Executive Summary
Organizations that are facing pricing pressures from their virtualization platform vendors or facing hardware supply chain challenges are looking for quick paths to migrate to the public cloud without locking into a single provider. This approach is enriched by platforms that can deliver a common operating model and unified management across on-premises and public cloud environments, while allowing flexibility for future cloud-native adoption. It also works for organizations with deadlines for data center exits and end-of-life on-premises hardware.
Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) is a hybrid multicloud platform that extends the Nutanix Cloud Platform (NCP), including its underlying Hyperconverged Infrastructure (HCI), to AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud. It enables organizations to migrate workloads to the public cloud without rearchitecting or refactoring apps, thereby minimizing risk and enabling future modernization with Nutanix services and integration with native cloud services. By delivering a unified, hybrid multicloud platform, NC2 can bring operational consistency across on-premises data centers, edge locations, and public cloud regions. Teams gain one platform for compute, storage, networking, and management, helping to reduce silos and simplify operations. This can enable organizations to intelligently place their applications and data in the optimal locations according to their priorities, be they cost, compliance, performance, or availability.
Nutanix commissioned Forrester Consulting to conduct a Total Economic Impact™ (TEI) study and examine the potential return on investment (ROI) enterprises may realize by migrating workloads to NC2 on AWS.1 The purpose of this study is to provide readers with a framework to evaluate the potential financial impact of NC2 on their organizations.
To better understand the benefits, costs, and risks associated with this investment, Forrester interviewed six decision-makers at four organizations with experience using NC2. For the purposes of this study, Forrester aggregated the experiences of the interviewees and combined the results into a single composite organization, which is a US-based organization in a regulated industry with revenue of $5 billion per year.
Interviewees said that prior to migrating to AWS with NC2, their organizations faced impending deadlines before incurring large increases in virtualization platform software license fees, along with significant capital investments for on-premises hardware for replacement. Another option considered by some interviewees’ organizations was to completely redesign and refactor applications for AWS cloud-native environment.
After the investment in NC2, the interviewees said their organizations drastically reduced virtualization costs while avoiding capital investments in exchange for more predictable cloud operating expenses. Additionally, they realized operational efficiency improvements in managing multiple environments through Nutanix’s unified management plane. Finally, they avoided complex refactoring and completed migrations in tight timeframes set by existing virtualization vendors in order to avoid any license fee increases or penalties.
Key Findings
Quantified benefits. Three-year, risk-adjusted present value (PV) quantified benefits for the composite organization include:
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Savings of $2.0 million each year in virtualization platform software. By replacing previous virtualization platform software and rightsizing cores on AWS, the composite saves $5.0 million over three years.
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Savings of $966,000 each year in capital expenditures and associated maintenance through elimination of on-premises hardware. By shifting capital expenditure (capex) spending on hardware replacements, upgrades, and expansion to a more predictable operating expense model, the composite saves $2.4 million over three years.
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Time savings of up to 34% in virtualization platform tasks. NC2’s unified management plane eliminates operational silos between on-premises data centers and public clouds. The composite’s teams use a single control plane to provision, patch, and monitor workloads anywhere, saving 2,600 hours annually. This equates to $218,000 over three years.
Unquantified benefits. Benefits that provide value for the composite organization but are not quantified for this study include:
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Avoidance of application refactoring. Faced with compressed time windows to migrate workloads to AWS, the composite chooses migration with NC2 because refactoring to cloud-native environments would have required more investment and presented a higher degree of complexity. For many mature mission-critical applications, the choice to not refactor also provides significant risk mitigation.
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Rapid speed of migration. The composite organization completes its migration in three months with design and planning support from Nutanix professional services. In contrast, refactoring a single application takes eight to 12 months on average with some applications taking greater than 24 months due to complex dependencies.
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Strong vendor support. Beyond the critical guidance during initial migration, Nutanix provides the composite organization with responsive support to resolve issues and collaborate on product enhancements well into the relationship.
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Disaster recovery (DR) enhancement. The composite organization eliminated the need for a second DR data center by using NC2 on AWS, then tiering workloads according to criticality and SLAs. This enables extending replication to new AWS regions and allowed it to replace some disaster recovery tools.
Costs. Three-year, risk-adjusted PV costs for the composite organization include:
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AWS compute and management fees of $3.6 million. The composite organization pays for 48 bare metal instances at $38,750 apiece with a three-year contract.
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NC2 subscription fees of $1.3 million. The composite organization pays core-based license costs of $175 per core for 3,072 cores.
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Migration costs of $124,000. The composite pays four FTEs on a part-time basis and for Nutanix professional services over a four-month period to migrate all workloads to AWS with NC2.
The financial analysis that is based on the interviews found that a composite organization experiences benefits of $7.6 million over three years versus costs of $5.1 million, adding up to a net present value (NPV) of $2.5 million and an ROI of 50%.
