The main use case for Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) is to create a hybrid cloud experience. It serves as a turnkey solution where we can add management features to get the same experience we have with an NCM Nutanix product on-premises, even if we run Nutanix in the public cloud.

I work for an IT distributor where we sell products for virtualization and data centers, with Nutanix being our main solution for this kind of business. We resell Nutanix for other companies from various industries or markets in Brazil.

The setup of Nutanix is very easy. The overall complexity of the solution is much less, and it's a solution that provides freedom of choice. We can run Nutanix on any cloud, on any hardware with any hypervisor. 

The cost governance features of Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) are some of the most important features in this solution. We have features that help customers spend less on public cloud infrastructure. We have the observability of these costs, attribute quotas or chargeback policies, and with this kind of cost management, the expenditure of IT infrastructure in the public cloud could be significantly less so that the return on investment can be very relevant to companies that spend substantial money with the public cloud.

The console of the Nutanix solution has various reports that we can fulfill and use a SaaS-like solution for Nutanix that allows us to input our expenditure profiles of the public clouds and then compare that with the cost that we might have with the on-premise solutions. 

The main area that could be improved with Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) is the cost. This is a license that we can use as a complement for the NCI product, which is the main product of Nutanix. Here in Brazil, we have a total cost of ownership based on the NCI, and sometimes the NCM additions make the product a little higher when we compare it with the public clouds. We are much cheaper when we compare with the Broadcom vCloud solution, but not as competitive when we compare with AWS or Google when these kinds of solutions are built into the platform.

I have worked for about 10 years with the Nutanix portfolio: NCM, NCI, and NUS.

These solutions are already deployed in a high availability way with load balancing. Any problem with these machines does not compromise the structure of what we have built within. The solution has very high availability with no problems.

In terms of scalability, it is really high. The threshold is not about NCM; it's the size of your on-premises or cloud infrastructure. As long as your AWS or public cloud workloads can grow, the solution is already set up to manage it.

I would rate their customer service with Nutanix a nine out of ten. The support of the Nutanix team is great. The complexity of the matters might make it slightly lower, but even then, this is higher than the average of the market.

Positive

I have never used a similar solution in my company. I have only studied the solution from Broadcom.

The deployment of the Nutanix solution is instantaneous. These solutions are packaged in the Nutanix Prism Central that is a piece of software already deployed in the cluster. It requires only the setup of the policies that we want to have, the creation of the playbooks that we're interested in, and the setup of the cost profiles and the quotas or the project. The setup is already done when we deploy the Prism Central solution, which is a main managed solution for this kind of cluster.

Using NCM's built-in playbooks has freed up time for my IT team. We have saved more than 50% of the time. We can create the experience of scale-out and elasticity that we have in the public cloud, provide this to on-premises solutions, and it saves lots of time in micromanagement of the VM profiles.

Regarding the speed of outcomes from their low-code automation, some companies have longer cycles of deployment of applications of infrastructure, and time is money. Once we can deploy large solutions with CI/CD solutions and integrate a DevOps-like flow of production, we can reduce this time and accelerate the value of the solution for the infrastructure. Nutanix gives that with the turnkey solution. We do not have the complexity to assemble a CI/CD solution with open-source solutions or multiple products. This is a complete flow of work for DevOps, integrated even with the Kubernetes or containers infrastructures that can accelerate this kind of deployment significantly, varying with the profile of the company that utilizes it. My company is not a development company, so this does not have this kind of value since we do not develop, but I can see the value that this feature has for companies that build software in-house. 

I would rate Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) a nine out of ten.

The use cases are related to infrastructure migration from VMware to Nutanix. I have exposure to the Dell XC series, which has a Nutanix hypervisor installed. It consists of containers along with the Nutanix infrastructure using Dell hardware.

The licensing is much cheaper than other competitors such as VMware, Cisco UCS, or Microsoft Hyper-V for on-premises data centers. It is very user-friendly and can be managed through Prism Central, a centralized console that allows management of multiple clusters. 

Due to the recent conversion from VMware to Broadcom, Broadcom has increased their prices five times the existing rates. Most customers are transferring to Nutanix infrastructure because it is scalable, reliable, and performance-focused. The main differentiator from competitors is its cost-effectiveness, and customers have been running and upgrading their technologies for 10 to 15 years. In terms of client satisfaction, performance, upgrades, or protection against ransomware attacks and vulnerabilities, they are regularly releasing patches and upgrading the system. These activities contribute to customer satisfaction and differentiate them from competitors.

