Ten Reasons Why VMware Is Leading The Hyperconverged Industry

Those of you who have followed me over the years know that I’m not shy when it comes to a good competitive dust-up.  I’m OK with the usual puffery and slightly exaggerated claims.  All part of the fun.

I’m not OK when I believe the claims are misleading.

One startup is working very hard to convince everyone that they (and they alone) are leading the current trend in HCI — hyperconverged infrastructure.  One of their spokespeople even published a thoughtful piece listing the ten reasons why they thought they deserved the “leader” mantle.

While I admire their bravado, I felt the piece did a disservice to both the industry and to customers.  I thought it grossly misrepresented both the current and future state of the market.  

Perhaps most importantly, there was little talk about what mattered most to customers.

So — while staying positive — I’d like to share my "ten reasons" why I think VMware is leading — and will continue to lead — the hyperconverged marketplace.

Why Hyperconverged?

If we’re going to have a polite argument, we ought to at least define what we’re discussing.

The first wave was “converged” infrastructure: traditional compute, storage and network products engineered to be consumed and supported as a single block of infrastructure.  

The fundamental appeal was a drastically simplified customer experience, which gave IT time and resources to go do other things.  VCE Vblocks established the market and validated the model, with several others following suit.  As we stand today, converged infrastructure is a successful and proven model that continues to grow.

Meanwhile, a few enterprising startups created a software-based storage layer that eliminated the need for an external storage array, and dubbed themselves “hyperconverged”.    

Hence our discussion today ...

#1 — Hyperconverged Is About Software, Not Hardware

Hyperconverged solutions derive their value from the hypervisor being able to support all infrastructure functions in software, and without the need for separate dedicated hardware, such as a storage array or fibre channel switch.  All players in this segment would mostly agree with this statement.

If hyperconverged is really about software (and not hardware), what’s the core software technology in just about every hyperconverged product available today?

VMware vSphere

It's ubiquitous in the data center, which explains why it's ubiquitous in the hyperconverged market.  A key part of the story: vSphere implements the most popular infrastructure mgmt APIs in use today.

The harsh market reality is that there’s just not a lot of demand for non-vSphere-based hyperconverged solutions.

IT professionals know vSphere -- it's tried, tested and proven -- and that's what they want.

If we could convince a few industry analysts to focus on hyperconverged software vs. counting largely similar boxes with different vendor labels on them, their picture of the landscape would be quite different.

As far as claims to "market leadership" — without the power and presence of the VMware vSphere platform, there wouldn't be a converged or hyperconverged market to argue about.

#2 — Built-In Is Better Than Bolted-On

If the value proposition of hyperconverged derives from integrating infrastructure in software, it’s reasonable to argue that deeper, structural integration will be more valuable than various software assemblages that lack this key attribute.

There shouldn’t be a need for a separate management interface. 

There shouldn’t be a need for a separate storage layer that runs as a guest VM with dedicated resources, consuming precious resources and demanding attention. 

There shouldn’t be a need for multiple installation / patching / upgrade processes. 

There shouldn’t be a need to get support from two or more vendors.

And so on. 

Within VMware, we use the term “hypervisor converged” to differentiate this important architectural difference between built-in vs. bolted-on.  

I'll use vSphere + VSAN as my all-software example here.  One, simple integrated environment.  One management experience.  One upgrade process.  One source of support.

If our discussion of "market leadership" includes any notion of creating a more simple experience for users, I would argue that it’s hard to compete with features that are simple extensions of the hypervisor.

#3 — Having Lots Of Hardware Choices Is A Really Good Thing

If hyperconverged is really about software, why are many so paradoxically focused on “the box”?  It’s nothing more than a convenient consumption option for someone who wants a fast time-to-value over other considerations.

Ideally, hyperconverged -- as a concept -- shouldn’t be welded to specific hardware.  

For those that want a convenient consumption option such as prefab appliance with a locked-down config, great!  That's certainly useful to a certain segment of the market.

But others might want a bit more flexibility, with a well-defined starting point.  Yet another useful option.

And for those that really want to roll their own, a list of what is supported, augmented by tools to help you design and size a config that's right for you.

There's a vast list of reasons why more hardware choice is a good thing ...

Maybe there’s an existing investment that’s already been made. 

Maybe there are requirements that aren’t satisfied well by the static configs available. 

Maybe you've got a great sourcing arrangement for servers.  

Maybe there’s a desire to use the latest-greatest technology, without waiting for an appliance vendor to offer it.  Etc. etc.

Whatever the reason, increased hardware choice makes hyperconverged more compelling and more attractive for more people.

EVO:RAIL currently has 9 qualified EVO:RAIL partners.  Virtual SAN (as part of vSphere) has dozens and dozens of ReadyNodes from server partners that can be ordered as a single SKU.  And for everyone else, there's an extended HCL that allows for literally millions of potential configurations - plus the tools to figure out what's right for you.

If market leadership includes any notion of hardware choice, VMware stands apart from the rest of the hyperconverged crowd.  Because, after all, it's software ...

#4 — There’s More To Enterprise IT Than Just Hyperconverged

Yes, there’s that old joke that when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail :)

But there’s a more serious consideration here: when it comes to even modestly-sized IT functions, hyperconverged is only one part of a broader landscape that needs to be managed. 

There’s inevitably a strong desire for common tools, processes and workflows that support the entire environment, and not just an isolated portion of it.

From an enterprise IT perspective, it's highly desirable to use the same operational framework for both virtualized and hyperconverged environments.

Going back to that controversial “market leadership” thing, how about the need for enterprise-scale management tools that aren’t limited to a single hyperconverged offering?

#5 — Customer Support Matters

If extreme simplicity is an integral part of the hyperconverged value proposition, customer support has to figure in prominently.

But there’s a structural problem here.