Key Statistics
50%
Return on investment (ROI)
$7.6M
Benefits PV
$2.5M
Net present value (NPV)
<6 months
Payback
Benefits (Three-Year)
The Nutanix Cloud Clusters Customer Journey
Drivers leading to the NC2 investment
Interviews
| Role | Industry | Region | Annual Revenue |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chief technology officer | Downstream oil and gas | North America | $143 billion |
| Senior manager, cloud platforms | Higher education | North America | $5 billion |
| ∙ Global IS asset and financial manager ∙ Digital infrastructure operations manager ∙Infrastructure specialist |
Upstream oil and gas | United Kingdom | $2 billion |
| Master director, IT | Hospitality and leisure | Middle East | $600 million |
Key Challenges
Prior to engaging with Nutanix, interviewees stated their organizations faced impending deadlines to get off virtualization platforms before steep price increases took effect. Some also stated that their organizations were looking for an easy path to modernize by migrating workloads to AWS. Interviewees noted how their organizations struggled with common challenges, including:
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Escalating costs of virtualization software licenses. This was the primary driver to engage with Nutanix for all interviewees’ organizations. Some interviewees stated their organizations were facing license fee renewals of two to three times their current levels. These cost hikes made continuing with their existing platform financially unsustainable. The fee model was also changing for some interviewees’ organizations, whereas they were going to be charged by total cores rather than core usage.
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Aging hardware estates requiring refresh. The Global IS asset and financial manager at the Upstream oil and gas organization explained that their organization faced large imminent capital expenditure of nearly $2 million to refresh their on-premises hardware. They were also looking to shift to an operating expense in order to stop sweating aging assets. The global IS asset and financial manager at the upstream oil and gas organization stated, “the capital expenditure and the outlay of cash was going to be quite substantial for us to replace end of life equipment.”
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Deterioration in legacy vendor support and responsiveness. Interviewees consistently reported a decline in technical support and account engagement from their organizations’ virtualization software vendors following the vendors’ organizational changes. Critical issues took longer to resolve and proactive guidance was declined, which increased operational risk. In addition, there was a need for better support and responsiveness. The senior manager of cloud platforms at the higher education institution explained that it took several hours to locate a support resource to issue a systems restart command: “They said they only had two people that could issue the command. … If I ever had any doubts about leaving [this vendor], that was it.”
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Compressed migration timelines. Compounding the acute license fee increases, interviewees stated they had short timelines to decide on renewals or switch vendors. Without any grace periods, interviewees felt pressured to seek rapid migration paths to avoid service disruption and maintain business continuity. The CTO at the downstream oil and gas organization commented, “Our biggest target that we had to get off very quickly was all of our subscription‑based licenses.”
Solution Requirements
The interviewees searched for a solution that could:
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Reduce unsustainable virtualization platform costs and establish a more predictable license cost structure that is tied to resource usage and resiliency.
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Simplify hybrid cloud operations and reduce complexity associated with managing workloads in native public cloud environments and on-premises.
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Align IT spending financial model with an operating expenditure (opex) strategy by shifting from capital-intensive hardware refresh cycles to predictable operational expenditures.
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Ensure business continuity during migration due to tight timelines and license expirations with existing virtualization platforms.
Composite Organization
Based on the interviews, Forrester constructed a TEI framework, a composite company, and an ROI analysis that illustrates the areas financially affected before discounts were applied. The composite organization is representative of the interviewees’ organizations, and it is used to present the aggregate financial analysis in the next section. The composite organization has the following characteristics:
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Description of composite. The composite is in a regulated industry in the US, such as energy, banking, or healthcare. The organization has 2,500 employees and revenues of $5 billion per year.
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Migration characteristics. The composite organization has a mix of regulated and consumer-facing workloads spread across two data centers and one cloud region. It has between 2,500 and 3,000 virtual machines (VMs), along with 75 servers that need to be migrated to NC2. The composite has a virtualization platform support team of four employees. The migration requirements were under a very tight timeframe due to licensing constraints from their previous virtualization software vendor. The migration consisted of a full lift-and-shift of core compute plus storage into NC2 on AWS.2
KEY ASSUMPTIONS
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$5 billion in annual revenue
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2,500 employees
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2,500 to 3,000 VMs
Analysis Of Benefits
Quantified benefit data as applied to the composite
Total Benefits
| Ref. | Benefit | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | Total | Present Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Atr | Replacement of virtualization platform software | $2,016,000 | $2,016,000 | $2,016,000 | $6,048,000 | $5,013,494 |
| Btr | Elimination of hardware capex and expansion costs | $965,600 | $965,600 | $965,600 | $2,896,800 | $2,401,304 |
| Ctr | Improved efficiency in virtualization platform support | $87,750 | $87,750 | $87,750 | $263,250 | $218,221 |
| Total benefits (risk-adjusted) | $3,069,350 | $3,069,350 | $3,069,350 | $9,208,050 | $7,633,019 |
Replacement Of Virtualization Platform Software
Evidence and data. All interviewees stressed the importance and urgency of switching virtualization platforms due to the significant increases in license fees facing their organizations. Savings varied widely across the interviewees’ organizations in the study but was the primary driver for change to NC2 and the largest financial benefit.