Nutanix needs more cloud collaborations.There are many cloud providers currently available. Integration with the Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) Unified Storage or Nutanix cloud platform should be improved for better containerization. This is a major drawback in configuration. Other competitors are developing solutions such as VMware on AWS, VMware on Google Cloud, and Azure VMware solutions. 

I have more than seven years of experience in Nutanix. My core expertise is in VMware and Nutanix.

It is highly scalable. Most customers utilize the scalability capabilities for running and expanding their IT infrastructure as needed. The key aspects include mix-match hardware and hyper-converged infrastructure, combining compute, storage, and network in a single platform. No other competitor provides such scalable infrastructure. It is software-defined, cloud-integrated, and simple to manage with automated one-touch upgrade capabilities.

They have their vendor site at support.nutanix.com. Users require an order ID or unique ID to log in, which can be individual or team-based. Support is available for software, hardware, upgrades, firmware, BIOS, Dell PT agent, and software entities through support.nutanix.com.

I would rate their support a nine out of ten because sometimes you struggle to get the engineers assigned to a particular issue, especially in situations like production downtime. Although there are Technical Account Managers (TAMs) and resident engineers available, they may not always be fully equipped to handle on-site troubleshooting effectively. Reducing resolution time would be beneficial for both the client and Nutanix.

We use external storage including Dell XtremIO, Data Domains, and I have exposure to VMware vSAN for storage solutions.

When comparing it to the other options, the licensing cost is significantly lower. It's a software-defined platform that offers block storage through a single management interface. Overall, this solution is more cost-effective than its competitors, which highlights the advantages of a unified storage platform.

With all details and resources available, including DNS entries, IPs, subnets, and subnet masks, the initial setup takes two hours from start to finish. Expansion of new containers takes approximately 40 to 45 minutes.

Implementation requires team effort. The process involves racking and stacking in the data center, network engineering according to cut sheet plans, cabling configuration, and hardware setup for HPE or Dell servers. After hardware setup, either AHV hypervisor or ESXi needs to be installed, followed by primary virtual machine configuration for Prism Central or Prism Element. The implementation scope depends on infrastructure size, whether it's a three-node, four-node, or six-node cluster, which is specified in the cut sheet. Separate teams handle costing, implementation, deployment, and operations.

Pricing is based on the Acropolis Operating System (AOS), not on the hypervisor level. While VMware costs depend on ESXi hypervisor pricing, the AHV hypervisor for Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) is free. Customers only pay for the AOS platform. This differs from other competitors such as Microsoft Hyper-V and Citrix, which have their own licensing costs for servers and cloud platforms.

There are currently many platforms available, particularly with Nutanix. We can utilize Nutanix with Kubernetes as well as on AWS. For automation purposes, we require DevOps and machine learning to automate tasks. For example, if you want to delete snapshots on servers, automation is necessary, and this can be achieved through machine learning or DevOps practices. In the current environment, there are various scripting options available, including PowerShell and other non-specified scripts. If we focus specifically on the DevOps perspective, it's essential for me to learn these new technologies.

Regarding machine learning, I don’t have much exposure specifically to unified storage. However, with Nutanix Cloud platform, I have experience with data services and secure data services. From an infrastructure standpoint, I have over seven years of experience in hybrid and multi-cloud environments on the Nutanix platform.

In terms of cybersecurity, there are multiple external appliances available for unified storage. To focus on the Nutanix platform specifically, Nutanix Unified Storage has several features. For instance, Nutanix Lens is one tool available. Moreover, when consolidating your Nutanix infrastructure, you have access to various data protection, data analytics, and secure backup options. It's a combined effort involving Data Lens and other tools available in the market.

Data Lens essentially helps manage big data access across various geopolitical areas through data centers. We need to ensure compliance with our policies regarding security, especially concerning ransomware. In essence, it's a security solution offering that addresses vulnerabilities, data resiliency, and analytical tools that we utilize for security purposes. I had the opportunity to work on Data Lens about two or three months ago for a project.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) is a unified cloud management platform that provides automation, cost optimization, self-service provisioning, and security across hybrid and multi-cloud environments. Prism Center manages Nutanix infrastructure, monitoring, alerts, and lifecycle, while Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) adds advanced capabilities such as cost governance, automation, self-service, and security, as it is built on top of the Prism Center. It simplifies multi-cloud management and reduces cloud costs with optimization tools while enabling self-service and faster provisioning, improving security and compliance, and automating manual IT operations.

