WP Idc Report Nutanix Files Business Value

IDC White Paper | Nutanix Files Helps Enterprise Organizations Optimize Files Storage Performance and IT Operations
Sponsored by: Nutanix
Nutanix Files Helps Enterprise

Authors:
Harsh Singh
Amita Potnis
January 2020
Organizations Optimize
Business Value Files Storage Performance and
Highlights
IT Operations
414%
five-year ROI
7 months EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

payback period
The need for a simple, flexible, and intelligent file-based storage solution is on the rise.
66% Traditional file systems often suffer from lack of ease of management, scalability, and in-built
lower cost of operations analytics to monitor system health and resource usage. Modern file systems address these
over five years
issues for customer success in ways traditional providers cannot.
69% IDC believes that file servers are critical elements in the overall performance of enterprise
more efficient storage
management operations. While network-attached storage (NAS) promised to alleviate file storage challenges,
it remains encumbered by various inefficiencies. Nutanix Files is a fully integrated file server
58% solution designed to optimize files storage performance by combining enterprise-grade
less time needed to availability and resilience with cloudlike scalability and integrating virtual machines (VMs) and
deploy new files
unstructured data into a simpler stack. To validate the benefits of Nutanix Files, IDC interviewed
39% seven organizations running enterprise workloads supported by the Nutanix platform. The
more efficient IT survey data obtained and applied to IDC’s Business Value model showed that study participants
infrastructure management
realized significant value with Nutanix. IDC calculates that study participants will achieve
99% average annual benefits of $2.65 million per organization, which would result in a five-year
return on investment (ROI) of 414%, by:
reduction in unplanned
downtime
• Fostering more efficient IT and storage management and faster deployment of new files
$758,000 storage and shares
revenue protected due to
reduced downtime • Lowering the cost of IT and storage operations
6% • Translating IT operational benefits into improved application performance and better

more productive end users business results
30% • Minimizing the effects of unplanned downtime, thereby contributing to greater

improved application productivity for business units
performance
Document #US45820620 © 2020 IDC. www.idc.com | Page 1

SITUATION OVERVIEW
As enterprises undertake digital transformation, they will also be looking to modernize their
IT infrastructures. Traditionally, standalone network-attached storage appliances have been
the solution of choice for file server deployments, and such solutions are generally complex
to set up and operate, require specialized skills, and create additional infrastructure silos. IDC’s
Worldwide File- and Object-Based Storage Forecast, 2018–2022 (IDC #US41469117, December
2018) predicts that the scale-out file-based storage market will reach $10.7 billion growing
at a CAGR of 9.9% during the time frame. While the bulk of the spend can be attributed to
appliance-only sales, file storage software–only sales continue to proliferate the market.
In addition, the mix of workloads that runs on enterprise IT infrastructure will be shifting
more toward an application model that is well suited to software-defined storage (SDS)
deployments as more and more next-generation applications (NGAs) are brought online.
The key benefits of SDS — ease of scalability and management, better economics, and
hardware flexibility — are very appealing to enterprises that are refreshing their existing
IT infrastructure. While technology advancements in compute, storage, and networking
technologies are enabling SDS to handle a broader set of workloads, there are still workloads
and customer types for which it is not the best choice. Vendors need to understand the
features and benefits of each of the five enterprise storage consumption models (storage
appliances, software only, converged infrastructure, hyperconverged infrastructure [HCI], and
cloud), offer their SDS products across as many of those as is appropriate given their market
focus, and help their customers select the model best suited to deployment requirements.
IDC has noted that as the external array market started to mature, narrowing feature
differentiation between the leading multicontroller array vendors, many of them began
to focus on customer experience (CX) as a point of differentiation. In particular, predictive
analytics platforms were introduced, and there are clear examples of vendors that have used
these types of platforms to drive compelling (and most importantly differentiating) value for
their customers in the areas of performance, capacity utilization, availability, efficiency,
and cost.
As established players plan to integrate ease of use, predictive analytics, and cost efficiencies,
in addition to existing enterprise features, vendors such as Nutanix are bringing to market a
new generation of file-based storage with many of these features built in support of the vision
that Nutanix Files is simple, flexible, and intelligent.

