We performed a comparison between NetApp AFF and Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two All-Flash Storage solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.
"It's helped us because we've changed fundamentally what we talk about. We don't talk about storage and different tiers of storage anymore nor do we talk about servers. We talk now about applications and how applications impact the business and end users."
"The initial setup was extremely simple and straightforward."
"Offers excellent features like efficient data reduction, a reliable SafeMode, and a great support model for continuous assistance and updates."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe helps to improve our processing speed. It is user-friendly and easy to use."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe has low latency and high Ops. It is an evergreen model."
"Pure has signature security technology, which cannot be deleted, even if you are an administrator."
"The duplication algorithm allows us to get a lot more use out of less storage. We're running a five terabyte array right now and we're running probably about 30 terabytes on it. So the duplication rate is pretty phenomenal, without a cost to performance. It still runs pretty smoothly."
"It's incredibly easy to use and greatly simplified our ability to both deploy and manage our storage subsystems."
"We use the NFS and SIP protocols a lot. The NFS is the most valuable feature."
"Regarding features, SnapMirror is one we depend on right now. It helps us provide snapshots to the customers on request. There are many scenarios in which we might take snapshots in various daily use cases. We trigger the snapshots, which gives us a sense of security because we know we have this technology in place if something happens."
"The most valuable features are the speed and performance for our transactional workloads for our databases."
"Replication would be one of the most valuable features."
"The performance is the most valuable feature."
"NetApp AFF is based on Unix, which makes it secure."
"The stability is solid. It doesn't fail on us, which is exactly what we want. We are in a critical business that we can't have any percentage of downtime."
"It has improved performance for our enterprise applications, data analytics, and VMs. These improvements are a result of all-flash, throughput, reliability, compression, etc."
"The flexibility of this system is very good. It's also faster than others, and has skilled technical support who showed more initiative than a competitor, e.g. VMware."
"The most valuable features of Nutanix Acropolis AOS are ease of management, hyper-convergence platform, and it has robust operations."
"It is easy to use. One of the things they have as a design goal is to reduce complexity and simplify things."
"One-click setup is a valuable feature because it allows us to set up a server automatically with a single click."
"I like NCI's dashboard. If there are any infrastructure issues, we'll get alerts inside the dashboard. NCI provides a single platform for managing all of our databases. We are running SQL and Linux databases."
"One of the most valuable features is the One-Click Upgrade. When I need to update the system, I do it with one click. This product is amazing because everything is easy to manage, from network management to snapshots."
"The hyperconvergence service, as well as the DR solution, are game-changers for Nutanix."
"The most valuable feature I have found to be the Acropolis Hypervisor (AHV)."
"I want to see Pure Storage not only be for fast storage, but I want to see it be for the entire data center."
"Every time I think of something that needs to improve, they're one step ahead, which I love. The only area I wish to see improve, I believe is coming, is in the FlashBlade product. Blade implementation fell short on a few of the services."
"We would like to see more visibility into garbage collection and CPU performance in the GUI."
"The UI for this solution needs to be improved."
"Right now, the box itself is just strictly working as a backend storage system. It would be fantastic if we could access it directly like a NAS device through network access or SIS drives. I think they have an interface, but I am not sure how good it is. If we could address a box directly on the network without having to go through a server, it would be great. The replication schemas could be improved. We are not using replication on the storage level right now. We use a different type of replication. If their replication would be as good as the one that we have, I would probably run the replication schema because it might be faster, but I don't know that for a fact. So, I cannot say that they have good replication. All I can say is that they need to inform us better."
"They could add more support for file storage and different types of storage."
"Our use cases require more multi-tenant capabilities and additional VLAN interfaces for separating different customers. We currently use it to provide storage, sometimes shared storage, to different customers, but it is less flexible in comparison to a dedicated solution."
"It's more multi-tenant functionality in their Pure1 manage portal that is lacking."
"Additional performance, additional data efficiencies, that's what everybody wants right now."
"FC and ATTO bridges are still needed for cross datacenter replication."
"Another issue is that for smaller customers, NetApp doesn't have enough disk sizes. You begin with a 980-gigabyte disk and the next size is 3.8 terabytes. There aren't any disk sizes in between. Competitors have more choices in disk sizes."
"Higher communication: I love the professional services and I love everything that everyone's able to offer us, but I find sometimes we're not aware of all the things that NetApp can do."
"It would be nice to have better integration between SRM and VMware, as I've had some issues with that."
"I would like to see aggregate level encryption in the next release. This is critical."
"For ONTAP, in general, the deduplication ratio and Snapshot limitation are areas that need improvement. There is a global limitation on the number of Snapshots or clones that can be spun off of a particular Snapshot. If those limitations are increased, it might be helpful."
"I think for us, improvement would probably be the changes in how the flash is actually used inside the system and how we manage the actual disk and stripes within the system."
"This product would be improved if it included a hybrid cloud solution."
"In terms of automation, I know there are ways to do it, but it's not very user-friendly. I've been working for the last three years with Nutanix and I've managed to automate certain things, but it's a somewhat more complex job than it should be. I would like to see more documentation or knowledge base articles."
"If they can simplify the software slightly for the installation, that would make all the difference."
"The product could be improved with more security. The product needs a bit more experience in the market. I think you don't have the possibility to add other hardware. It could be improved with the ability to add and extend."
"The GUI of Nutanix Acropolis AOS could be improved that can be done from the OEM side. It's a very basic stable web browser that they're using. It is not very inclusive."
"The only problem is that not many operating systems are supported on the AOS hypervisor. They need to probably increase the support on multiple operating systems. As of now, a very limited number of operating systems and patch levels are supported on AOS."
"Regarding third-party backup solutions, the only agentless option is Commvault, which is expensive, complex, and requires intensive vendor training."
"Nutanix now supports four hypervisors but they are not all at feature parity."
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NetApp AFF is ranked 2nd in All-Flash Storage with 281 reviews while Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) is ranked 3rd in HCI with 194 reviews. NetApp AFF is rated 9.0, while Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of NetApp AFF writes "Since switching, our clients have reported improved performance and reduced latency". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) writes "A powerful solution with easy deployment, upgrades, and management". NetApp AFF is most compared with Dell PowerStore, Dell Unity XT, Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series, Pure Storage FlashArray and VMware vSAN, whereas Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) is most compared with VxRail, VMware vSAN, VMware vSphere, Dell PowerFlex and Hyper-V. See our NetApp AFF vs. Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) report.
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