back to article Is it time for the great Jihad against networked storage?

Dheeraj Pandy is running Nutanix as if the company is on a crusade against networked storage. Data delivery latency from networked storage is plain unacceptable, it seems, and clustered virtualised servers should run and present their local storage as part of a pool. There's more of course with big-iron converged systems being …

COMMENTS

This topic is closed for new posts.
  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Nutanix is for vdi only

    When you really look at it, VDI is the only real use case for Nutanix. It relies on the compute workload being on the same node as the storage for performance. Lots of vdi desktops spread the load nicely.

    Fusion io is being ditched for Intel PCIe flash cards as fusion io only has about 60% usable space compared to Intel's.

    It's all a fad until vmware release their vSAN and then I can run it on whatever hardware I want.

  2. MacGyver
    IT Angle

    I hate everything "cloud"

    Except this, this is a real solution, keeping YOUR data local for speed and using an off-site storage facility for redundancy is the only proper use for a "cloud", just like it always has been. I only ever had an issue with the "Fire the IT staff, Sign up with SkyDrive, Profit." mentality of stupid managers. Outsourcing all of your IT staff is a dick move, you might save a nickel right now, but it will usually get you fired when your connection goes south, and you end up paying 300 nickel for people to just sit there.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Needs more polish

    We're looking at a Nutanix evaluation, and, on paper, it's a great idea for some use cases: scale out your environment in small chunks while gaining both capacity and performance instead of having to buy a stonking great NAS/SAN which involves significant capital outlay and only gets slower over time. The downside is that manageability is still clunky and interoperability with an existing infrastructure can be challenging. Also, the capital investment over time is not markedly improved over buying the same performance capacity from conventional vendors. Overall, they have a good pitch for companies which have minimal existing infrastructure or are already planning a major migration, but, as the article mentions, the disadvantage is a loss of flexibility with regard to component or service layer choices. Of course, sometimes flexibility is overrated, especially if other advantages outweigh it.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Nutanix Overview - By VMware, Mark Leslie (Veritas) and Vinod Khosla

    Here's an analyst YouTube video on Nutanix (From VMware, Mark Leslie (veritas), Vinod Khosla)

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XG81gi4pTI4

    **Not independent, but an interesting overview.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Nutanix => Supermicro reseller + ZFS + Flash PCI

    Looks like Nutanix is pushing cheap Supermicro/Flextronics x86 with a shiny Nutanix Bezel, Fusion io/Intel and a clustered file system (open source ZFS with NFS value-add).

    How do the peeps at Khosla think this is an $80m business? Take the HW out of the sale and lets talk rev. Nutanix CEO is trash talking the competition, about how to make a 1b business, while Nutanix is a money losing x86 reseller--not a SW company.

    Here are customer questions:

    Why did the founder of Nutanix leave recently?

    How will your software licenses work with the socket count?

    Can you build out something similar with Nexenta and re-purpose your current infrastructure?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Nutanix => Supermicro reseller + ZFS + Flash PCI

      Can someone correct me if I am wrong---isn't Nutanix essentially forking and/or adding value to open sourced ZFS and charging a premium as the "Nutanix" HW appliance?

      There is a sea-change in IT HW, but its not coming from Nutanix (or Nimble or Tintri or Simplivity). Facebook, Google, Netflix all have contributed to open data center designs. This is a huge. And Supermicro and Flextronics HW direct to end users, is a the future for storage, server, network with these open designs.

      New business model...Create 1% IP of the finished product and be a HW reseller? Call your self Titanix and get VC. Run a negative margin company until it gets sold. I don't see how Nutanix can ever be profitable or go IPO since they have minimal IP and anyone can copy this.

      If you are a big company or govt agency, why not use the open source designs directly, like the open source storage server design that Netflix uses. Maybe I should take the Netflix open sourced storage and start a reseller company to compete? Biz plan... Get $20m from x ventures, hire HW logistics, support engineers, marketing and sales people. Sell product at cost of HW to quickly put lipstick on the pig.

      Netflix open design:

      https://signup.netflix.com/openconnect/hardware

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Nutanix => Supermicro reseller + ZFS + Flash PCI

      Great Point, this company must be a joke... Even The Wall Street Journal say that they are only "doing $80M Annualized Run Rate in Sixth Quarters of Selling...eclipsing the market adoption velocity of all storage, networking and infrastructure startups since the early 2000s"... who would want to invest in that ;)

      http://online.wsj.com/article/PR-CO-20130508-910617.html

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Nutanix => Supermicro reseller + ZFS + Flash PCI

        The WSJ did not write the article in the link your link. It is Nutanix PR, released through WSJ wires and the news outlets.

        Saw another startup do similar, through WSJ, and then send a message through Twitter to make it look like WSJ has coverage. Slimy.

        The PR information is also not accurate. Nuova's UCS did development for 3 years(2006-9) and launched via Cisco sales force, which created a $1+b business in the same time period that Nutanix generated $80m. Key differences: Nuova created all the IP and engineered HW . The reason why liquid computing and Egenera and other HW startups died will be the problem with Nutanix--burn rate and inventory management--not lack of revenue (unless the VC can sell this pig). From what I gather, Nutanix and VC team learned from the fallen server start-ups and modeled their burn rate longer, by doing what looks like minimal HW engineering design. Instead of heavy HW engineering, screw a shiny bezel onto the whitebox of the week.

        My press release would say :

        Nutanix is tops in the Computer Reseller Network report, but can they ever be cash flow positive?

        or

        Whitebox reseller is paying channel resellers a premium to resell commodity HW bundled with ZFS (and Nutanix value-add). Is VC subsidizing a channel pyramid scheme, for a sale?

        That $70m VC funding is burning 4 years in, especially when they can't sell commodity x86 for a premium (and nobody can). 100-200 employees(and growing) + a "HW" inventory burns quicker as more selling happens. Even if 1 customer stepped up and became half the install base. that customer certainly didn't help the profitability. Especially when the sales team/channel partner hit payday(=money out the door). The sales manager will probably be the only millionaire that comes out of this mess.

        When the VC closes the door on Nutanix, they will have minimal IP to sell in the bankruptcy court. The VC's other bet is Pure Storage which is creating IP. This company is not a whitebox reseller and will be interesting to see where it goes. If it doesn't work out, they can at least get IP.

This topic is closed for new posts.

Other stories you might like