NUTANIX ENTERPRISE CLOUD OVERVIEW

Nutanix Files is a software-defined scale-out file storage solution designed to address many
use cases. End users considering Nutanix Files have the freedom to choose from a wide range
of underlying hardware while providing enterprise-grade software-defined capabilities.
Nutanix Files offers the essential enterprise-level file storage capabilities, such as SMB/NFS,
multiprotocol access, Active Directory integration, data reduction, user/share quotas, clones,
snapshots, data tiering, and replication. Nutanix Files can be deployed and managed using
Prism, the Nutanix management solution.
Nutanix Files can be deployed as standalone file storage or within existing Nutanix HCI
clusters, thus resulting in a solution that delivers infrastructure consolidation. When deployed
as a standalone file environment, Nutanix Files offers its users a dedicated capacity option
that can deliver high-capacity density for larger-scale environments. As the environment
grows, additional capacity and physical resources can be added with minimal disruption to
production environments by adding additional physical nodes. Nutanix Files is supported on
any node type supported by AOS, giving customers freedom of choice across a broad set of
appliance vendors.
Nutanix Files also supports file analytics engine that adds intelligence to file data
management. The Nutanix Files file analytics engine enables administrators to monitor
and alert unusual user behavior, track permission lineage, or review audit trails. Regulated
industries, such as healthcare, can benefit from such capabilities to keep data secure and
support governance, risk, and compliance initiatives.
Nutanix Files integrates with the extended product portfolio such as Nutanix Calm, Xplay, and
Xfit. Nutanix Calm provides easy-to-use application orchestration for all resources including
file storage. Nutanix Xplay and Nutanix Xfit are new policy-based orchestration engines that
enable administrators to create rules-based responses to common conditions of the AOS
environment. Nutanix Files is part of a single storage platform on AOS called the distributed
storage fabric. This allows administrators to provision file, block, and object storage from
the same hardware clusters, with a single architecture, and through a single management
plane. The storage technologies not only share a set of core storage features (snaps, clones,
data placement, etc.) but also provide features unique to their type of storage (NFS and SMB
support, file analytics, etc.). This flexibility gives administrators the freedom to choose what to
provision and when from that same platform. It gives them flexibility to reallocate resources.
And it simplifies their life with a single management experience and a single-core architecture.

Nutanix Files is currently heavily adopted by the company’s existing customers serving
traditional file-based workloads across several verticals such as healthcare, financial services,
federal and local government, and media and entertainment.
THE BUSINESS VALUE OF NUTANIX

ENTERPRISE CLOUD
Study Demographics
IDC conducted research that explored the value and benefits for organizations of using
Nutanix Files. The project included seven interviews with organizations that were using this
solution and had experience with or knowledge about its benefits and costs. During the
interviews, companies were asked a variety of quantitative and qualitative questions about the
impact of the solution on their IT operations, businesses, and costs.
Table 1 presents study demographics and profiles. Interviewed organizations, a number

of whom are Fortune 1000 companies, had a base of 5,986 employees. This workforce was
supported by an IT staff of 43 engaged in managing 294 business applications for 5,859
internal users and 386,579 external users and/or customers. In terms of geographical
distribution, six companies were based in the United States, with one in Italy. In addition,
there was a mix of vertical industries represented including the transportation, healthcare,
government, legal, and retail sectors. (Note that all numbers cited represent averages.)
TABLE 1 Firmographics of Interviewed Organizations

Average Median Range
Number of employees 5,986 1,100 400–25,000
Number of IT staff 43 25 5–100
Number of IT users 5,859 1,056 396–25,000
Number of external users/customers 386,579 5,000 50 to 2.4 million
Number of business applications 294 100 45–800
Total overall storage (TB) 778 600 20–1,600
Revenue per year $1.97 billion $738 million $35 million to $6.6 billion
Industries Transportation (2), healthcare (2), government, legal, retail
Countries United States (6), Italy
Source: IDC, 2020

