Nutanix SX-1065 Xpress: Nutanix for the SMB Market

I have already said that Nutanix has different Nutanixes , for different tastes, from a tough enterprise, allowing to build a full-fledged “mini-Google” in its data center, to Community Edition, which is placed on iron at hand just to “feel”. But many companies are not yet Google, but also do not want to lag behind in their data centers from the tough enterprise. Therefore, the news announced in the company on May 24 is for them.

The news is that we are releasing a special product for small (well, of course, by American standards, “small”, that is, “up to 500 employees”) companies, in fact, it consists of several important points at once. Let's analyze them in detail.

First, Nutanix launches a new special small model that focuses on the SMB market, and we strive with it to give our future customers the lowest possible price. We already had offers around 50K, but for the existing platforms this was already our limit reached by super-discounts. Therefore, in order to make Nutanix even more attractive for SMB budgets, we have made a special model for this market, and not only an “iron” platform, but also a special version of software and even a service.
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Therefore, secondly, we have a special version of Nutanix software, specifically for this model and for the SMB / SME market, as well as a special level of support for them.
This is such a separate platform that we place it in a separate class, it will be called SX (Nutanix SX-1065), unlike the “classic” Nutanix NX. It is made from the younger NX-1065 model, but this is a separate model, it is already on the Broadwell CPU, so it has slightly more cores than the NX, slightly faster FSB DRAM, otherwise it is the same NX-1065 platform with a different BIOS, so that the software is put on it only in the Xpress version).

Inevitably in such systems have to pursue here and there. But, we can say that we are extremely cleverly pursed. Thrown out irrelevant features for SMB, and, conversely, added instead of demanded.
And it turned out a special product.

Let us examine the technical part of the news in more detail.
This is what is removed from the product to make it more “SMB-oriented”, and, in addition, reduce the price:

• The maximum cluster size for Xpress will be limited to four nodes. That is, you will have 3 or 4 virtualization hosts (less than 3 hosts in a cluster cannot be made constructively, more than four are not supported for Xpress).
• We decided not to sell them to large companies, this is a product for SMB (well, in the American understanding of Small and Medium). If you are a big company that wants to save money, it is better to take the NX-1065 using one of our special programs, for example Discovery or ROBO, depending on your configuration. Believe me, it will be better and more profitable.
• The maximum number of clusters in one account for Xpress systems is 2 (for example, production and DR). Need more - see the item above.
• You cannot mix Xpress (SX) and NX nodes in the same cluster.
• On Xpress you can install only Xpress Edition software. And about him - below
• Oh, well, yes, the SX will have a new “face”, bezel, like this, blue, as in the photo at the beginning of the post :)

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While in Xpress there will be only one model. Let's see how it goes, maybe we'll do it again.
There will be a way to go from SX to NX, but until it is worked out in detail, when it is ready, I will write separately. Now it is supposed, when / if such a need arises for the client, to do this case by case.

The Nutanix OS Xpress edition is a special edition of the software, which, on the one hand, includes some features from the "top" versions, on the other hand, features that are irrelevant for small companies and small clusters where Xpress / SX is aimed are thrown out.
The restriction of 4 nodes per cluster and a maximum of 2 clusters in the company I have already mentioned.
This also implies some additional limitations.

• Only 1-to-1 DR replication (since Xpress is only two clusters, it is no longer necessary).
• “Heterogeneous” clusters are not supported, that is, from different models (because in Xpress there is only one model - SX-1065, and adding NX is not supported).
• Block Awareness, RF = 3 and Erasure Coding are not supported, for the same reason, physically irrelevant, the node is only 4.
• No Availability Domain. Again, this is more of an enterprise feature for multi-mode clusters.
• There is no support for drives with built-in encryption (-S models from Nutanix, not supplied to Russia) and AllFlash.
• There is no support for Prism Pro, our “advanced” Prism, with advanced analytics, recommendations on the dynamics of storage volumes, customizable dashboards and management of multi-cluster infrastructures, this is for enterprise. The familiar Prism built into CVM and now called Prism Elemental has remained as before.

But in Xpress Edition included:

• MapReduce Compression and Deduplication, which was previously included only in Pro and Ultimate.
• Metro Availability is the synchronous replication of datastores across the L3 network with integration into the hypervisor, the “classic” Nutanix has it at all only in the most expensive Ultimate.
• TimeStream Backup - Redirect-on-Write snapshots and integration with backup systems, was in Pro.
• CloudConnect - the ability to create a “virtual Nutanix cluster” in the AWS or Azure cloud in order to transfer to it via VPN and store on it backup copies of your data. Unlimited storage for your backups for 10 cents per gigabyte! It was also only in Pro.
• Asynchronous 1-to-1 data replication to create DR.
• Of course, various hypervisors are supported, not only AHV, as in, for example, Community Edition, but also vSphere and Hyper-V.

So, as you can see, Nutanix did pretty fair. Something that is objectively unnecessary in SMB - dropped, something that is objectively necessary - is included. It turned out, in my opinion, quite balanced.

To support Xpress also developed a special level of it. For the "big" Nutanix, we now have two levels: Production and Mission Critical . Both are 24x7, both have Russian-speaking supporters (!), And both have field engineer onsite services. They differ in exactly two parameters: in Production parts delivery - NBD, in Mission Critical - 4h (this, like the field engineer onsite in Russia, is only in Moscow, we will be realists). In addition, for Mission Critical, we declare 1 hour on the support response time after the establishment of the case (during this time, the support should respond and start working on your application).
In the case of Xpress Support, you also get 24x7 support, also NBD delivery, but 4 hours instead of 2 hours for responce time, and field engineer will not be sent to any case (well, this is reasonable, the drive can be used by any sysadmin). Also, only 4 people will be limited to the list of people who can get cases in support. In Production and Mission Critical, their number is not limited, since, often, dozens and sometimes hundreds of frequently changing administrators sit in huge enterprises, but in SMB it’s still some rather small circle.

Prices in Russia will be clear in the near future, but in the Americas prices for the final customer (!) On Xpress are named in the price range from 25K to 70K $ depending on the configuration (yes, the configuration is flexible, you can choose when ordering a processor, memory size, HDD and SSD volumes, as well as the type of network interface). So the specific price of “Nutanix Xpress Edition” does not exist, but the price range is most likely in Russia to be near the named one.