I rate Nutanix AHV Virtualization a seven out of ten.

We majorly use Nutanix AHV Virtualization for server consolidation. 

This product stands out for its user-friendly interface, intuitive design, and responsive UI. It offers AVH features comparable to Nutanix but at a more cost-effective price point.

It should focus on providing more detailed and helpful error messages. One area we'd like to see enhanced is better support for guest VMs, especially in a heterogeneous environment. However, there are no specific additional features that come to mind for the next release.

I have been using Nutanix AHV Virtualization for six years.

It is stable with very few incidents of crashing or requiring reboots. I would rate it 8 out of 10.

It is scalable and would rate it 8 out of 10. Almost 50% of our users use this and belong from medium sized enterprises.

The initial setup can be rated at five. It was more complex compared to other solutions like VMware, which had additional steps such as running foundation and configuring settings.The deployment process involves preparing the hardware, ensuring it's in place, and then following a straightforward process of powering on, rebooting, and installing the necessary components. The preparation phase includes sizing the environment, gathering information about networks, and connections. Once everything is in place, deploying the solution is relatively quick and straightforward, especially when compared to other devices.

I would rate pricing a six out of ten, since it is affordable. The price is fixed but requires additional costs for additional features

I recommend thorough research and understanding of its capabilities before making a decision. Consider your specific needs and, if needed, try the community edition for a proof of concept. Overall, I rate the product an 8/10

The solution provides us with a platform to integrate all the hardware products. We can integrate the tool with VMware. Integration is the most valuable feature of the product.

The support must be improved. Other technologies like Dell have their own service centers and different types of SLAs. Nutanix’s support team is not very efficient compared to others.

I resell the solution.

I rate the product’s stability a nine out of ten.

I rate the product’s scalability a nine out of ten.

The initial setup is easy and seamless. The deployment method depends on the customers’ requirements. We can deploy the solution both on the cloud and on-premise. The hardware is on-premise.

The solution’s pricing is relatively fair. It could be improved, though.

I will recommend the tool to others. It is hardware-agnostic and vendor-agnostic. We work with all technologies. The tool provides a platform to integrate all technologies together. Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

There are a lot of use cases of Nutanix AHV Virtualization involving general IT workloads, I/O workloads, and big data workloads.

Most of the features provided by the solution are good, but in general, all of the product's features are identical. The performance and stability of the solution are good.

The integration capabilities of Nutanix AHV Virtualization is an area with certain shortcomings that need improvement.

Nutanix AHV Virtualization is still a new product in the market with which integrating many products, especially Citrix products, is not possible.

I have been using Nutanix AHV Virtualization for four to five years.

It is a stable solution. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

My company caters to seven or eight customers who use Nutanix AHV Virtualization.

Whenever a customer reaches out to the technical support team with a problem, they understand the customer's use cases and suggest the most beneficial solution.

The initial setup of Nutanix AHV Virtualization is straightforward.

The solution can be deployed in two days maximum.

The solution is deployed on an on-premises model. The solution can be deployed on the cloud as well to get to the varying use cases.

The deployment process consists of mounting the upgraded framework and installing Nutanix's package to get it ready to function. Once you complete the aforementioned procedure, you install Nutanix vCenter and create the cluster. The solution doesn't require any extra hypervisors that need to be deployed.

Just a few technical people are required to deploy and maintain the solution.

Nutanix AHV Virtualization comes with a built-in hypervisor, so you don't need to buy an extra license from Nutanix if you already have other Nutanix products. Nutanix AHV Virtualization is an affordable product. I rate the product's price an eight on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is costly. I don't think there are any extra costs in addition to the standard licensing fees of the solution.

I believe that Nutanix AHV Virtualization has good features, so the solution is in good shape in the market.

I recommend the solution to those who plan to use it. Nutanix AHV Virtualization mostly meets the requirements of its customers.

I rate the overall solution a nine out of ten.

The cluster is used for software tests, evaluations, or migration projects driven by Nutanix Calm. We needed a simpler approach with a higher grade of automation for testing purposes. As I already stated in my Nutanix Calm review, Nutanix Calm lets us do this. AHV was used so that we would not have any additional spend on a hypervisor. VM management does not require an additional management server like vCenter. Sizing the solution has always taken into account the need for Nutanix Controller-VMs (CVM) - the main part of AOS - to form the cluster and present storage to the hypervisor.