Choice and Use of Nutanix Files

The companies that IDC surveyed described usage patterns for the Nutanix Files platform as
well as provided a snapshot of their overall IT and business environments. They also discussed
the rationale behind their choice of Nutanix Files. Interviewed customers cited a number of
factors for the choice such as the ability to use commodity hardware, reduce complexity, and
provide flexible scale by adding virtual machines or virtual resources to their machines to
provide greater performance. Study participants elaborated on these benefits:
• Improved availability for file data: “The consumption and usage of data have definitely
increased, and users don’t delete anything. Our company and most companies that are
our peers have the same challenge. Everybody loves their on-premise file shares, so
the challenge was: How do we transfer those files to a solution that is always available
anywhere?”
• Needed flexibility and better uptime: “When we originally started our Nutanix journey,
we were using the older three-tier architecture. And it pretty much came to a point where
we couldn’t have uptime and performance at the same time. You can have one or the
other, but you can’t have both. So we really had a lot of outages and downtime.”
• More functionality and fitted well with specific needs: “Our sites will always need an
onsite computing storage environment because it needs to connect to the shop floor to
collect data. We need a cache between the local side and the enterprise cloud because we
cannot have direct connections to the cloud due to latency. We went with Nutanix Files
because it offered more functionality, and from an infrastructure perspective, it fits best
into our environment. However, from a concept perspective, what we wanted to do was
reduce complexity because we had more technical components to keep it running. But I
have to say, the solution was robust. We are on commodity hardware, and this makes our
life easier.”
Table 2 describes organizational usage associated with the use of the Nutanix Files platform.
There was a substantial Nutanix footprint across all companies, with an average of 27 physical
servers and 355 virtual servers. 64 business applications were supported with a data and
storage repository encompassing of 286TB. Additional usage patterns are presented in Table 2.
(Note that all numbers cited represent averages.)

TABLE 2 Organizational Usage of Nutanix Files
Nutanix Files Use Average Median
Number of branches/sites 18 14
Number of physical servers 27 15
Number of virtual servers 355 180
Number of internal users supported 3,483 1,056
Number of business applications 64 50
Number of terabytes 286 125
Percentage of total revenue (%) 89 90
Expected storage environment growth (%) 15 13
Source: IDC, 2020
Business Value and Quantified Benefits

IDC’s Business Value model expresses the benefits for organizations using the Nutanix
Files solution to support their ongoing IT and storage operations. Survey data obtained
from Nutanix customers was applied to this model to arrive at an array of quantified post-
deployment benefits. Using this methodology, IDC found that these customers realized
significant value for their IT infrastructure and business operations.
The use of Nutanix Files enabled more efficient IT and storage operations by increasing the
productivity of the teams supporting those operations. Interviewed organizations reported
that the use of Nutanix Files helped them optimize IT infrastructure management, lower the
cost of IT and storage operations, improve application performance, and minimize the effects
of unplanned downtime, thereby contributing to greater productivity for business units.
Customers also appreciated greater efficiency through flexibly and nondisruptively scaling to
get the right performance based on the needs of workloads. Study participants described the
most significant benefits:
• Better operational resiliency: “The biggest benefit is operational resilience. It gives us

peace of mind that we have everything backed up at different sites, and we can easily go
out to the cloud if we need to. It’s given us ... our weekends back. Our previous setup really
was something where if we needed to do any kind of file-level restoring, it was a drawn-
out process. For file availability and space, if we need to increase space on the file server
now, it’s right there. So it’s really given the IT department ... the ability to focus on other
things, like more strategic projects. It really allows us to look forward and innovate instead
of just being an IT shop.”

• Better ROI through management: “One of the biggest things for us was return on
investment. You get so much greater efficiencies by being able to utilize your Nutanix
storage platform with Nutanix virtual machines and Nutanix Files. It allows us to not have
to purchase a separate SAN solution. We also looked at Nutanix Files from an automation
standpoint because less technologies have to interlink. We can go directly to the Nutanix
platform for creating file shares, VMs, and networking. Nutanix is making it simpler.”
• Better data reduction capabilities: “In technology, you always want to be as efficient as
possible ... You want to make sure that you’re maximizing your infrastructure investment.
Nutanix Files fits because it supports [data reduction]. We have a clustered storage
environment. So we’re able to use the same storage platform for our virtual environment
as well as our Files environment. We’re able to leverage that pool of storage to support
multiple services that we lay on top of it.”
• Improved scalability and resilience: “What we were looking for was something simple,
scalable, elastic, and very resilient. When we started our Nutanix Files journey, we looked
at Nutanix’s vision. It aligned with what IT is trying to do. It really made our IT department
more efficient. We also have higher uptime as a result of moving to Nutanix Files.”
The deployment of Nutanix Files has resulted in significant levels of value by enabling these
organizations to better address business opportunities and generate new business. IDC
projects that the total value that these Nutanix customers are realizing will be worth an annual
average of $2.65 million per organization over five years in the following areas (see Figure 1):
• Risk mitigation — user productivity benefits: Nutanix Files customers reported that
they experienced fewer unplanned outages. IDC calculates the resulting value of higher
user productivity at an annual average of $1,432,000 million per organization.
• IT infrastructure cost reductions: Interviewed organizations reported that the