Not all of the hyperconverged appliance vendors have elected to be vSphere OEMs.  That means that they don’t have the right to distribute the VMware software used in their product.  It also means that they are not entitled to provide support for VMware software.

This arrangement has the potential to put their customers in an awkward position.

While I’m very sure all us vendors use our collective best efforts to support mutual customers, this state of affairs certainly isn’t ideal.  Since all of these vendors provide a critical storage software layer, it may not be obvious where a problem actually lies.  

Let’s say you have a performance problem with your hyperconverged appliance — who do you call? 

The appliance vendor?  VMware?  Ghostbusters?

When it comes to providing customer support, VMware is typically ranked at the top (or near the top) in customer satisfaction — even though there are always potential areas for improvement.   One call.

No argument: the customer support model and execution should factor into our notion of “market leadership”.

#6 — Useful Things Should Just Work

Most shops have gotten accustomed to using all the cool functionality in vSphere.  And, presumably, they’d like to continue doing the same in their hyperconverged environment.

But that’s not always the case.  Here’s one example ...

You’re probably familiar with vSphere HA — a great feature that automatically restarts workloads on a surviving host if there’s a failure.

In a shared storage environment, vSphere HA uses the management network to ascertain the state of the cluster, and coordinate restarts if necessary.  HA assumes that external storage is always available, and all hosts can see essentially the same thing.

But what if there’s no external storage, and we’re using a distributed cluster storage layer?

While it’s true that many of the newer hyperconverged appliances set up their own logical network (primarily for storage traffic), you can see the potential problem: vSphere HA doesn’t know about the vendor's storage network, and vice versa.

Imagine if, for example, the storage network partitions and the management network doesn’t.  Or if they partition differently.  Sure, that’s not going to happen every day, but when it does — what exactly happens?

In the case of vSphere and VSAN, vSphere HA has been redesigned to use VSAN’s network, so there is zero chance of an inconsistent state between the two.

Let’s go for two examples, shall we?

Using vMotion to balance clusters is just about ubiquitous.  You’d like to be able to move things around without screwing up application performance due to slow storage.

Well, one vendor’s attempt at “data locality” didn’t help so much.  Move a VM, and performance degrades due to a design decision they made.  Try and move it back, more degradation. 

So another cool and useful vSphere feature now has sharp edges on it.

Not to pile on, but let's consider maintenance mode.

VMware admins routinely want to put a host in maintenance mode to work on it.  All the workloads are conveniently moved to other servers, and nothing gets disrupted.  But in our hyperconverged world, there's now storage to be considered.

VSAN has an elegant solution as part of the standard vSphere maintenance mode workflow -- the administrator gets a choice as to what they'd like to do with the affected data, and proceeds.  

All other approaches require a separate workflow to detect and evacuate potentially affected data -- which creates not only a bit more complexity, but also that special opportunity to have a really bad day.

I’m sharing these annoying nits just to illustrate a point: a good hyperconverged environment should reasonably support the same everyday virtualization functionality and workflows you already use. 

And, hopefully, with a minimum of “gotcha!”

Let’s factor that into our notion of “market leadership” as well …

#7 — Don’t Forget About Networking …

If we’re *seriously* discussing hyperconverged software, we have to ultimately consider software-defined networking in addition to compute and storage.  

Otherwise, our stool only has two legs :)

The ultimate goal should be to give customers the option of running all three infrastructure functions (compute, storage, network) as an integrated stack running on their hardware of choice.  

No, we’re not there yet today, but …

Converge server virtualization with both SDS and SDN, and the potential exists for even more efficiency, simplicity and effectiveness.  Not to mention, a whole new set of important security-related use cases, like micro segmentation.  

But to integrate SDN, you’ve got to have the technology asset.

Within the VMware world, that key asset is NSX.  And while no vendor can offer a seamless integration between the three disciplines today, VMware has a clear leg up in this direction.

Dig deep into VSAN internals, and you can see progress to date.  For example, VSAN works closely with NIOC to be a well-behaved citizen over shared 10Gb links.  More to come.

Should hyperconverged vendors who claim market leadership have a plan for SDN and security use cases?  I think so.

#8 — Is There A Compatible Hybrid Cloud Option?

Not all infrastructure wants to live in a traditional data center.  There are many good reasons to want an operationally compatible hybrid cloud option like vCloud Air: cost arbitrage, disaster recover, short-term demands, etc.

Ideally, customers could have access to a hyperconverged experience that works the same -- using the same tools and workflows -- whether the hardware assets are in the data center, in a public cloud, or ideally both using the same management tools, sharing behaviors, etc.

It’d be great if the industry pundits factored this into their definition of “market leadership”.  I’m not hopeful, though.

#9 — Is It Efficient?

One of the big arguments in favor of virtualization and hyperconverged approaches is efficiency: doing more with less.

Not to belabor an old argument, but there’s a certain economic appeal to hyperconverged software that uses compute and memory resources judiciously.  The big motivator here for customers is better consolidation ratios for server and VDI farms.  Better consolidation ratios = less money spent.

A hyperconverged storage solution that demands a monster 32 GB VM and potentially a few dedicated physical cores on each and every server gets in the way of that.

#10 — Where Do You Go From Here?

I remember clearly a meeting with a customer who introduced the purpose of the meeting: “we’re here to decide what to buy for tomorrow’s legacy”.  I couldn't stop smiling :)

But it's an interesting perspective: one that reflects that IT strategy is often the result of many tactical decisions made along the way.

At one level, I’ve met IT pros who have an immediate need, and want an immediate solution.  They want a handful of boxes racked up ASAP, and aren’t that concerned with what happens down the road. 

Trust me, I can fully appreciate that mindset.

But there are many other IT pros who see each and every technology decision as a stepping stone to bigger and better things.

There are over a half-million IT shops who have built their data center strategy around VMware and vSphere.  Every one of them already owns many of the key ingredients needed for a hyperconverged solution.