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One interviewee reported their organization’s previous virtualization software license fees were approaching $10 million annually. They stated that NC2 delivered the same performance at approximately 50% lower cost. The CTO at the downstream oil and gas organization stated, “We can basically buy Nutanix with new hardware [for the on-premise environment], and it was 50% of that [previous] bill.”
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The master director of IT at a hospitality and leisure organization noted that NC2 delivered a three times more favorable cost structure than their virtualization platform software renewal. This interviewee commented: “Our contract price was going to triple. There was no consideration to retain the [business].”
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Interviewees also shared that their organizations experienced license cost reductions by rightsizing CPU cores on AWS bare metal, enabled by NC2’s efficient resource management. They explained that NC2 gave their organizations visibility into the underlying host characteristics to see how many cores were allocated versus actually used. This could align EC2 bare metal consumption with actual workload demand, which drove down the number of licensed cores needed. Compared to their previous virtualization platforms, some interviewees’ organizations were able to reduce core usage by 10% to 30%. The senior manager of cloud platforms at the higher education institution elaborated, “On-prem is where we saw the biggest decrease because in looking at certain areas, we will drop a good 30% of cores.”
Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the composite pays annual license fees of $2.5 million per year for its virtualization platform across its 3,600 core estate prior to migrating to AWS with NC2. The previous vendor listed $700 per core cost reflects a blended enterprise license rate, with additional common SKUs for critical production operation.
Risks. Savings in virtualization licensing costs may vary based on:
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The total number of cores licensed for NC2 virtualized machines and servers as compared to previously licensed cores.
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The mix of on-premises and cloud-based machines and servers.
Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 20%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of $5.0 million.
$5.0 million
Savings from replacement of virtualization software
Replacement Of Virtualization Platform Software
| Ref. | Metric | Source | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A1 | Cores replaced | Composite | 3,600 | 3,600 | 3,600 | |
| A2 | Cost per core | Interviews | $700 | $700 | $700 | |
| At | Replacement of virtualization platform software | A1*A2 | $2,520,000 | $2,520,000 | $2,520,000 | |
| Risk adjustment | ↓20% | |||||
| Atr | Replacement of virtualization platform software (risk-adjusted) | $2,016,000 | $2,016,000 | $2,016,000 | ||
| Three-year total: $6,048,000 | Three-year present value: $5,013,494 | |||||
Elimination Of Hardware Capex And Expansion Costs
Evidence and data. Interviewees said that their organizations ran applications on-premises were facing end-of-life situations for their hardware and periodic infrastructure expansion for different business needs.
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Interviewees from the upstream oil and gas organization said their organization was faced with a $1.7 million capital investment for replacing end-of-life hardware. The global IS asset and financial manager stated they made the strategic decision switch to a more predictable operating expense model by migrating to AWS. This same interviewee explained: “The capital expenditure and the outlay of cash was going to be quite substantial for us to replace the end-of-life equipment in our [data centers]. So, the decision was to migrate to cloud.”
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In addition to wholesale replacement, some interviewees conveyed how their organizations realized cost savings from hardware and labor related to data center maintenance and expansion. They explained that with automated node replacement under NC2 on AWS, the need for engineers to visit data centers to manually rebuild or add hardware was eliminated. Interviewees further explained that nodes that fail were automatically replaced and new nodes could be added within minutes. The CTO at the downstream oil and gas organization elaborated: “We thought we were going to have an uplift of folks to run a brand-new platform and that never happened. It continued to hum along, and we continue to do our projects.”
Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:
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The composite avoids $1 million in hardware spending for data center infrastructure replacement and upgrades annually.
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The composite avoids maintenance (software and labor) to support the new hardware. This represents 10% of hardware costs.
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The composite avoids $36,000 in labor costs to install and configure new hardware. This represents 60 person days over the course of the year.
Risks. Savings from hardware costs can vary based:
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The mix of owned (capitalized) and leased hardware in data centers.
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Prevailing market costs for hardware components, which can fluctuate.
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The number of hardware expansion events due to seasonal business needs and other strategic projects.
Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 15%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of $2.4 million.