Regarding speed, Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) automates deployment and includes logging task execution, such as blueprint deployment steps and runbook, which is helpful for debugging performance analysis for application performance and logging during automation. Because we have multiple nodes, we can use automations within two to three minutes. When running the automation script, we can deploy and collect the logs within two to three minutes. Without using automation scripts, it would take more time and effort for collecting requirement data and requirement deployments. Manual management is very difficult, so we develop scripting automation for deployment, collecting logs, and health checks, making it very speedy at two to three minutes.

We use automation for logging, collecting logs, and checking monitoring. The automation engine is powerful, similar to Calm, which is for automated application deployment, and I am using it in two and three projects. For expansion, we can use automation such as infrastructure and Terraform. Unified cloud storage is a unified software platform, such as NCM and VMware.

We can explain the platform types: unified SaaS, on-prem, and hybrid cloud management. VMware uses enterprise-grade hybrid management, and for infrastructure automation, Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) uses Calm, blueprint, and runbook, while VMware uses infrastructure automation, blueprint, and workflow. For self-service protocol, NCM uses integrated multi-tenancy, but VMware is customizable. For cost governance, NCM uses Beam for multi-cloud cost tracking, but VMware requires vRealize Operations.

To compare Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) and other components simply, NCM is a unified platform offering automation, cost governance, and operations through the UI. Compared to vRealize or Terraform, NCM stands out for simplicity and integrated cost analysis with Beam, and more benefits on one-click application with blueprint called Calm. However, tools such as Terraform offer more flexibility for DevOps-heavy use cases, and VMware may fit better in an all-VMware environment.

Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) is a very scalable deployment performance tool. The best features and key areas for improvement in Nutanix management are the user interface, enhancing onboarding with tool tips and guided steps, blueprint, and version control through Git integration. These are key areas to improve, along with third-party integration and license simplicity. Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) is very powerful, but it can be improved in areas such as UI usability, blueprint version, deeper cloud integration, and enhanced reporting by adding more AI-driven automation.

Five plus years

I rate stability as 8 out of 10 because I have deployed multiple projects, and neither my customers nor my team have complained.

I rate the technical support as 9 out of 10 because I know it very well.

I am working with VMware and Microsoft Hyper-V.

Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) pricing depends on customer requirements and is based on licensing. It is relatively inexpensive, falling in the medium price range.

I recommend Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) to others because it is a very good platform for organizations that want to simplify hybrid or multi-cloud operations. It helps improve cost efficiency, which is crucial as customers check for that first. It improves efficiency and automates IT tasks, which benefits customers significantly. It enhances governance and security compliance, all from a single management platform. The customer base ranges from 3,000 to 5,000 users. My overall rating for this solution is 8 out of 10.

My use case with Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) includes cluster management, cluster initiation, VM management, VM capacity, VM deployment, and day-to-day operations, as well as patch lifecycle management of clusters and the AHV.

Compared to other cloud management solutions such as VMware, Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) offers a single pane of glass where a single service can manage everything, thanks to Prism Central and Prism Element metrics. The security level is a significant advantage because Nutanix supports multi-cloud from Prism Central and provides one-click upgrades through LCM. 

Additionally, we utilize a replication factor to rebuild data during disk or host failures to maintain high availability of production servers and workloads. Using the playbooks in Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) significantly helps free up time for other tasks, as we encounter anomalies in our enterprise environment. The playbooks allow us to troubleshoot issues automatically without manual intervention, which in turn saves time.

As a professional certified in Nutanix for multi-cloud infrastructure, I believe there is room for improvement in Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) regarding the data rebuilding process with the replication factor. It currently does not support parallelism, which results in longer rebuild times compared to external storage such as Dell PowerFlex, which has faster data rebuild speeds. My concern is that rebuilding data in Nutanix can take from one to 20 hours based on size, whereas Dell PowerFlex minimizes downtime. Despite achieving usable storage in Nutanix, I would advocate for enhancements in the parallelism of data rebuilding. The data rebuilding process could potentially be simplified, although improvements have been made by removing the RAID concept for a distributed architecture. In enterprise environments, reliance on storage remains high, and increasing the speed of the rebuild process would be beneficial. Those storage aspects can definitely be improved.