More importantly, they trust VMware to take them forward into the brave new world of IT. : virtualized, converged, hyperconverged, hybrid cloud and ultimately to a software-defined data center.

And that’s a promise we intend to keep.

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Comments

[Josh Odgers]

I couldn't agree more with Point #5, Customer support is critical and this is why Nutanix focuses on it. Its probably worth in fairness to your readers that you provide facts, so he is some.

Nutanix won for the Second year in a row, the NorthFace ScoreBoard Award and has the highest Net promoter score of any Hyperconverged or traditional storage company.

Net promoter score +88
Customer Satisfaction 9.6 out of 10

Also Nutanix can and does support vSphere, we just don't get paid for it, however we feel its in our customers best interests to only have to make one call, so we handle everything for them.

I'll respond on some other points in a blog. :)

Happy to discuss over email if you would prefer.

[Chuck Hollis]

Hi Josh. NPS scores are good and all that (VMware has an exceptionally high score, BTW).

My point was simple: since Nutanix is not entitled to distribute or support VMware products, how do you avoid putting customers in the middle?

-- Chuck

[Michael Webster]

Hi Chuck,

Nutanix does support VMware customers and we often file bug reports on their behalf (if it's not a configuration or design problem). We are a VMware Partner and have a comprehensive support structure set up with VMware. Including the addition of being a full TSANet Member. In addition to that we have more VMware Certified Design Experts on staff than any other company on the planet other than VMware. But we offer the same high quality of support not only for VMware, but also Hyper-V and KVM. Whatever the customers chooses, we've got their back. One support call does it all. Now that's leadership.

[Fermin (NTNX support)]

Hi Chuck,

About your point above, at Nutanix tech support, we try to assist our customers with non-Nutanix problems when they ask us, doesn't VMW support do that as well?

We have VCPs and VCAPs in the support team; furthermore, several of us are VMware support alumni. There is obviously a point in time when we have to open cases with a 3rd party, but that is also true with many, if not all, support teams; I know I had to use TSANet a few times when I worked in VMW support.

IMHO, going the extra mile is putting the customer first, not in the middle.

Cheers

[Chuck Hollis]

Hi Nutanix folks

As I mentioned in my post, the normal practice is that we all use best efforts to keep customers from being put in the middle.

But the fact that Nutanix is not a vSphere OEM is significant. This means that Nutanix is not entitled to support VMware customers, period. Any support you provide is not "official".

Other hyperconverged vendors have made the decision to be vSphere OEMs. Thus they are entitled to distribute VMware software, and directly support customers.

Bottom line: your model puts customers in a "gray area".

-- Chuck

[Josh Odgers]

To clarify, what number are you referring to when you say an exceptionally high NPS?

I would say Nutanix with +88 is exceptionally high, wouldn't you agree?

Regarding support, Nutanix is a certified and supported (by VMware) platform for vSphere, I know, I personally completed and submitted the certification work. We have Base Storage Certification, Storage Virtual Appliance and VAAI-NAS.

No grey area at all. Customers can call VMware for support if they wish but when the customer calls Nutanix support, we do that on their behalf (if required) to ensure a great support experience.

Not to mention we have 12 VCDXs at Nutanix to call on!

I also totally agree "a good hyperconverged environment should reasonably support the same everyday virtualization functionality and workflows you already use." - Nutanix does exactly this with things like FT & VAAI-NAS support.

Thanks for your support.

[Chuck Hollis]

Hi Josh.

I'm not sure what we've published for a customer support NPS number -- last one I saw was 92, but we're splitting hairs here.

I think you're confusing a few things here. Because Nutanix is not a vSphere OEM, you're not entitled to provide direct support to customers. That's the business decision Nutanix made. Some people will care about this, others maybe not so much.

If that fact is incorrect, please let me know. I checked it quite thoroughly before making the claim.

Nutanix providing unofficial customer support for both VMware and Nutanix products is not the same thing as saying Product X works -- and is supported -- with vSphere.

But I think you know that ...

-- Chuck

[Michael Webster]

Hi Chuck,

I'm a bit confused. What exactly do you mean unofficial support? Can you quantify that? What I think you mean is that Nutanix can't Sell VMware Support SKU's and therefore can't provide the support delivered by those SKU's like the other OEM vendors do. The OEM Vendors Sell VMware Support SKU's and then they also deliver those SKU's directly to their customers. Please correct me if that is not what you mean.

In that case, I'm glad that's how we've decided to do things. This is a lot better for the customers. Customers can call Nutanix Support for the one stop shop, Or if they choose they have a direct route to VMware Support if needed, as they pay for official VMware Support (S&S) with their licenses.

With OEM support, customers are prevented from calling VMware Support directly. Not in our model. In our model, customers can phone Nutanix for the one stop support or still continue to phone up VMware support directly if they choose. Also as our model requires a VMware partner to sell the licenses and support S&S, so the VMware partner is winning as well. Our model is all about the customers and partners. That's just how we've decided to do it. So I'm glad we're not an OEM.

We deliver all of the benefits, including being able to log bugs on customers behalf, without any of the drawbacks, such as preventing customers from calling VMware support directly if they way. Also if a customer chooses that they need a Business Critical or Mission Critical Support product from VMware, there is nothing preventing them from having it. Best of all worlds.

[Fermin Echegaray]

EDS and VMware Earn Top Net Promoter Scores According to New Temkin Group Research of Tech Industry

With an NPS of 48, EDS came out with the top score followed closely by VMware with 45.

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/eds-and-vmware-earn-top-net-promoter-scores-according-to-new-temkin-group-research-of-tech-industry-269199231.html

[Fermin Echegaray]

Sorry, I pushed the Post button too soon, I wanted to add that jumping from 45 to 92 is definitely a great improvement, if the metrics have not changed, then the guys in support deserve big kudos

[Chuck Hollis]

Hi Michael

I'll go back to the beginning. My assertion is that key value proposition for any form of hyperconverged is simplicity in all its aspects. I think you'd agree with that.