Nutanix AHV is the invisible hypervisor integrated into Nutanix AOS. Like with any other Nutanix solution, they do API-first. This way, it can be tightly integrated. Management is done through Nutanix Prism Web-Management. We deploy our machines using Nutanix Calm, so we get to have standardized VMs while tailored to the use case on hand.

Updates are done with the Lifecycle Manager (LCM) which too is integrated into Prism. It takes care of most cross-dependencies between Prism, Calm, AOS, AHV, and Firmware Updates.

AHV helps us because it is a no-brainer in regard to management.

There are no specific features we would consider special. It is the simple non-consideration we get with this product that's great. It just works. You can just do all the other things you are wrapped up with, so you can focus on anything but AHV. It is a hypervisor, not some exciting application server you have to tend to regularly. Therefore, the most valuable feature of AHV is "having time for other things".

As stated above, the lack of a need for something like vCenter has its perks, too. It is rather cool to have and underscores Nutanix's approach of "invisible infrastructure".

Since it is tightly integrated, you want to have it as a single installable thing. But that is against its nature. The tight integration with AOS makes it what it is. AHV is mostly on par with ESXi. Since it comes together with AOS you must compare it to ESXI with VSAN to get the complete picture. It can do vGPU just like ESXi, can move VMs just like ESXi, and snapshots won't make it "stun" the VM as it does on ESXi.

If you ever have a problem, hit up Nutanix Support. I've never had better support. Just do a Proof-of-Concept and have them wow you.

Just to be clear: If you have the need for special hardware like FibreChannel-Cards or such and there is no networked-way around it (such as you could work with USB Dongles via an HW-Dongle-Server of network), you have to use a separate hypervisor. That said, you could still present NFS from the Nutanix Cluster to VMware or use an iSCSI-Connection in-guest or in-host from the Nutanix Cluster.

We started using the solution back in 2019 with AHV. We still have our production system running with VMware.

We never had any issues regarding stability. There were a few vendor warnings (aka Nutanix field advisory) that mentioned possible stability issues in certain scenarios, depending on the customer's setup.

As with any solution, fixes are made and only an update away. Stability is always critical to a solution so you have to keep all components on a compatible level. To achieve that Nutanix introduced Life Cycle Manager (LCM) to help with this. LCM won't show any versions where critical issues are known to keep you from getting an issue just from updating. You always get a target version that is safe and compatible with your running components. 

To make it your own choice between safety and new features they have STS and LTS as known from other software. STS (Short Term Service) versions are updated very frequently and you can (and to some degree have to) update every few weeks and get the newest features. If you are not so keen on updating that frequently, you just stick to LTS. 

Alas, AHV is updated independently from AOS. So whether you are on LTS or STS with AOS you can just upgrade to a compatible AHV version with LCM, just make sure you have only AHV selected.

If you had (like me) an ESXi cluster paired with various components from NetApp, you really appreciate the Nutanix LCM that comes with it. I have seen more purple-screen-of-death than I'd like to admit. However, I've had nothing like that with AHV. 

All the Nutanix field advisories from the vendor are there to help you keep it running. Nutanix Support helps clear out any questions whatsoever.

Scalability is the true nature of a true HCI solution. You can scale as you like. If you just need storage, you would put storage nodes that are blocked for running VMs on. 

The support team is superb. Activating remote support on ticket creation gives them a head start at working on your issue. Ticket pickup-time is great and the support staff is polite and knowledgeable.

Positive

We just had some VM templates on ESXi but that did not cut it. Not by far. Handcrafting test VMs was just too cumbersome.

As easy as it gets. The servers came pre-installed. You just update to the desired version to start with.

We set everything up with a consultant from our local Nutanix Partner. His expertise was formidable.

Given an average of 2-5 days until a VM is ready before AHV and the free offering of the AHV hypervisor, that is difficult to calculate.

I'd advise users to get a proof-of-concept (POC) to evaluate the solution. Considering other HCI solutions, which AHV is a part of. The pricing is competitive with ESXi+vSAN.

Setup is done in a matter of hours. The longest part is racking it in the data center.

We had roughly 10 years of experience with ESX(i), so we knew what alternatives were out there.

This is for on-prem virtual infrastructure, for computing storage, and to apply the hyper-converged infrastructure concept while doing a lot of virtualization features, like HA, high availability, redundancy, and replication. We also do some reports and analyses based on utilization. The product has a lot of features.

There are many features we can leverage. 

The hyper-converged infrastructure concept is great. This is the best feature. I also like the high availability. This protects our workload against any failures, like a failure for load, or failure of a rack, drive, or network. It helps us create business continuity.

