NIMBLE SAN REVIEW SOFTWARE
NIMBLE SAN REVIEW WINDOWS

Nutanix- HPE has expanded their partnership with Nutanix to try to avoid dependence on VMware. VSAN- this is the standard for VMware shops. Simplivity -decent features, but if you don't fit its specific use cases it can be difficult to justify the costs and limitations vs VSAN. Primera (formerly 3PAR)- High end, super-robust, 100% SLA.

Nimble- midrange, good feature balance, easy to admin. MSA- this is dirt cheap, but has a not great admin experience. So for an HPE & VMware shop, you have a few options: Also have you considered things like VMC on AWS or AVS? Basically run ESXi + vSAN in the cloud instead of buying infrastructure on prem? For some people it makes a lot of sense, and for others not so much.

NIMBLE SAN REVIEW WINDOWS

Last thing to mention, when you looked at AWS / Azure, did you look at just lift and shift or did you look at replatforming your apps to take advantage of the native services? Just spinning up windows servers in the cloud is for sure very expensive, but consuming things like SQLaaS or IOC for your web services suddenly makes it comparable. In ESXi 7 there is a lot of streamlining in the deployment and best practices checking to ensure that everything is optimized, so if you're new to HCI it makes it easy. ESXi has the bits built in, you just need to enable the services on the cluster. VMware has some cool roadmap planned (that I can't post publicly about) but right now the biggest advantages to vSAN over NTNX is that you don't have to deploy CVM's and a second interface for management. They both have pros and cons but I think that Nutanix has the edge over vSAN in terms of feature availability right now. When it comes to HCI providers Nutanix and VMware vSAN are basically the two most common options. They're getting better in that you don't need dedicated storage admins to be able to effectively manage these arrays now, but fiber channel is still king when it comes to performance and FC is more infrastructure to manage and still kinda a niche skill set.

NIMBLE SAN REVIEW SOFTWARE

Pure and Nimble are my #1 and #2 recommends because they offer great support, scale up, and are still developing their OS's to mimic the software defined storage delivery of services like HCI. Traditional SAN has lasted and continued to last in the datacenter because it offers infinite flexibility. HCI works well if your workloads scale evenly, which is why originally it was so popular for the hyperscalers and hosting companies. If you need more storage you also need to add CPU which means more licensing not just for hypervisor and HCI, but also MS and any app core licensing you run on that cluster. Essentially every time you add a new host you have to add storage to the cluster (notable exceptions would be DVX, Hyperflex Cache only, and Nutanix storage only nodes) so if you need more CPU, you need to add more storage by default. HCI offers a lot of benefits, but one of the biggest draw backs is that it turns your compute into your unit of storage. 5 years ago I personally decided to go HCI, but the decision is one you need to think through.

HCI vs SAN is a discussion I've had a lot over the years. Disclaimer: I work for VMware and was part of the Datrium acquisition.

Nimble san review