One important aspect of simplicity is customer support experience. A single customer support provider is inherently better than two, three, etc. no matter how good. One throat to choke and all that.

The honest truth is that a great deal of your product is based on vSphere, which Nutanix is not entitled to support. Take away vSphere, there wouldn't be much to look at.

What I've heard from you and the other Nutanix folks is basically "hey, yeah we know we're not entitled to provide vSphere support to end users, but we've got these great VCDXes etc. and we'll take care of you because we mean really well".

In my opinion, that's a poor substitute for making the investment to do it the right way. Some customers will be OK with your approach. Some won't.

Regardless, I think Nutanix should be transparent to customers regarding what services they are entitled to provide, and which ones they aren't.

Because, at the end of the day, it's really all about customers, isn't it?

-- Chuck

[Chuck Hollis]

Hi Fermin

You need to dig a little deeper. There are NPS scores for "company brand", "products", "support", etc. The ones you shared I believe are for company brand, e.g. how do you feel about the company as a whole.

The scores we were discussing were specific to customer support.

-- Chuck

[fffr]

Why don't you retitle your blog 'why VMware is ahead of nutanix'. I dont know why you would want to justify yourself against nutanix, but oh well

[E1_ang]

Thanks for sharing this Chuck.

BTW, I'm not joining the discussion above :-) No intention.

I'm just sharing that the integration to vSphere is an important factor for my customers. I only serve a handful of FSI accounts, who have been using vSphere for years. One bought VSAN + NSX because they see it as an engineering extension of vSphere. The same UI matters to them as they want a single pane of glass to manage their IaaS.

[Michael Webster]

Hi Chuck,

Sorry, but I'm not sure I quite understand what you're saying. If what you appear to be saying is correct it means that none of VMware's thousands of partners could give design or configuration advice to customers at all, and could not support their customers in any way. Now we know that isn't the case, as VMware makes a big deal about how valuable the partner ecosystem is for customers.

So if this is the case I would say VMware hasn't been transparent at all with their customers or their partners. It would also mean there is absolutely no value in any of VMware's certification programs. So is this what you're saying?

From what I understand though, this is not the case. Any customers with paid up VMware SnS are entitled to support with VMware directly (if they choose), so there is no gray area. Partners are also entitled to provide whatever commercial support models as they choose and as customers agree, and to whichever SLA's they agree. The VMware Partners are experienced and provide great customer solutions and great customer support for the end to end solution, for which vSphere is often a small component.

If we've got this wrong, then VMware needs to come clean. Remember VMware Partners are the people who generate all of VMware's revenue.

[Josh]

Chuck,

I wanted to comment on your claim that VMware has the best product ecosystem and support. My experience has been that VMware over promises and under delivers and just plain screws over customers to serve VMware's best interest and not the customer's best interest. VMware is a well oiled selling machine. But a well oiled engineering and support organization? VMware is profit focused and not customer focused and customers are starting to feel it and look for other solutions.

When's the last time you actually called VMware Support as a customer? I bet you have access to the SR database. I'll give you some SR numbers to go look up to see if VMware really delivered the kind of support you are claiming.

I've come to feel that instead of focusing on supporting the customer's mission VMware focuses on trying to drain their IT budget. I'm tired of vRAM, VCOPs, NSX, Horizon Workspace... it seems like the answer to all our IT problems is going to be to give VMware money because they have the best solution and the one belly button for us to push. Can you tell that a few sales dudes have used that argument on me before? It gets kind of old after hearing it for the past few years.

VMware takes away functionality from existing products so they can sell the same functionality as a separate product. I'll give you an example. vCNS was a great feature that added value to vCloud. VMware just decided that it was EOL. So the vCloud SKU that came with a networking feature no longer has a networking feature. VMware's solution? Well you can buy NSX for the low price of... WTF? Taking away features from a product and telling me to buy them again is NOT SUPPORTING ME.

I don't think VMware should get into pissing contests with startups. VMware has a bajillion dollars... that money comes from customers. VMware should be able to invest that into their product and make it awesome enough to defend itself. The fact that startups are popping up and gaining traction should make VMware wonder what they are not delivering that makes their customers start looking at other solutions. VMware needs to add value to our organizations, not drain value from our budgets. VMware has made us a lot of promises in the past... how about they start keeping some?

[P]

Ok let me try to understand this correctly - you are essentially saying partners of VMware aren't really great because they don't build and distribute the hypervisor? Thumbs up for standing behind your partners VMware!

Last I checked, VMware did not build and ship Oracle, Exchange, SQL and every other workload in the enterprise today, so does the argument apply there as well? Can I turn back and build a top 10 reasons to go with Hyper-V and list that as a reason since Microsoft ships Hyper-V and SQL? I'd been a VMware fan for a long time - it was once a company with great ideas that could take on bigger companies. Now it is the same bully that it once fought against. Innovation has slowed down, VSAN 2.0 gets shipped as VSAN 6.0 because of some marketing douchebagery, bullying smaller companies has become the norm, losing market share to Microsoft and what not.

You should realize that at the end of the day top 10s like these will only hurt customers. They are like short skirts - gives enough to keep people interested, but hides the most interesting part.

Lets go through the list one by one now:

1."As far as claims to "market leadership" — without the power and presence of the VMware vSphere platform, there wouldn't be a converged or hyperconverged market to argue about" --> Really? WTF! Is that VMware saying screw you vSphere partners ... we are the big guys and we will act like bullies?No company in this planet is indispensable. Every software vendor is realizing it. So I would definitely watch the arrogance.
2. "There shouldn’t be a need for a separate management interface" - Doesn't EVO:RAIL have a separate management interface? Or do you just use vcenter?
3. Re: hardware choice - your point is moot. When you talk about its all in the software in your first point, why does this point matter as much? All EVO RAIL partners ship the same hardware config as far as I can see so its not like they have much of a choice.
4. #7 are you shamelessly pitching NSX here?
5. #8 - you missed public clouds in your hybrid cloud story. Seems like an obvious miss there. Its probably because you dont enable native integration wit public clouds that every storage vendor offers today?
6. #10 - Thats just high-handed BS. EVery vendor will claim that their customer trusts them. There is a mom and pop store down the road from where I live and they make the same claim as well. Good to hear etc., but doesn't mean much.