I have been using Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) for three to four years.

I would rate the stability of Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) a ten out of ten, as it provides multiple features, including disaster recovery with a one-minute SLA, which is superior compared to other vendors that typically offer 15-minute SLAs. 

I would rate the scalability of Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) a nine out of ten, primarily because of concerns regarding the data rebuilding process. 

I would rate it a ten out of ten for technical support. 

Positive

It's easy. With a proper plan, we can achieve it.

Pricing for Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) is based on the applications and workloads we use; it is somewhat high, but it provides a good subscription model compared to VMware's core per product pricing. I prefer Nutanix because it reduces the burdens by not having to manage separate VMs or services for storage and automation, which makes it a favorable option.

Currently, I am working on Nutanix Cloud, and in the future, we will be merging with Azure using LCM. In my organization, approximately 30 to 35 people work with Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) as part of a team of around 60 that operates 24/7, including SMEs. 

We are a customer and also a partner. Our clients include very large businesses, particularly big online retailers in the US. I currently work in L2 and L3 level support, focusing on SME-level tasks and collaborating with senior members to leverage my knowledge and learning. 

I find the future of hybrid management crucial, and Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) plays an integral role in maintaining hybrid solutions with its software-defined hyper-converged infrastructure, making it my choice over other clouds. 

Overall, I would rate the solution an eight out of ten.

Our main use case for Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) was initially to run away from the high cost of VMware, and after that, we realized that if we compare apples and apples, there is a technical advantage in Nutanix. The technology is newer regarding storage management, and we appreciate the path that Nutanix was taking with NKE. Now with Nutanix, we know the path we are taking for NKP, whereas VMware's Tanzu was proprietary, requiring us to fully commit to VMware or nothing.

The best features of Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) start with the combination of cost and what is really under the hood, and it basically does the same thing that VMware does. The cost is better, and we appreciate the options available for storage—it allows for object storage, and the management of the storage underneath Nutanix is much more flexible than VMware. Additionally, we can have another platform as a service that is not available in VMware.

Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) assists my team in addressing our current automation needs while planning for future expansion by allowing us to use Ansible for automation and configuration management. We are planning to gradually replace VMware with Nutanix and are using the same tools, such as Ansible, to deploy. Although we are not using the native blueprint automation from Nutanix, we plan to integrate open-source tools such as Terraform for Kubernetes automation while using Nutanix native tools for implementations.

In my opinion, Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) can be improved as the NKP product needs to mature a little more. This is a natural process, and while the hypervisor is mature, I would like to see more maturity in the products on top of the hypervisor, such as databases and object storage. The main reason I give it an 8 or 9 rating is that a few things need to mature, such as NKP and the object storage. While our primary reason for choosing Nutanix was for mission-critical applications and Kubernetes, I believe there are issues that need addressing. However, I see they have a roadmap for improvements, especially with the hypervisor itself, which I would rate a perfect 10, while the new products and plugins need enhancement.

I have two years of experience with Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) in real production.

Regarding stability, I find Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) to be very stable and suitable for running mission-critical applications.

I evaluate the scalability of Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) and find it very scalable, with no limitations encountered at the moment.

In terms of the speed of outcomes from Nutanix's low-code automation, it is almost the same as what we experienced with VMware. In case of issues, I find that Nutanix offers more personalized support since it is smaller now. We have easier access to high-level engineers compared to VMware, where you have to navigate multiple channels for support. Both support systems are good, and while I do not complain about VMware support, the feeling might change as Nutanix grows. I would rate the support for Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) around a nine on a scale of one to ten, as it is really good.

With Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM), we could run multiple solutions, such as SUSE, NKP, and OpenShift. The learning curve of Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) is more simple compared to VMware, as we were coming from a VMware environment, and it was something new for us. There is a lot of free material available to help us start learning Nutanix.

The built-in playbooks of Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) have indeed freed up time for our IT team, which is noteworthy considering we previously had a problematic setup with a combination of SimpliVity and VMware. We faced complications due to two vendors blaming each other for firmware issues, which was a nightmare. Now, we have one place to ask questions, and Nutanix works closely with a short list of certified hardware vendors. If I have an issue, I call Nutanix, and they handle communication with the vendors, whereas with VMware, the problems are isolated to my world. Last year, our group spent about 40% of its time fixing issues related to VMware, but now things are much smoother with Nutanix.