It's easy to set up.

The solution is stable.

It can scale well. 

Technical support has been helpful. 

I'm already looking into possibly adding micro-segmentation features. It will help control traffic better and make everything more secure. 

The solution can be pricey. 

I've been using the solution for seven years.

The stability has been good. It handles daily administrative tasks automatically. So far, there are no bugs or glitches, and it doesn't crash or freeze. 

We have around 1,000 people using the solution. 

It's scalable and easy to expand. 

It's easy to contact technical support. They are helpful.

I've also used VMware solutions. 

Both are basically the same. VMware is like Nutanix. Nutanix has an HCI feature. However, with VMware, we can use the vSAN. This is the same feature for hyper-converged infrastructure. That said, in VMware, you need a lot of licenses since every feature needs a license. In Nutanix, it's different. Everything is built into one product. 

The initial setup is pretty straightforward. However, it will depend on the design we go with. In our case, we needed just one week to get it deployed. 

The solution is a bit expensive. We pay a lot of money for S nodes. 

We're partners. 

While the solution is largely on-premises, we do have some infrastructure on AWS.

I'd rate the solution six out of ten.

I would recommend other companies deploy it. It's very powerful, whether it is on-prem or in the cloud. 

Our primary use case for this solution is utilizing it as a unified software. It's unified, easy to use and simplified. It has a lot of functionalities, such as replication and failovers, and we deploy it on-premises.

We have found the replication, analysis, and analytics tools valuable. It usually prompts when there is an impending issue that might occur. For example, if the failover is failing, or the remote site is down, it will alert you. The solution is very proactive and can even anticipate an issue that might occur. You can know in advance and be able to fix it.

The price of the solution can be improved.

We have been using this solution for one year.

The solution is stable.

The solution is scalable and there are currently 60 end users utilizing the solution. You can easily add resources. For example, when a server uses more resources, you can continuously optimize and reduce the server's resources, which uses less and the other, which employs more. It's very flexible and scalable, so you can take the flexibility you want. They are based on the usability and the resources of the infrastructure.

I rate customer service and support an eight out of ten. We had an issue and raised it with the Nutanix AHV Virtualization team, and they were able to resolve it. In addition, they have resolved any problems we request when we cannot manage them.

Positive

We previously used VMware and Hyper-V. However, we switched to this solution because of its flexibility, usability, and responsiveness. So, when you interact and have VMs running, or there's downtime or an issue, it usually transfers VMs from one node to another when there's an issue on one part of the node.

I didn't install this product, so I cannot comment on the setup. However, based on the research I've done with others, it's usually the same. It's efficient. The setup is efficient.

The licensing costs are a little bit expensive.

I rate the solution a ten out of ten, the solution is very good, but it could be cheaper. Nutanix AHV Virtualization is a very good solution, and I recommend it to anyone.

I've configured the solutions for two or three customers. It's my first time with Prism Central, Prism Element, and the CVM (Control Virtual Machine).

I haven't come across any limitations. Nutanix doesn't support externally attached storage through Fibre Channel.

However, Nutanix doesn't support Fibre Channel connectivity. This, in my opinion, is a weakness. For instance, it does not support Cyber Talent. To clarify, you cannot connect external Fibre Channel storage or NAS storage resources with Nutanix. However, VMware vSAN supports such solutions.

I have been using Nutanix AHV Virtualization for 2 to 3 years.

It is still working fine. However, when compared to VMware, I consider VMware to be more stable. I would rate the stability of Nutanix around 8.5 or 9 out of 10.

It is highly scalable, and I recommend it for larger companies. Adding nodes to expand clusters is straightforward. However, due to its cost, I don't recommend it for smaller companies as they might find it challenging to afford.

I'm highly satisfied with their support team.

My initial choice for high availability (HA) solutions is VMware ESXi. If someone asks for an alternative, my first recommendation is usually Dell EMC PowerFlex. In comparison to Nutanix AHV Virtualization, VMware ESXi has the advantage of supporting external storage, making it more flexible for integrating existing storage solutions. VMware ESXi is also perceived as more affordable than Nutanix AHV Virtualization.

They should make the product more competitive by working on their licensing model. Lowering the price would help make it more affordable.

I recommend using Nutanix AHV (Acropolis Hypervisor) for hyper-converged computing processes because of its simplicity in deployment and configuration. The platform also offers good support and is versatile, supporting various hypervisors such as VMware, Microsoft Hyper-V, and its native AHV. I would rate this product a 9.5 out of 10 overall.