Anyway I will end my long post here. Shame on you VMware for falling from grace. You are not the company I once adored. Your products don't market themselves anymore. It requires dense posts like these to sell your products.

--P

[Mike Johnson]

Watching this unravel is getting a little pathetic. Honestly you lead a market based on the number of sales. Right now Nutanix is ahead based on the actual shipping product. Everyone else is playing catchup. It's as simple as that. I'm sure VMware will also make a splash but it's too soon to say VMware leads this space. VMware leads the hypervisor market and that can give them an edge to become a strong contender. What's sad is that VMware is spreading thin and trying to tackle everything meanwhile losing ground in the hypervisor market. I can't keep count how many customers have stopped paying for support, brought hyper-v into the mix and even scaled up boxes while cutting cores to keep up with budget contraints that keep getting challenged by ever rising support costs. In the SLED space hyper-v simply makes sense. I think VMware should think really hard about how they can continue to keep dominance in the hypervisor market before they lose their own customer base to sell their value add that relies on ESXi like view, vrac, air, etc..

[Chuck Hollis]

Chuck here ...

A reminder of the house rules?

1. Identify who you are and who you work for, e.g. vendor, etc.
2. You can disagree; you can't be disagreeable
3 Try to add some value to the conversation if possible

Other than that, please feel free to leave your comments here.

Thanks!

[Mostafa Magdy]

I have a feeling that this is starting to get too personal, just to try and prove one party is better than the other.
Putting the customer first, i would leverage such a blog "along with the commentary" to make sure we all deliver a better customer experience everyday.

I always say, every company is in the market for a reason, they all have innovative solutions and it always boils down to what's the right solution for the right customer at the right price.

Competition is always good for customers but coopetition is better. After all we all strive to achieve better customer satisfaction.

my two cents ..

[Chuck Hollis]

Chuck here

Nice to hear from all the Nutanix folks. No one has come back to me to disprove my core assertion from #5 regarding customer support.

I stated that, since Nutanix has chosen not to be a vSphere OEM, they are not entitled to distribute software, nor are they entitled to provide support for VMware products. Other hyperconverged vendors have decided to be vSphere OEMs, and -- as a result -- they are entitled to both distribute VMware products and provide direct end-user support for them. That's the state of play today.

Any disagreement? No, I didn't think so :)

As a result, customers might be put in an awkward multi-vendor support situation, despite everyone's best efforts. I feel that should be transparently disclosed.

Agree with the statements around competition is good, choices are good, etc. Informed consumers make better choices.

Which is why I wrote the blog post.

-- Chuck

[Josh Odgers]

Question: How many customers run 100% of workloads on VSAN?

Answer: I recall hearing a stat from VMW that 1200 customers have VSAN licensing. So 498800 VMware customers don't even have VSAN. So at best about 0.25% of VMware customers could theoretically run 100% on VSAN, in reality that wouldn't be the case though.

Result: The remaining 498800 (of the 500k) VMware customers have "awkward multi-vendor support situation" as you put it where they have to call a storage vendor for support.

Now your come back will probably be, something like Vendor X,Y,Z provide OEM support for vSphere so they are a one throat to choke, great!

Now let's not BS each other, vendors X,Y,Z escalate back to VMware GSS all the time, just like a non OEM vendor (like Nutanix) does especially for things like Bugs which OEM vendors don't fix.

So what's the difference in the support for OEM vs non OEM vendors, Nothing significant.

According to you every VMware customer (who is not 100% VSAN) who uses product from non OEM partners would have an "awkward multi-vendor support situation"?!

Luckily Nutanix NPS shows we have excellent (arguably market leading) support so nothing awkward about it from our customers perspective.

Thanks for helping highlight one of Nutanix competitive advantages.

Final Thought: I wonder how all VMware's non OEM partners/vendors feel about you calling their support "awkward".

[Josh Odgers]

Just checked VMware's NPS (measured through Temkin) for the last three years:

2012: +48
2013: +47
2014: +45

Very good! But not as good as +88 (Nutanix)

[Chuck Hollis]

Hey Josh - I know you've got your competitive juices flowing, but I'd suggest taking a deep breath. I don't think you're doing yourself or your company any favors.

Just sayin'

First, regarding NPS I don't think you're comparing the right numbers. I think the goal is to compare customer support numbers (that is what we were talking about, right?) I don't know if we use Temkin or not, but our customer support NPS was 92 last time I checked.

On your second point, one of the key value propositions behind hyperconverged is "extreme simplicity". Not every shop in the world is interested in hyperconverged for everything they do. But for those that are, one could argue that single vendor support is simpler/easier than multi-vendor support.

We both know that multi-vendor support is the norm in many of today's environments. We all make it work. But when we're discussing hyperconverged and its merits, the measurement system changes.

But, once again, you're not addressing the point I raised.

Nutanix is not a vSphere OEM, thus not entitled to distribute and support VMware products. That creates an avoidable multivendor situation. Going further, I think there's clear evidence that Nutanix hasn't been exactly transparent with its customers about the support situation.

BTW, I raised 9 other points in the blog post. I guess you agree with all of those, or don't believe them to be relevant?

-- Chuck

[FinerRay]

Hello Chuck, long time reader first time commenter and now a member of twitter. I have been a VMware customer for over 10 years now and really enjoy the ride I have been on. Thanks to VMware for bringing a great product to market. We are now a Nutanix customer and are very happy with support, performance and reliability. In my opinion a real home run combination.