Overall, I would rate Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) an 8 or 9, as it has its strengths and some areas for improvement.

I use Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) to create virtual machines, connect them for storage. I use it for many other tasks, but mainly for servers or virtual machines, where I build different virtual machines, such as Windows and Linux, of all kinds.

The major attraction point of Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) is that everything is auto-scaling. For example, if we are trying to patch in Nutanix, when we go to the lifecycle manager and click on the patch, the VMs automatically migrate from one cluster to another cluster or one host to another host, and it starts getting patched. In other cloud setups, such as VMware, we need to do it manually, so Nutanix is more user-friendly than other cloud setups.

The best feature in Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM), from my perspective as a cloud engineer, is having hardware to private setup support by a single vendor, whereas with other cloud setups, we have different support. For a setup, we have a separate support for the cloud setup and a separate support for the hardware. The second feature is creating auto-scheduled snapshots; until today, we haven't found any other cloud setup for scheduling a snapshot onto a VM. These are the main points: getting full support from the Nutanix vendor, scheduling the snapshots, and auto patching are the three best features I can mention, though there may be many others.

It is easy to use. Even a school student can run Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) automation because it is extremely user-friendly. Not only developers or experts but even a college graduate can use Nutanix, as everything is understandable and the graphical user interface of Nutanix Prism is very attractive.

The areas that could be improved include the Nutanix Move tool, which is presently used for migrating VMs from one setup to a private cloud. It can be improved by adding some other setups, such as Citrix Xen, Red Hat Virtualization, and Red Hat OpenShift. There are many other cloud products that need to be added to the Nutanix Move tool, which would be really helpful for us in India, where we use different setups such as Red Hat Virtualization, OpenShift, Citrix XenCenter, Hyper-V, and VMware.

The second suggestion is regarding the different clusters in Nutanix. Although Nutanix is very user-friendly and codeless, the individual clusters cannot be logged in at the same time via Prism, which takes time and can be wasteful. We have multiple clusters within Nutanix. Prism serves as the central management interface, allowing us to access these different clusters. When we log in through Prism, it takes a certain amount of time—sometimes several minutes—to log into each individual cluster. This can be quite time-consuming.

Another important issue, especially for our customers in India and other data centers, is the need for proper VM tool reports. We require detailed information such as VM names, IP addresses, CPU assignments, and CPU utilization. This data should be exported in an Excel format. For example, if a virtual machine has four CPUs, the Excel report should include entries like: VM name, IP address, 4 CPUs, and current utilization (e.g., if 2 out of 4 CPUs are being used). We also need to capture other parameters, such as memory and disk configurations (e.g., hard disk 1 and hard disk 2), whether any ISOs are mounted (like CD/DVDs), USB drives attached to the VM, storage types (like NVM), and any RDMs associated with the VM. By extracting all this information into an Excel file, we would create a handy inventory for all the engineers. This detailed VM list would be extremely beneficial for cloud engineers and managers working with Nutanix.

I have been using Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) for the last two to two and a half years with substantial experience. I'm not an expert in automation, but the existing features are sufficient to manage effectively.

The stability of Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) is rated as eight out of ten.

For scalability, I would rate it as eight out of ten.

We are managing private clouds for different clients. We currently hold 1,800 customers on Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM), mostly medium customers, with approximately 100 enterprise customers and the remaining 1,700 being medium clients. 

I would rate Nutanix support as eight out of ten.

Positive

Having worked with approximately four to five different cloud setups including Nutanix, VMware, Hyper-V, and Red Hat OpenShift, I would rate both Nutanix and VMware similarly at four out of five as they provide similar features, but Nutanix is more attractive compared to VMware.

We are exclusively managing a private cloud. I work specifically with the private cloud, while a separate team handles the public cloud. However, I can confidently say that no one is currently using Nutanix as a public cloud solution; it is being utilized solely as a private setup.

Deploying Nutanix is straightforward, but as with any new system, it can be complex at the beginning.

In the past, we had vendor support during the initial stages, about two to two and a half years ago. The vendor would regularly visit our data center and provide guidance, which made it easier for us. However, understanding a new subject can still be challenging at first.