deployment of Nutanix Files resulted in lower cost of operations. IDC calculates that study
participants were able to reduce costs by an annual average of $491,300 per organization.
• IT staff productivity benefits: Study participant data showed that the use of Nutanix
Files required less IT staff time to deploy, manage, and support computer and storage
resources than previous configurations. IDC projects that interviewed organizations
will realize value through IT staff time savings and higher productivity worth an annual
average of $322,000 per organization.
• Business productivity benefits: Study participants tied agility, scalability, and

performance benefits realized to improved business results and higher user productivity.
IDC calculates the value of realized productivity benefits at an annual average of $303,000
per organization.

FIGURE 1 Annual Average Benefits per Organization
Total: $2.65 million

1,600,000
1,400,000
$1.4M
1,200,000
($ per organization)
1,000,000
800,000
600,000
400,000
$491,300
200,000 $322,000 $303,000
0
Risk mitigation – IT infrastructure IT staff Business
user productivity cost reductions productivity productivity
benefits
Source: IDC, 2020
Improvements in IT and Storage Management

In today’s IT environments, file server performance is critical in file-based applications,
department shares, and end-user computing. While NAS promised to alleviate file storage
problems, it is still encumbered by various inefficiencies. Nutanix Files is designed to be a
fully integrated file server solution by combining enterprise-grade availability and resilience
with cloudlike agility/scalability. Nutanix Files eliminates NAS silos by integrating VMs and
unstructured data into a fully distributed self-healing stack.
Study participants spoke to IDC about how Nutanix Files served to cost effectively improve
the efficiency of their files storage operations, VDI, and end-user computing operations. Study
participants cited valuable features and capabilities such as ease of management, especially
self-healing functionality; improved agility; reduction of siloes; and enabling hardware
consolidation via increased server virtualization. Study participants commented on these and
other benefits:
• Stress-free management: “It just works. Once you have set up Nutanix Files, you never
really have to troubleshoot any issues. It just continues to work.”
• Easier management: “It’s easier to manage, so operations are less complex.”
• Improved operational efficiencies: “It improves operational efficiencies. It requires

a whole lot less work, less maintenance, and less employee time. It’s easier to spin up
resources on demand.”
• Improved agility: “Before we had an on-call external technician who would come onsite

whenever our storage would hiccup. There are a couple of us managing storage, and
there’s not much to monitor now. If there’s a project where I need to update the Nutanix
system itself, that may take me an extra couple of hours. I usually do that myself. I start it
from the office, and I finish it as I’m driving home.”
• Allowed IT to do more business-related tasks: “One of the biggest benefits is just

being able to wear more hats. It really allows us to move from the traditional system
administrator role and do more product and project management as well.”
Study participants reported that the deployment of Nutanix Files helped IT teams focus less
on storage management and more on other more strategic IT activities. Table 3 shows Nutanix
Files’ impact on IT storage team efficiency and provides granular pre- and post-deployment
data. As shown in Table 3, IT storage management, equivalent productivity (measured in FTEs
per organization), decreased from 2.2 to 0.7, representing a substantial improvement (68%).
This translated into an annual business value of $148,000.
TABLE 3 Impact of Nutanix Files on IT Storage Team Efficiency
Before With
Nutanix Files Nutanix Files Change Efficiency (%)
IT storage management, equivalent 2.2 0.7 1.5 68