My question to you is does VMware really want to be the hyperconverged leader? We tested Nutanix and VSAN about a year ago and there really was not a comparison. I love VMware and we of course choose VMware as they hypervisor, but for the distributed local storage and manageability, performance during rebuild and over all ease of use Nutanix, the product reliability really shined above VMware VSAN. I am sure things have improved on the VSAN side with 6 and I give VMware a lot of credit, because VSAN is much better than the VSA, I think it is meaning to replace.

My point is does VMware really want to try to compete with an innovative company like Nutanix and go feature for feature with Nutanix? In my limited and un-sophisticed look at things, VSAN can and does have its place, but when you try to do everything that a storage array or feature that Nutanix is doing with its distributed file system and shove all of that into the kernel of hypervisor you have to have some loss of security and reliability. Is NSX (another hot button topic) in kernel or is it a VSA? I think it is a virtual appliance but I'm not sure. vSphere 5.1 was the worst release of any VMware product in a long time 5.5 has been great and I hope that introducing all of this VSAN stuff into the kernel does not compromise all that “we” VMware worshipers have loved for so many years….reliability.

Thanks again. Ray

[Richard Houghton]

Hi all,
First up, I work at Dell as a Solutions Consultant:
I’d just like to point out that if customers are concerned about support issues raised by Chuck in this blog post, they could consider a Dell XC solution powered by Nutanix. This gives customers that single number to call for all support related issues. Similarly, if customer workloads determine that EVO:RAIL or vSAN are a better fit, we’ll support that as well.

Chuck, re your comment “the value proposition of hyperconverged derives from integrating infrastructure in software”. I disagree with this statement. I believe the value is providing predictability and simplicity. The path to providing predictability and simplicity may well be via “integrating infrastructure in software” aka software defined, but lets not confuse the value proposition with an approach taken to achieve it.

-- Richard (@StrategicalIT)

[Chuck Hollis]

Hi Ray -- always appreciate hearing from people in the trenches. If you're spoofing me, you've done good, because you sound like the real thing.

If you go back a year? Yes, I would agree. VSAN was just coming to market, and there were rough edges as you'd expect. Myself and the team have been working feverishly to hammer things out -- the level of energy has been exceptional. And I'm proud of where we are today.

Your first great question -- does VMware want to be a hyperconverged leader? The answer is unequivocally yes. We think by embedding certain core functions in the hypervisor (storage and networking) we can bring major game-changers for customers.

From my historical geek perspective, it's an unprecedented opportunity, if you think about it.

The clever bit with VSAN (and NSX) is to put key optimizations into the ESXi kernel, then integrate the experience with what vSphere admins do every day. We've got strong evidence that this is the right way going forward, and we're dedicatted to execute. Right or wrong, we're committed.

And, as you point out, the challenge is to execute on this vision without compromising what makes vSphere so attractive. Personally, I like what I see so far.

But all this advanced engineering will mean nothing unless we can validate it in the eyes of people like you. I'd encourage you to take a hard look at VSAN 6 (as well as the NSX roadmap). I like what I see.

I can only hope you can say the same :)

-- Chuck

[Storage In Wellington]

Well, it's really some interesting points in this post But the fact that Nutanix is not a vSphere OEM is significant. This means that Nutanix is not entitled to support VMware customers, period.

[arthur]

why is this a post pissing contest between vmware and nutanix.
i dont know anybody who made a purchasing decision based on the NPS score.

[Chuck Hollis]

HI, all, Chuck here ...

Over the weekend, Josh Odgers at Nutanix published a rather lengthy post on performance and architectures. I don't think any of his arguments hold water, and said so in the comments.

Josh's post and my response is here:

http://www.joshodgers.com/2015/03/30/in-kernel-verses-virtual-storage-appliance/#comment-24828

[Mike Smith]

I wonder if the mainframe vendors argued this way over user terminals, while the PC revolution made them redundant :(

The fact is that anyone (everyone) is moving client infrastructure to the cloud and the cloud providers are moving it to OpenStack.

I'd have thought that if you wanted to know the leader in Hyper-Convergence by customers, shipped or production units, then it's OpenStack & Ceph.

If you want the leader in $$$, then your kind'a missing the point no??

P.s. I don't represent any vendor, partner or SI.

[Lukas Lundell]

Hello Chuck,

Lukas, from Nutanix here.

The way you are presenting Nutanix's VMware support is misleading.

We don't sell VMware software. We don't sell or make money off the support of VMware's software. Nutanix customers who happen to run VMware as a hypervisor will need to have support contracts with both VMware and Nutanix to be officially supported by both the best of breed hypervisor vendor and the best of breed hyper-convergence software.

If they have an issue in which they don't know if its VMware or Nutanix, they are welcome to call Nutanix and we will do everything we can to help resolve the issue, including contacting the hypervisor vendor (VMware in this case) on their behalf. Or they are welcome to use the VMware "official" channel that you mention with the support contract they should have with VMware with their purchase of VMware software.

I would recommend to any of Nutanix customers using the VMware hypervisor that they do have an active VMware support contract.

In this case, why does it matter if we aren't the "official" channel when we are able to successfully troubleshoot and resolve a customers issues with VMware? If its a code issue with the hypervisor that requires a bug fix, it will obviously need to go to VMware development and we would help file the bug.

Bottom line here, our joint customers should never be in any grey area. Almost all of them already have VMware support contracts, and have had VMware support contracts for a long time. Some prefer to call Nutanix anyways, even for hypervisor-related issues... because we wan't to help them fix as much as we can. Ask them.

Last thing - several of the people on our support team used to be in key roles (ie global escalation team) within Cisco UCS, NetApp, and VMware support. Same with our development team.

[Chuck Hollis]

Hi Mike

Having been there when PCs replaced mainframe terminals, you do have a point :)

While it's true that the use of cloud services are growing, the majority of IT spend within enterprises these days is still for on-premises gear. That may change in the future, though.