Considering my team, I have approximately ten experts working with Nutanix, while the rest are normal engineers handling basic tasks or support for Nutanix, VMware, or other clouds.

India is a hub for various customers seeking technology solutions. Many of these customers are looking for competitive pricing, but Nutanix's costs tend to be quite high. We primarily work with mid-level customers in India rather than enterprise clients. These mid-level customers are interested in services that are priced more moderately. In comparison, Nutanix's pricing is significantly higher than that of other setups. As a result, we have approximately 3,000 customers using VMware, while Nutanix has around 1,800 customers. The disparity in these numbers is quite striking: 3,000 customers for VMware versus 1,800 for Nutanix. Indian customers don't like high-priced hyper clouds, so they invest in VMware, which offers the same features at a lower base price.

I have seen a lot of improvements in Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM), but the package we are using has been the same for the last two to two and a half years.

I would definitely recommend Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) to other users or cloud engineers, but they may hesitate due to the pricing. In India, the market looks for minimal prices and best features.

I would rate Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) a nine out of ten.

I have worked on several Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) products, including Nutanix Prism, Nutanix CVMs, and Nutanix storage products. We had an on-premises infrastructure based on Nutanix hardware and the Nutanix hypervisor layer based on Acropolis. 

Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) is a new offering from Nutanix, whereas our setup had a small on-premises presence with Nutanix-based hypervisor servers managed using Nutanix Prism. This cloud manager comes as an offering on top of Nutanix Prism, where we can manage multiple Nutanix-related hardware and components. We used to host VDIs based on Citrix on the Nutanix hardware. Now that we have reached end of life on the hardware and Citrix front, we have moved all of our on-premises infrastructure to Azure.

The most important aspect of Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) is that it helps us manage the infrastructure as a hyperconverged infrastructure in HCI mode. If I have different physical servers, I can map them into a cluster and manage the storage together. It provides flexibility to make use of storage in a clustered format instead of using it in an individual storage endpoint.

We have the flexibility to have Nutanix-based licensing based on the core model, instead of having a specific cost on the cluster. The costing on a core model gives customers flexibility to add multiple cores to a single physical host and adjust the infrastructure accordingly, and we can scale up the cluster as needed.

While other cloud providers, AWS or Azure, are mostly into cloud-based solutions, and Azure has introduced Azure Stack HCI for managing on-premises infrastructure, Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) provides flexibility from day one. We can manage both on-premises and Azure solutions using a single pane of glass, eliminating the need to navigate different windows or screens. It provides a comprehensive view of the infrastructure and highlights specific areas through alerts, giving us good visibility of infrastructure conditions.

At the moment, I don't have specific feedback on Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) because I have been working on multiple clouds. While the majority of our workloads are on Azure, there aren't any immediate improvements I can recall. 

In terms of features, while other providers offer similar capabilities, Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) remains ahead of the curve with its decade-long strategy. It supports different hardware types without vendor lock-in, which is an advantage over Azure Stack HCI, which may only work with specific vendors such as HP or Dell.

In the recent past, we have moved all of our infrastructure to Azure cloud. I have used Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) for approximately 1.5 years.

Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) firmware upgrades, physical host issues, or hard disk failures may require maintenance. On a regular basis, firmware upgrades or version upgrades from version A to version B are the major maintenance considerations. Earlier versions could be buggy, and new versions improve the experience. Otherwise, operations run smoothly.

When a specific node goes down, we don't have to worry much because Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) performs automatic movement of VMs from one host to another within the cluster. When a new node is added to the cluster, it becomes seamless and the VM provisioning gets evenly load-balanced across nodes. This eliminates the need for an admin to worry about proper load balancing, as the algorithms handle this effectively.

I would rate their customer service as eight out of ten. We have an in-house Nutanix team that handles physical issues or specific troubleshooting needs. I have never directly interacted with Nutanix support because most issues are easy to handle since we have clusters managing the workloads. Even when a node goes down, it doesn't impact our infrastructure because it gets load-balanced between the available nodes.

Positive

The base infrastructure deployment took one to two weeks, but the VDI builds are done on a need basis. When a new team gets onboarded, it becomes an on-demand-based deployment. The base infrastructure is made available, and we build on top of it depending on the number of users that join the infrastructure. 