productivity (FTEs per organization)
Value of staff time per year ($000) 217 68.9 148 68
Source: IDC, 2020
Similar benefits and improvements were evident for IT teams because of the improved
management functions offered by Nutanix Files. Table 4 shows impacts on IT infrastructure
management efficiency with the result that infrastructure teams have 39% more time to work
on other more strategic activities. This translated into an annual business value of $198,000.
TABLE 4 Impact of Nutanix Files on IT Infrastructure Management Efficiency
Before With
Nutanix Files Nutanix Files Change Efficiency (%)
Management of IT infrastructure
5 3 2 39
(FTE equivalent per organization per year)
Value of staff time per year ($000) 502 304 198 39
Source: IDC, 2020

Study participants reported agility benefits based on features such as ease of management,
self-healing functionality, and reduction of silos. After deployment of Nutanix Files, IT and
storage teams were able to deploy new storage and files more quickly. Figure 2 shows Nutanix
Files’ impact on IT agility. As shown in Figure 2, the time needed to deploy new storage,
measured in hours, improved 67%. In addition, the time needed to deploy new files, measured
in hours, improved 58%. Additional metrics are shown in Figure 2.
FIGURE 2 Impact of Nutanix Files on IT Agility
Time needed to deploy new storage (hours) 67%
Time needed to deploy new files (hours) 58%
Staff time required to deploy new storage (hours) 50%

Staff time required to deploy new files (hours) 49%
Source: IDC, 2020 (% improvement)
Deployment of Nutanix Files reduced the amount of time IT teams need to spend on help
desk operations (see Table 5). The number of incoming calls and trouble tickets per week was
reduced from 8,670 to 6,421, representing a 26% improvement. In addition, the time to resolve,
measured in hours, showed an 11% improvement. In the aggregate, these benefits resulted in
an annual business value of $104,000.
TABLE 5 Impact of Nutanix Files on Help Desk Operations Efficiency
Before With
Nutanix Files Nutnaix Files Difference Benefit (%)
Calls/tickets per week 8,670 6,421 2,249 26
Time to resolve (hours) 0.7 0.6 0.1 11
Total FTE impact 3.1 2 1 34
Value of staff time per year ($000) 307 203 104 34
Source: IDC, 2020

Delivering Better Business Results and

Efficiencies
The previously described benefits that study participants experienced from the deployment of
Nutanix Files enabled them to achieve better business results as well as significant operational
efficiencies. These benefits helped these companies realize higher revenue by better addressing
business opportunities and enabling faster delivery of new applications and services. Study
participants called out specific benefits such as reduced downtime through self-service and
encryption capabilities that optimize regulatory compliance. Companies commented on these
and other benefits:
• More responsive to business needs: “When we get a new product that we need to
test, we don’t have to worry about looking at what free space we can find on a disk. We
don’t have to worry about the performance of the disk now as well. We know with one
look about available free space on Nutanix Files ... without worrying about space and
performance.”
• Reduced downtime: “Nutanix Files offers reduced downtime. I can stand up a VM in a

minute if I need to compared with two-hour backups in the past. Right now, we are 5-9s
systemwide, and I don’t think we’ve ever lost connection. Previously ... it was all the time.
We were having files deleted that we needed to restore from backups.”
• Better end user experience: “Our employees work and collaborate on documents, and
they coauthor documents daily. And they’re humans, not robots, so they make mistakes.
A big issue is that we always had to restore documents from backup, and it was pretty
problematic and inefficient in the past. We wanted to give technology back to the business,
so what Nutanix Files offers is self-service restore. This feature is really awesome because
once we create the share, we can do our self-service snapshots and the end user doesn’t
notice any kind of performance hit. When someone needs to restore a document, it’s
no longer ‘let’s go back to last night’s backup,’ I can literally go back to the snapshot and
give him/her the restored or overwritten file in less than 30 seconds. We’re talking about
seconds versus hours in the past.”
• Critical encryption for auditing: “We have client audits to make sure we’re HIPAA
compliant. With Nutanix Files, our hosts have self-encrypting drives, so it meets those
requirements. In the past, with our previous vendor’s solution, we tried to do software
encryption, but it wasn’t optimal. Nutanix Files had out-of-the-box encryption, so it made
sense for us.”
IDC drilled down on specific metrics associated with better business performance experienced
by Nutanix customers. As shown in Figure 3, these performance KPIs showed that Nutanix