Similarly, OpenStack is growing, but it's still got a ways to go in terms of market share, but there's no denying its popularity. At VMware, we're starting to offer VMware Integrated OpenStack (VIO, as everything needs an acronym) which offers a better out-of-the-box experience, while still preserving the OpenStack model.

Regarding OpenStack and Ceph -- yes, it's in use, no doubt -- but it's a rare beast in the enterprise these days. Cloud providers and service providers, different story -- although you'd be surprised as to how many traditional storage arrays you'd find in a service provider shop.

Interesting tidbit -- ask any of the big cloud players where they run their boring day-to-day IT stuff, and it usually *won't* be on their cloud :)

-- Chuck

[Chuck Hollis]

Hi Lukas

Thanks for disclosing your affiliation -- it helps everyone understand where you're coming from.

As I read your comment, you and I agree. Shocking, I know. Nutanix supports their components, VMware supports ours -- and we both work together to keep our mutual customers as happy as possible.

However, we found that many customers erroneously thought Nutanix was entitled to provide support for VMware products. I then took a look at your marketing materials, and it tended to lead people to believe that Nutanix provided single support for both Nutanix and VMware products.

Actually, it was pretty misleading :)

So I decided to set the record straight. Whether the official support arrangement matters (or not) to a customer is their call, not ours. But I feel they do need the facts to make informed choices.

-- Chuck

[Lukas Lundell]

For several years Nutanix was entitled to provide "official" VMware support. I helped sign that agreement in the end of 2011/early 2012.

Two years later as we grew in size, VMware wanted a boatload of money and promises around revenue from us, and said they would end our ASP/OEM agreement if we didn't pay up. In the same breath they were working to acquire companies and launch a competitive product, in an effort to compete with us. Meanwhile, we've never sold or made any money off VMware software or support.

So we decided to stop being an VMware ASP/OEM. It was becoming a one-sided relationship. We shouldn't need to buy "protection or security". We don't think VMware has the right to give us a "shakedown".

Competition for hyperconverged is a good thing, and we've welcomed it. But using your monopoly position in the hypervisor market to oppress up and comers is not good for the market, and I don't think the market will tolerate it.

So no, we are no longer entitled by VMware to provide support for VMware products and customers should also have a contract with VMware if they are using their software for the hypervisor layer. But we stand by our marketing and support commitment as a single throat to choke. We continue to help many of our customers through hypervisor configuration and troubleshooting issues (along with VDI, SQL, Oracle, etc.).

[Chuck Hollis]

Lukas -- sorry you're so bitter, but part of being a good partner is making sure everyone plays by the same rules, Nutanix included. A level playing field, and all that.

Channel partners can resell VMware products, and provide support. OEM partners can resell VMware products, and provide support. EVO RAIL partners can resell VMware products, and provide support.

There's a pattern here. And, if you think about it, it makes sense for our partners and customers as well. If you sell something, you should be entitled to support it.

Nutanix made a business decision not to resell VMware products, so -- unfortunately -- not entitled to provide support.

Thanks

-- Chuck

[Randy Arseneau]

Chuck:

First off, my official disclaimer: I work for Nutanix. I've also probably been at this as long as or longer than you have, so I suspect we probably share some similar frames of reference and points of view on this industry.

That said, while I'm sure Lukas appreciates your diagnosis, and although I don't want to speak for him (nor does he need me to do so), I'm pretty sure he's not at all bitter. In fact, Lukas, like all of my colleagues here, thoroughly enjoys developing, delivering and supporting a great solution portfolio that supports and enables our shared customers very well indeed. It tends to make us the polar opposite of bitter, to be honest. :)

Speaking of those customers, it seems that their satisfaction and overall consumer experience is getting a bit lost in all this. But of course here again, they certainly don't need me to speak on their behalf - they can and do (and have - right up there ^), very eloquently and convincingly.

My general view on this is pretty simple. If I'm a hypothetical customer running VMware on Nutanix, and I have a need to contact support when I encounter a problem, I don't want to burn a lot of cycles thinking about who I should call first to get it resolved. If I've had good experiences with Nutanix support previously (and the odds are very much in favor of that), I'm likely to call them again. If Nutanix support diagnoses the problem and finds that it's not "theirs", they will happily assist me with ticketing it to VMware. Or Microsoft. Or Oracle. Or SAP. Or Splunk. Etc. You get the idea. A "warm hand off" as it were.

Would it be better if the Nutanix support engineer, when confronted with a VMWare problem, opted instead to say, "Sorry, not our problem. Call VMWare...." and promptly hung up?

Oversimplification, yes. But the point remains - I think part of the reason our customers love our support so much is because we don't politicize it. We just do our best to help them get their problem solved, either by us or (perhaps) by VMWare. We advocate for them, not ourselves. They don't care - nor should they - where the lines of demarcation exist between vendor solutions when they have a problem. They just want to get it resolved.

...Randy

[Chuck Hollis]

Hi Randy

I think I've heard from most of the Nutanix employees already, so why not one more?

As before:

Yes, we all work together as vendors to give our customers as seamless an experience as possible. Of course.

That being said, Nutanix has been representing themselves as providing direct support for VMware products. Unfortunately, Nutanix is not entitled to do that.

Customers should be aware of that, and make their choices.

-- Chuck

[Shawn]

Wouldn't a Nutanix solution on the Dell XC platform alleviate all of these support concerns?
Dell IS a VMware OEM and is able to provide VMware support.

[Chuck Hollis]

Shawn -- theoretically, yes.

-- Chuck

[Brian]

In regards to #2

So VMware feels it's superior because they are part of the kernel. But how do you then support many of your EVO partners offering bolt on solutions to try and add value or make up for missing features.