Our on-premises deployment had around 1,000 users across different regions, including the US, Canada, and Australia. Since we have moved all on-premises infrastructure to Azure cloud, everything is now cloud-based. When we initiated builds using Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM), provisioning 50 machines would take approximately 30 to 45 minutes. It was quick and provided the required VDIs to teams within an hour, allowing them to start using the system immediately.

I don't have specific feedback about Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) implementation because I have been working on multiple clouds. NCM is a package that can be used for both on-premises and cloud workloads, though our majority of wour orkloads are already on Azure.

The base infrastructure deployment was completed in one to two weeks. The VDI builds happen on a need basis. When a new team gets onboarded, it becomes an on-demand-based deployment. The base infrastructure is made available, and we build on top of it depending on the number of users that join the infrastructure.

I was not directly involved in the costing aspect, but I know that on-premises resources and physical servers are charged based on the number of cores used. This is a common pricing methodology used by different vendors, but I cannot provide exact cost details.

AWS or GCP don't currently have the same type of platform, but Azure Stack HCI is comparable to Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM). However, Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) is a more mature product compared to Azure Stack HCI. They have been managing multiple hybrid cloud environments for longer, while Azure Stack HCI was introduced only 3-4 years ago. This experience gives Nutanix additional flexibility and a higher rating.

I would rate Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) a 9 out of 10. The most valuable aspect is its ability to manage infrastructure as hyperconverged infrastructure in HCI mode. Multiple physical servers can be mapped into a cluster with combined storage management. The core-based licensing model provides flexibility for customers to scale their infrastructure according to needs.

Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) provides a ready-to-go runbook situation where inputting key variables allows quick infrastructure setup. It supports building ESX clusters or AHV clusters, though their infrastructure primarily uses Acropolis hypervisors.

The solution offers seamless integration when adding new nodes to existing clusters, pooling storage and related network components automatically. Automation requirements are targeted at specific clusters rather than individual nodes, making the process straightforward. The infrastructure supported around 1,000 VDI instances based on Citrix, providing a good user experience with persistent VDIs that were one-to-one mapped.

I am working in the lifecycle manager in the Cloud, which includes Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM), and I'm working with the PCS at Tata Consultancy Services on project works, such as NCC upgrade, Foundation AOS number upgrade, and Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) upgrade activities.

When comparing Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) with other platforms, NCM is very user-friendly, and we can work primarily in graphical mode. The functionality is very intuitive in NCM compared to other platforms such as Azure, AWS, and VMware environments.

During this two-year period, I have learned that Nutanix is a very interesting platform for enhancing our knowledge in the Cloud. For example, while upgrading the Nutanix storage, such as NCC AOS firmware and ID rack, we encountered multiple issues, and with help from Nutanix support, we learned exactly how Nutanix works. It is very expandable; we can save on it and upgrade at any time. According to my understanding, if something is going to expire, we can easily identify and rectify that issue on time.

The playbook is a very good platform because it contains pre-defined paths, and if we want to perform something, we have the playbook as a template which functions as a pre-defined activity.

The pricing could have some changes; compared to other platforms, pricing enhancement is important, and Nutanix does enhancements quarterly.

I have 14-15 years of overall experience in the IT field, and I have more than two years of experience with Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM).

Stability is very good because we have NC2, and there are no issues while migrating any VM to other hosts.

Nutanix is a scalable solution.

I never need help from colleagues, only reaching out to Nutanix support when there's a significant challenge, but they provide SOPs and links to help resolve issues.

Positive

I would give Nutanix a rating of 9 out of 10 because I love working on the Nutanix platform. Though I don't have extensive experience, people are choosing Nutanix because of its user-friendly nature, with more graphical activity rather than command line interfaces.

In comparison to VMware, where you have to log in and run multiple commands, we can perform 80% of activities on the graphical user interface in Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM). I recommend my teammates and others to choose Nutanix because it is very user-friendly, and we have multiple ways to enhance our knowledge related to infrastructure. Every activity can be performed without issues if good practices are followed.

My use case is for legacy cluster migration. We have removed the legacy cluster. We are using a Nutanix cluster to increase availability because it is a very good product with everything in one box: storage, network, and compute. We migrated from physical hardware, which was out of warranty and expired, and migrated the application to the Nutanix cluster.