Files offered significant improvements for routine business operations. Improved application
performance (lower latency) showed a 30% improvement. In addition, reduced time to run
analytical queries showed a 24% improvement. Additional metrics are presented in Figure 3.
FIGURE 3 Performance KPIs — Business Impacts
Improved application performance (lower latency) 30%
Reduced time to run analytical queries 24%
Reduced time to run batch processes 21%

Faster execution of business transactions 16%
Source: IDC, 2020 (% improvement)
Another major benefit of Nutanix Files identified by study participants was a substantial
reduction in unplanned downtime. In general, IDC found that end users enjoyed better
availability for their file-related operations. Table 6 provides metrics on the impacts of
unplanned downtime. There was a substantial reduction in the frequency per year of these
events, declining from 27.3 to 1, a 96% improvement. In addition, the time to resolve, measured
in hours, was reduced from 14.6 to 4.8, a 67% improvement. Considered in the aggregate, these
improvements resulted in a substantial annual business value benefit of $1.42 million.
TABLE 6 Impact of Nutanix Files on Unplanned Downtime

Before With
Nutanix Files Nutnaix Files Change Change (%)
Frequency of unplanned downtime

27.3 1 26.3 96
incidents per year
Time to resolve (hours) 14.6 4.8 9.8 67
User FTE impact (lost productivity due to 20.4 0.1 20.3 99

unplanned outages)
Value of lost productivity per year ($M) 1.43 5,400 1.42 99
Source: IDC, 2020

Survey data from study participants showed that, by offering better availability of files, Nutanix
Files is also enabling reductions in unplanned downtime revenue loss (see Table 7). As shown
in Table 7, the total annual revenue loss avoided on a per organization basis was $757,969.
Additional metrics are shown in Table 7.
TABLE 7 Impact of Nutanix Files on Unplanned Downtime Revenue Loss

Business Impact – Unplanned Downtime Revenue Impact Per Organization
Total revenue loss avoided per year per organization $757,969
Assumed operating margin 15%
Total recognized revenue, IDC model, per year $113,695
Source: IDC, 2020
Study participants reported that their users also experienced improved productivity from
having better access to files. Table 8 details the impact of Nutanix Files on IT user productivity.
As shown in Table 8, FTE equivalence per organization per year showed a 6% improvement,
resulting in an annual business value of $321,000.
TABLE 8 Impact of Nutanix Files on IT User Productivity
Before With Higher

Nutanix Files Nutanix Files Change Productivity (%)
End-user impact (FTE equivalent per 78.3 82.9 4.6 6

organization per year)
Value of staff time per year ($M) 5.48 5.8 321 6
Source: IDC, 2020
Nutanix Files also contributed to lowering the cost of operations for the companies surveyed.
Figure 4 shows how these costs are projected to play out over a five-year period according
to IDC calculations. Cost elements factored into these calculations included those for IT staff
productivity, file storage (capex and opex), and lost user productivity. As shown in Figure 4, the
total cost reduction expected is substantial (66%).

FIGURE 4 Cost of Operations over the Next Five Years

$18,000,000
$16,000,000 $15.49M
$14,000,000
66% lower
$12,000,000 over five years
$10,000,000
$8,000,000
$6,000,000 $5.23M Cost of file storage

(capex and opex)
$4,000,000
IT staff productivity
$2,000,000
Cost of lost user productivity,
0 unplanned downtime
Without With
Nutanix Files Nutanix Files
Source: IDC, 2020
ROI Summary
IDC’s analysis of the financial and investment benefits related to study participants’ use of the
Nutanix Files solution is presented in Table 9. IDC calculates that, on a per organization basis,
interviewed organizations will achieve total discounted five-year benefits of $9.46 million
based on IT/storage staff efficiencies, increased business results, and lower costs described.
These benefits compare with projected total discounted investment costs over five years of
$1.84 million on a per organization basis. At these levels of benefits and investment costs, IDC
calculates that these organizations will achieve a five-year ROI of 414% and break even on their
investment in 7.3 months.
TABLE 9 Five-Year ROI Analysis