You attack 3rd party HC vendors for not being in the kernel but then fully bless something like this Nexenta configuration?
http://blogs.vmware.com/euc/2015/02/software-defined-hyper-converged-vdi.html

That seems worse than not being in the kernel. Not to pick on the Nexenta people, because they have a nice offering. But they have no visibility or control of the flash and disks. It's also adding another layer to the storage stack that seems unnecessary.

I work for a partner, I like Nutanix and EVO. Seems like your wasting time fighting over BS that many customer don't care about.

[Chuck Hollis]

Hi Brian

When it comes to providing shared storage services, I and others would argue there is a meaningful difference between being hypervisor integrated (or not). Things like performance, resource usage, consolidation ratios, error handling -- the stuff many customers care about.

Nexenta provides optional shared file access outside the vSphere cluster, and it runs on top of VSAN. It's not integral to either VSAN or vSphere. Consider it a gateway for people who might want that sort of thing. And we're very clear who supports what in this model.

Thanks for your thoughts ...

-- Chuck

[Sam]

Hi Chuck

I am working for a Nutanix partner in Switzerland for a bit more than a year now and everything I have seen so far when it comes to VMware support was above expectations. One practical example was the severe NFS bug in vSphere 5.5 U1 which hit one of our customers some time before there was any official statement from VMware (VMware KB article or similar). It was Nutanix who was in direct contact with VMware to eventually figure out what the problem was long before we got a response from VMware directly.
Another example was just recently when another customer ran into issues with a VMware VSS integration bug when using vShield Endpoint antivirus protection causing VM freezes. Also in that case Nutanix was providing phenomenal support (even though it was ultimately a VMware issue).

I believe at the end of the day the customers care about who helps them in the quickest and most effective way. I am sure the Nutanix customers I know see the facts clearly.

P.S.: Was working for EMC before for 5 years. I think it's a great company and I enjoyed my time there. When it came to VMware support however there was zero to no knowledge in the local support organization at least not in the cases I know of (unless of course a case had a high severity and was escalated to get specialists from the US involved).

[Chuck Hollis]

Hi Sam

Glad to hear you're having good luck with Nutanix support.

But I think you and many others are missing my key point here: Nutanix is not entitled to provide support for VMware products.

-- Chuck

[Andy Salo]

Hi Chuck, great post. I'm the VP Product at NIMBOXX. I can appreciate your well thought out arguments. I wish you guys success and look forward to competing with you in accounts. You were definitely successful at getting the attention of seemingly every Nutanix employee. ;)

I've written a response on our NIMBOXX blog.

[Chuck Hollis]

Hi Andy

Yes, I think I've heard from each and every Nutanix employee by now, including their CEO.

-- Chuck

[meh130]

Chuck,

If OEMing a particular VMware product is necessary for official VMware support, does that mean NSX on Cisco UCS falls into a support a "gray area"? If so, will VMware rescind its design guides for NSX on UCS? Or is NSX not included in your general statement regarding OEMs, non-OEMs, and official VMware support? If it is not, will you provide a blog post covering what VMware software is included under the OEM/Supportability umbrella, and also explain how/if VCE VxBlocks and EMC/channel VSPEX fit into this?

Thanks.

[Chuck Hollis]

"meh130" -- here's what I think you and others are missing.

Nutanix sells an appliance as a "complete solution". Very often, it is based on vSphere and VMware products. The customer has to acquire those separately, usually through our channel. Because Nutanix has not sold the licenses, they are not entitled to provide end user support for VMware products. If you think about it for a moment, that's an entirely reasonable position for customers, partners, etc.

The customer must be aware that they will need *two* support relationships -- one with Nutanix, one with VMware. That's not unusual, but it needs to be disclosed, naturally. And it hasn't been -- at least, up to now.

Regarding your various permutations and combinations, it feels like a game of stump the blogger, so I'll try.

- In the case of NSX, it's software that runs across many vendor environments. VMware supports its product, the switch vendors supports their products, and -- like most situations -- vendors work together to make their customers successful. Specifically, VMware is not attempting to sell customers on an all-in-one networking appliance that supposedly has a single support model.

-Any entity that sells VMware licenses is entitled to supply VMware support. That includes VCE, VSPEX, EVO:RAIL partners, channel partners, etc. -- a very long list indeed.

Hope this helps. If you'd like to go another round double-or-nothing, bring it on.

-- Chuck

[Bacon_Is_King]

Without a dog in this fight right now, its interesting to watch, this whole thread has a very Storage Sales 2009 feel to it. That said, a few observations on my part.

With over 500 customer discussions in the last 24 months, the number of times that NPS came up was zero. It carries all the weight and relevance of the Red Herring awards with customers, but those of us who are psuedo-marketers seem to think it matters. Do you know anyone who bought their car based on a JD Powers ranking? Didn't think so.

Supportability matters, and if a customer is comfortable with the level of support that Nutanix, or Simplivity offers in terms of VMware, then essentially, that ends the discussion. If the organization requires that 100% rubber stamp (and yes some do), then there could be a problem. Dirty secret for all of the HCI vendors still remains supportability for things like Exchange running on VMDK's backed by NFS (not supported), but if the customer is willing to accept a support statement by the vendor then thats the end of that story.

Chuck makes a number of points that competitors are ignoring, instead looking to cherry pick the one argument they think they can win, it ignores the much larger discussion about the nature of HCI and its viability in the marketplace, and frankly its future. I for one have strong opinions about the viability at scale where the TCO starts to break down. Flexibility around resource allocation, and the inability to address bare metal.

Bottom line, much like the all flash arena, this space is growing much faster than any of the vendors can adapt. HCI is here to stay and will be the defacto unit of allocation for a certain type of customer, just not all customers. I will agree that, what can be done, must be done in software, but we are certainly not at that phase yet, nor are a good number of customers comfortable with that mindset.

[Chuck Hollis]

It's always nice to read an intelligent comment -- so thanks!

-- Chuck