The best feature of Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) is Life Cycle Manager. When upgrading your infrastructure, there is nothing to do. You just have to pre-check it, and the process is automated. It will check one by one for availability and fault tolerance. It is an auto-run job, and if anything finds an issue, it highlights it in the pre-checks, so that feature is very good.

When comparing Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) with other cloud management solutions, it is good because we are using many things, such as UCS Manager, VxRail, VMware, and vRealize in our infrastructure. The support and SLAs are good, and it is very easy to use, especially when upgrading. The administration is very easy.

Everything required is already in place. It's easy to use, and there is good customer support. For my use case, it's fine. There could be slight improvements in support because sometimes they are not able to understand the issue.

I have been using Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) since 2022 or 2023, when I was at HCL.

It is stable; I never saw any problems.

I would rate its scalability as nine out of ten considering our clients are enterprises.

Technical support is good. There is no issue. They meet the SLAs. They also have a feature for auto generating tickets. With the pulse monitoring feature in Nutanix, a ticket is generated. It's a good feature. We also immediately get an email from Nutanix.

Positive

As an administrator, I am using different products, but Nutanix continues to grow. More customers are deciding to go with Nutanix. They have deployed and migrated legacy clusters to Nutanix. We are still using a VMware hypervisor, but the usage of Nutanix is growing. Companies are moving to deploy Nutanix clusters in their infrastructure.

Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) makes it faster to work. As administrators, we recommend solutions to the client, but the client needs to decide whether to go with UCS, VMware, Broadcom, Nutanix, Azure clouds, GCP, or AWS. Many cloud solutions are available in the market. We are working in IT support as administrators in multi-cloud infrastructure, where we are using Azure, AWS, Nutanix, and Broadcom products.

It is easy to deploy Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM).

Most companies have a hybrid infrastructure with on-premises and cloud environments. The cloud provider is Azure.

Its implementation takes months in terms of planning, designing, deployment, etc.

Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) is cheaper than VMware and other products.

I would recommend Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) to other users because it is easy and cheap compared to other products. I would rate it a nine out of ten.

Our use cases for the Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) include managing multiple sites and multiple customers under this site, as I delivered to multiple customers in Canada. 

The type of customers I see with Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) are primarily middle industries for technologies or manufacturers, as it is currently not for government customers.

The most valuable features I have found with Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) are related to Disaster Recovery, specifically the Nutanix Disaster Recovery solution with Prism Central, and Flow micro-segmentation. Flow micro-segmentation is part of the Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) networking capabilities, and most scenarios are related to standard clusters with Disaster Recovery, including environments with both Nutanix AHV and VMware.

The importance of faster outcomes for their environment is significant; for example, when I delivered the Disaster Recovery solution, we included automation for auto-configuration of VMs and resizing of VMs, which replaced many tasks that were previously done manually. The implementation of automation solutions helps free up time for their IT team, allowing them to manage more of the application part rather than the infrastructure, especially for stability and automation tasks from Nutanix.

Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) could continue to improve its network with micro-segmentation, as their current solution for East-West traffic is not as mature as VMware's NSX, and they need to develop this area to better support the infrastructure. More integrations with other cloud storage would definitely be helpful, as many customers want to use their existing SAN storage solutions for backups or other functions when migrating to Nutanix.

I have experience with Nutanix since 2015.

I find that the support from Nutanix is very good, as I have worked with them many times. For the support aspect, I believe globally they provide good support; they respect their SLAs, respond in a timely manner, and can assist quickly by connecting remotely when needed.

The Nutanix setup, learning curve, and ease of use are essential considering that customers appreciate simplicity and centralized management, which is a significant factor compared to VMware's multiple products and interfaces.

I don't have a clear idea about the speed of outcomes from low code automation because after we complete a delivery service, the customer leads the automation part, but I haven't received complaints compared to other products like Ansible or Terraform, and what I have used has been responsive to their requests.

Regarding how I would assess Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) for helping my team address current automation needs while planning for future expansion, I often deliver this solution to the final customers who manage their own environments afterward, but I have worked on automation tasks such as automatic resizing of VMs. 

In my experience, Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) is a good tool for meeting automation needs; it is the easiest to use for automation, and from Prism Central directly, you can automate many tasks and integrate scripts for your application layer. My company is a partner with Nutanix. For the overall rating of Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) as a product, I would give it nine points.