Five-Year ROI Analysis Per Organization Per Terabyte
Benefit (discounted) $9.46 million $33,100
Investment (discounted) $1.84 million $6,400
Net present value (NPV) $7.62 million $26,600
ROI (NPV/investment) 414% 414%
Payback 7.3 months 7.3 months
Discount factor 12% 12%
Source: IDC, 2020

CHALLENGES/OPPORTUNITIES
Nutanix Files is widely adopted in the company’s existing customer base, and there are a
small number of customer wins where the file-based storage solution is the primary reason
for customers choosing Nutanix. The challenge Nutanix Files faces is in the net-new customer
acquisition where it faces existing vendor relationship resulting in technology refresh cycles.
Often these refresh cycles do not undergo the same scrutiny as when acquiring new solution
from other vendors. The Nutanix Files ecosystem will continue to build as the product hardens
and adoption increases.
CONCLUSION
Nutanix Files has been received well by the existing Nutanix customer base. The company
hopes to replicate this success with a broader set of customers as the ecosystem of
technology partners increases and through proven deployment of a wide variety of mixed
workloads on the solution. Customers looking for a new file-based storage solution should
consider Nutanix Files by calling for action through proof of concepts or customer references.
The need for simple, flexible, and intelligent file storage solutions is on the rise, and Nutanix
Files can address these needs that result in several quantifiable benefits as stated in this
document.
The organizations interviewed saw strong value with Nutanix Files by easing IT workloads
needed to support their files storage, improving performance of their files storage, and
making end users more productive. While results will vary for each individual customer, these
aforementioned factors lead to these customers achieving a 5:1 return on their investment in
Nutanix Files and a 66% reduction in their total cost of operations.
APPENDIX
Methodology
IDC’s standard ROI methodology was utilized for this project. This methodology is based
on gathering data from current users of the Nutanix Files solution as the foundation for the
model. Based on interviews with organizations using it, IDC performed a three-step process to
calculate the ROI and payback period:
1.
1. Gathered quantitative benefit information during the interviews using a before-and-after
assessment of the impact of Nutanix Files. In this study, the benefits included staff time
savings and productivity benefits and operational cost reductions.

2.
2. Created a complete investment (five-year total cost analysis) profile based on the
interviews. Investments go beyond the initial and annual costs of using Nutanix Files and
can include additional costs related to migrations, planning, consulting, and staff or user
training.
3.
3. Calculated the ROI and payback period. IDC conducted a depreciated cash flow analysis
of the benefits and investments for the organizations’ use of Nutanix Files over a five-year
period. ROI is the ratio of the net present value (NPV) and the discounted investment. The
payback period is the point at which cumulative benefits equal the initial investment.
IDC bases the payback period and ROI calculations on a number of assumptions, which are
summarized as follows:
• Time values are multiplied by burdened salary (salary + 28% for benefits and overhead) to
quantify efficiency and manager productivity savings. For purposes of this analysis, based
on the geographic locations of the interviewed organizations, IDC has used assumptions
of an average fully loaded $100,000 per year salary for IT staff members, and an average
fully loaded salary of $70,000 for non-IT staff members. IDC assumes that employees work
1,880 hours per year (47 weeks x 40 hours).
IDC Global Headquarters • The net present value of the five-year savings is calculated by subtracting the amount
that would have been realized by investing the original sum in an instrument yielding a
5 Speen Street
Framingham, MA 01701 12% return to allow for the missed opportunity cost. This accounts for both the assumed
USA cost of money and the assumed rate of return.
508.872.8200
Twitter: @IDC
idc-insights-community.com • Further, because IT solutions require a deployment period, the full benefits of the solution
www.idc.com are not available during deployment. To capture this reality, IDC prorates the benefits on a
monthly basis and then subtracts the deployment time from the first-year savings.
Copyright Notice Note: All numbers in this document may not be exact due to rounding.
External Publication of IDC
Information and Data — Any IDC
About IDC
information that is to be used
in advertising, press releases, or
promotional materials requires prior
International Data Corporation (IDC) is the premier global provider of market intelligence,
written approval from the appropriate
IDC Vice President or Country advisory services, and events for the information technology, telecommunications and consumer
Manager. A draft of the proposed
technology markets. IDC helps IT professionals, business executives, and the investment
document should accompany any
such request. IDC reserves the right to community make fact-based decisions on technology purchases and business strategy. More
deny approval of external usage for than 1,100 IDC analysts provide global, regional, and local expertise on technology and industry
any reason.
opportunities and trends in over 110 countries worldwide. For 50 years, IDC has provided
Copyright 2020 IDC.
strategic insights to help our clients achieve their key business objectives. IDC is a subsidiary of
Reproduction without written
permission is completely forbidden. IDG, the world’s leading technology media, research, and events company.

