Getting Started with Nutanix: A Fireside Chat with Two Former Nutanix SEs

Oct 26, 2026

Hardware prices are climbing, hypervisor renewals are arriving on short timelines, and plenty of IT teams are asking whether what they run today is still the right fit for the next five to seven years. If Nutanix is on your shortlist, the next question is usually the practical one: what does getting started actually involve?

In this episode of Nutanix Weekly, XenTegra Solutions Architects Chris Calhoun and Andy Greene skip the usual blog breakdown for a fireside chat. Both spent years as Nutanix SEs, and Chris was a Nutanix customer before that. They share how they each came to the platform, what changes when you move from the vendor side to the partner side, what customers are asking for right now, and exactly how XenTegra takes a team from first conversation to a stable, running cluster.

From Skeptic to Believer

Chris first met Nutanix as a customer, back when his team ran a traditional three-tier setup: ESX hosts attached to a large SAN, with storage specialists needed to keep it all running. Moving to hyperconverged infrastructure meant virtualization generalists could manage the whole environment, and the platform did what it promised.

Andy came from the other direction. As a self-described “old school Fibre Channel SAN guy” at IBM and Lenovo, he spent years debating Nutanix’s merits with his brother, who was a Nutanix SE at the time. Two things changed his mind:

• The Nutanix Bible, which laid out openly how the platform works, including how it handles failures
• A better question about performance: a storage array may do a million IOPS, but does your VM actually need it?

Vendor Side vs. Partner Side

As Nutanix SEs, both were glad to support whatever hardware a customer preferred. On the partner side, the job is bigger. Andy describes it as owning the outcome of the whole project, not just the software:

• Helping choose hardware based on pricing and lead times
• Confirming power, rack space, and network ports, including moves from 10 GbE to 25 GbE
• Checking compatibility with backup, security, and other existing tools
• Planning how every workload moves over during a hypervisor change
• Pulling in licensing, professional services, and anything else the project needs to succeed

What Customers Are Asking For Right Now

A few themes keep coming up in conversations with clients:

• Hypervisor renewals with little time to plan an exit. Teams don’t want to pay much more for the same environment, and the renewal window is often too short to evaluate alternatives properly.
• Rising hardware costs. Prices have climbed sharply, so many teams are reconsidering large capital purchases in favor of financing or operational models.
• Hybrid and cloud options. Some workloads belong on-prem, some in Azure or AWS, and some in XenTegra’s own cloud. The right answer depends on the workload.
• AI with guardrails. Customers want to know how Nutanix can support AI workloads, and how to put structure and limits around how AI gets used.

How Getting Started with Nutanix Works

Chris and Andy walk through the process XenTegra follows with every new Nutanix customer:

1. Discovery call. What’s driving the conversation, what’s keeping your team up at night, and what your timelines look like.
2. Collect real data. Nutanix Collector runs in your environment without installation and gathers about a week of performance data, so sizing reflects real peaks like overnight backups and reporting jobs, not a single snapshot.
3. Model the workload. Using Nutanix Sizer, the team models exactly what your cluster would look like, including CPU, memory, storage, and room for node failures and future growth.
4. Review it together. You see the inputs, the hardware choices, and the expected utilization, and you can build growth into the plan year by year.
5. Get hands-on. Try the Nutanix Test Drive, use XenTegra’s demo environment, or reserve a cluster in Nutanix’s hosted proof-of-concept lab to test upgrades, expansion, and day-to-day tasks.
6. Deploy and migrate. Installers handle prerequisites ahead of time, stand up Nutanix Move, and migrate as much or as little as you’d like, from the first few VMs with knowledge transfer to a full turnkey migration.
7. Day-two support. Nutanix support handles tickets, XenTegra helps escalate when needed, and the team keeps looking for ways to get more value from the platform.

Myths and Lessons from the Field

“HCI can’t scale.” Nutanix clusters grow like building blocks. Each node you add brings more CPU, memory, and storage, and replacing aging servers becomes part of normal cluster operations instead of a full rebuild.

“Moving off my current hypervisor is too risky.” AHV has been running in production for more than a decade, and Nutanix Move takes much of the risk out of migrating from ESX.

Check everything before install day. Andy has seen servers arrive without power cords and installs stall over the wrong network cables. Opening the boxes ahead of time turns a lost day into a quick fix.

Lightning Round: Underrated Nutanix Features

• X-Play (Andy): low-code, no-code automation for repetitive day-two tasks once your environment is stable
• Built-in reporting (Chris): scheduled reports, such as over-provisioned and under-provisioned VMs, waiting in your inbox each morning, so you can back up resource decisions with data
• Microsegmentation (Andy): zero-trust networking at the virtual switch, blocking unnecessary VM-to-VM traffic so a threat that gets inside can’t spread across the network

Meet the Team in Person

XenTegra hosts Nutanix Lunch & Learns across the Southeast and Northeast. Come talk shop with Chris, Andy, and the team over a free steak lunch. See upcoming dates and register at xentegra.com/events.

XenTegra can also help customers attend Nutanix .NEXT 2027 in Las Vegas with discounted passes. Reach out to learn more.

Why Partner with XenTegra?

Chris and Andy have seen Nutanix from every side: as a customer, as Nutanix SEs, and now as partners responsible for the full outcome. XenTegra brings that experience to every engagement, from sizing and hardware selection to migration and day-two support, so your team gets a platform that runs well from day one and keeps running as you grow.

Ready to Explore Nutanix?

Whether a renewal deadline is coming up, your hardware is nearing end of life, or you just want a clear picture of what Nutanix would look like in your environment, our team is ready to help. Reach out to start with a discovery call.