Nutanix: AOS Storage Review

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The Nutanix Acropolis Operating System (AOS) is a distributed scale-out storage system that delivers enterprise-grade capabilities through a distributed software architecture and provides scalable, resilient, high performance for all workloads. 

Nutanix AOS moves beyond the limitations of traditional storage area network (SAN) and network attached storage (NAS). It offers one platform for all applications and work on the cloud and allows the move of any applications or data between the public and private cloud, providing efficient and complete hybrid performance.

Nutanix and the cloud storage market

The global cloud storage market was worth $46.12 billion in 2019 and is projected to reach $222.25 billion by 2027, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 21.9% from 2020 to 2027. 

In the second quarter of 2021, Nutanix’s HCI products generated $581 million in revenue, up 13.4% year over year (YoY). 

The annual contract value (ACV) billings was $217.9 million, with a 37% YoY change, the annual recurring revenue (ARR) was $1.04 billion, with a 55% YoY change, and the run-rate annual contract value (ACV) was $1.68 billion, with a 21% YoY change, according to Nutanix’s earnings in 2Q fiscal 2022. 

“Our second quarter reflected continued solid execution, demonstrating strong year-over-year, top and bottom-line improvement,” said Rajib Ramaswami, president and CEO, Nutanix. 

“We also see growing momentum towards adoption of hybrid multicloud models and believe the recent launch of our hybrid multicloud solution portfolio will strengthen our ability to deliver the solutions our customers need.”

Nutanix AOS features

High-performance storage system

The latest improvements in a series of developments and growth to the core architecture of the hyper-converged infrastructure OS enables higher performance and scales and builds capabilities that result in the rapid adoption of storage technologies, like solid-state drive (SSD), nonvolatile memory express (NVme), Intel Optane, and more.

AOS runs in a Linux-based virtual machine on every node in a controller virtual machine (CVM), and Nutanix Blockstore is a free space manager that controls space on physical devices at a block-level granularity.

Resilient and secure storage platform

Nutanix AOS Storage uses advanced distributed software algorithms that protect data, from bit rot and hardware failure to physical theft and total site failure. AOS is designed to provide resiliency that keeps applications running, regardless of underlying hardware and software failures.

Nutanix AOS manages all storage resources to preserve data and system integrity in the event of node, disk, or software failure.

Flexible and scalable cloud infrastructure

Nutanix AOS Storage can size and deploy infrastructure for the workload and scale out. It mixes and matches hardware configurations seamlessly that allow users to adapt over time.

AOS runs as a virtual storage controller on each node in a cluster, forming a distributed system, and all nodes work together to aggregate individual direct-attached storage (DAS) resources into a single global namespace.

Nutanix AOS use cases

Here are some user descriptions of their experiences with the product:

“We recently performed an AOS upgrade, and everything throughout the process was pretty much automated. Just had to confirm that things were running properly afterwards. It’s much, much better now than it was before.” -Mig Gomez, lead of the systems support group, California State University, Long Beach

“Nutanix HCI delivers the performance, stability, and ease of use that we need to maximize agility and establish a flexible, scalable foundation for digital transformation.” -Xu Haiqing, director of the information management department.” Tsingtao Brewery Co.

“Nutanix ticked all our boxes in terms of scalability, resilience and performance. And really nailed it with its mature and very capable Prism Central management interface. Moreover, although we wouldn’t be using it for the Continent 8 platform, the AHV hypervisor further prompted the decision to go with Nutanix and is something we will be using going forward. As are the many cloud services that can be added to extend the capabilities of the Nutanix platform.” -Keith Stafford, head of cloud architecture, Continent 8 Technologies

Nutanix AOS differentiators

Built-in AHV Virtualization

Nutanix AOS built-in AHV Virtualization delivers a native virtualization solution and features required to run enterprise applications at no additional license cost. Nutanix AOS AHV Virtualization also supports the virtualization solutions of VMware ESXi and Microsoft Hyper-V.

Advanced enterprise cloud

Nutanix AOS moves beyond the limitations of traditional SAN and NAS storage and runs applications at scale and in various clouds. Businesses need to modernize the data center with advanced web-scale technology.

Networking and platform services

Nutanix AOS delivers a comprehensive set of services to secure applications with visualization of the network and automate common network operations. AOS allows IT organizations to consolidate their workloads on the Nutanix platform and manage them centrally through software-defined platform services.

User reviews of Nutanix AOS

Nutanix AOS receives mostly positive reviews from several user review sites.

Based on reviews at G2, Nutanix AOS scores 4.6 out of 5.0.

According to TrustRadius reviews, Nutanix AOS has an overall score of 8.6 out of 10, with scores in several other categories, including:

  • Likelihood to Renew: 8.4 out of 10
  • Usability: 8.3 out of 10
  • Availability: 8.7 out of 10
  • Performance: 9.0 out of 10
  • Support Rating: 9.5 out of 10
  • In-Person Training: 8.6 out of 10
  • Online Training: 9.1 out of 10
  • Implementation Rating: 9.1 out of 10
  • Product Scalability: 9.1 out of 10

Based on the reviews at Gartner Peer Insights, Nutanix Hyperconverged Infrastructure, or AOS, scores 4.8 out of 5.0, with a 94% recommendation. The product also receives high scores in several other categories:

  • Evaluation & Contracting: 4.5 out of 5.0
  • Integration & Deployment: 4.7 out of 5.0
  • Service & Support: 4.8 out of 5.0
  • Product Capabilities: 4.7 out of 5.0

Nutanix AOS pricing 

Nutanix offers three pricing models for AOS Pro/node and AOS Ultimate/node: Pay-as-you-Go (PayG), CC-35, and CC-100. All the models are available on an hourly or yearly basis.

Hourly based pricing model:

  • PayG for AOS Pro/node and AOS Ultimate/node :$1.75 and $2.10
  • CC-35 for AOS Pro/node and AOS Ultimate/node: $1.31 and $1.58
  • CC-100 for AOS Pro/node and AOS Ultimate/node: $1.05 and $1.26
Al Mahmud Al Mamun
Al Mahmud Al Mamun
Al Mahmud Al Mamun is a writer for TechnologyAdvice. He earned his B.S. in computer science and engineering from Prime University, Bangladesh. He attained more than 25 diploma courses and 100 certificate courses. His expertise and research interests include artificial intelligence (AI), artificial neural networks, and convolutional neural networks.

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