WP Idc Report Nutanix Files Business Value

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

WP Idc Report Nutanix Files Business Value

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

IDC White Paper | Nutanix Files Helps Enterprise Organizations Optimize Files Storage Performance and IT Operations

Sponsored by: Nutanix

Nutanix Files Helps Enterprise

7 months EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

6% • Translating IT operational benefits into improved application performance and better

30% • Minimizing the effects of unplanned downtime, thereby contributing to greater

Document #US45820620 © 2020 IDC. www.idc.com | Page 1

Document #US45820620 © 2020 IDC. www.idc.com | Page 2

NUTANIX ENTERPRISE CLOUD OVERVIEW

Document #US45820620 © 2020 IDC. www.idc.com | Page 3

THE BUSINESS VALUE OF NUTANIX

Table 1 presents study demographics and profiles. Interviewed organizations, a number

TABLE 1 Firmographics of Interviewed Organizations

Number of employees 5,986 1,100 400–25,000

Number of IT staff 43 25 5–100

Number of IT users 5,859 1,056 396–25,000

Number of external users/customers 386,579 5,000 50 to 2.4 million

Number of business applications 294 100 45–800

Total overall storage (TB) 778 600 20–1,600

Industries Transportation (2), healthcare (2), government, legal, retail

Countries United States (6), Italy

Source: IDC, 2020

Document #US45820620 © 2020 IDC. www.idc.com | Page 4

Choice and Use of Nutanix Files

Document #US45820620 © 2020 IDC. www.idc.com | Page 5

TABLE 2 Organizational Usage of Nutanix Files

Nutanix Files Use Average Median

Number of physical servers 27 15

Number of virtual servers 355 180

Number of internal users supported 3,483 1,056

Number of business applications 64 50

Number of terabytes 286 125

Percentage of total revenue (%) 89 90

Expected storage environment growth (%) 15 13

Source: IDC, 2020

Business Value and Quantified Benefits

• Better operational resiliency: “The biggest benefit is operational resilience. It gives us

Document #US45820620 © 2020 IDC. www.idc.com | Page 6

• IT infrastructure cost reductions: Interviewed organizations reported that the

• Business productivity benefits: Study participants tied agility, scalability, and

Document #US45820620 © 2020 IDC. www.idc.com | Page 7

FIGURE 1 Annual Average Benefits per Organization

Total: $2.65 million

Source: IDC, 2020

Improvements in IT and Storage Management

• Easier management: “It’s easier to manage, so operations are less complex.”

• Improved operational efficiencies: “It improves operational efficiencies. It requires

Document #US45820620 © 2020 IDC. www.idc.com | Page 8

• Allowed IT to do more business-related tasks: “One of the biggest benefits is just

TABLE 3 Impact of Nutanix Files on IT Storage Team Efficiency

IT storage management, equivalent 2.2 0.7 1.5 68

Value of staff time per year ($000) 217 68.9 148 68

Source: IDC, 2020

TABLE 4 Impact of Nutanix Files on IT Infrastructure Management Efficiency

Value of staff time per year ($000) 502 304 198 39

Source: IDC, 2020

Document #US45820620 © 2020 IDC. www.idc.com | Page 9

FIGURE 2 Impact of Nutanix Files on IT Agility

Time needed to deploy new storage (hours) 67%

Time needed to deploy new files (hours) 58%

Staff time required to deploy new storage (hours) 50%

TABLE 5 Impact of Nutanix Files on Help Desk Operations Efficiency

Calls/tickets per week 8,670 6,421 2,249 26