$2.4 million
Capex avoided over three years
Elimination Of Hardware Capex And Expansion Costs
| Ref. | Metric | Source | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| B1 | Hardware replacement and expansion costs avoided | Interviews | $1,000,000 | $1,000,000 | $1,000,000 | |
| B2 | Avoided hardware maintenance costs | Composite | $100,000 | $100,000 | $100,000 | |
| B3 | Avoided labor for infrastructure setup | Interviews | $36,000 | $36,000 | $36,000 | |
| Bt | Elimination of hardware capex and expansion costs | B1+B2+B3 | $1,136,000 | $1,136,000 | $1,136,000 | |
| Risk adjustment | ↓15% | |||||
| Btr | Elimination of hardware capex and expansion costs (risk-adjusted) | $965,600 | $965,600 | $965,600 | ||
| Three-year total: $2,896,800 | Three-year present value: $2,401,304 | |||||
Improved Efficiency In Virtualization Platform Support
Evidence and data. Interviewees reported that support staffing levels remained the same or reduced for environment management under NC2, as compared to previous virtualization platforms. They cited several examples of simplified operations with NC2:
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The senior manager of cloud platforms at the higher education institution explained that on-premises hardware patching cycles required 12 hours of monitoring under their previous platform. With NC2, they explained that firmware, hypervisor, and platform components could be patched across the entire cluster withing a single workflow, saving several hours of monitoring. They stated: “I literally click the button, and it does everything. We haven’t run into any issues with that.”
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The master director of IT at the hospitality and leisure organization remarked that NC2 saved 10 to 20 hours per week in managing AWS native services. They explained that by having a centralized management plane across cloud and on-premises environments, NC2 created a single operational workflow for systems operational teams.
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Interviewees commented that the unified control plane presented a common interface for managing environments on-premise or in the cloud, reducing complexity and learning for administrators.
Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:
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A platform support team of five FTEs spends 75% of their time managing previous virtualization platform. This equates to 7,800 hours per year.
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The same platform support team of five FTEs spends 50% of their time managing NC2 on AWS. This equates to 5,200 hours per year.
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The fully loaded hourly salary for a virtualization platform engineer is $75.
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A recapture rate of 50% is applied to time savings for virtualization engineers.
Risks. Time savings and productivity increases may vary across organizations due to:
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The use of in-house vs. managed service provider resources for virtualization platform operations.
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Support staff salaries and roles may vary.
Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 10%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of $218,000.
34%
Support time savings with NC2
Improved Efficiency In Virtualization Platform Support
| Ref. | Metric | Source | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| C1 | Time dedicated to virtualization platform support prior to NC2 (hours) | Interviews | 7,800 | 7,800 | 7,800 | |
| C2 | Time dedicated to platform support with NC2 (hours) | Interviews | 5,200 | 5,200 | 5,200 | |
| C3 | Fully burdened hourly rate for a virtualization software administrator | Composite | $75 | $75 | $75 | |
| C4 | Productivity recapture rate | TEI methodology | 50% | 50% | 50% | |
| Ct | Improved efficiency in virtualization platform support | (C1-C2)*C3*C4 | $97,500 | $97,500 | $97,500 | |
| Risk adjustment | ↓10% | |||||
| Ctr | Improved efficiency in virtualization platform support (risk-adjusted) | $87,750 | $87,750 | $87,750 | ||
| Three-year total: $263,250 | Three-year present value: $218,221 | |||||
Unquantified Benefits
Interviewees mentioned the following additional benefits that their organizations experienced but were not able to quantify:
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Avoidance of immediate application refactoring. All interviewees said decision-makers in their organizations favored minimal change migrations to NC2 over application refactoring or replatforming. Their near-term priorities were to avoid rising virtualization costs and support issues while keeping risks and downtime low. The master director of IT at a hospitality organization said their organization considered migrating all its servers into native EC2 virtual machines rather than going to Nutanix on AWS but rejected it due to the complexity of managing so many native EC2 VMs. The senior manager of cloud platforms in higher education stated that preserving media access control (MAC) addresses and navigating Microsoft licensing in the public cloud were material blockers to refactoring. For mature mission-critical applications, the choice to not refactor also provided significant risk mitigation.
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Rapid speed of migration. Across all interviewees’ organizations, NC2 migrations were executed in a matter of weeks, even at large scale. Interviewees consistently attributed this speed to two factors: a consistent NC2 operating model across on-prem and cloud and strong Nutanix and implementation partner support during migration. The fastest migration was the hospitality organization, which completed its migration of 60 servers within five days with no application failures reported (the migration was managed by an outside partner). The interviewees from the upstream oil and gas company said their organization migrated all its enterprise production workloads in less than two months. In contrast, refactoring a single application can take many months.
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Strong vendor support. Interviewees consistently described Nutanix support as hands‑on, responsive, and collaborative in contrast to previous virtualization vendors. Some went further by saying they felt Nutanix support was an extension of their own team rather than a transactional service. Others valued that Nutanix support included senior technical staff when needed and offered direct interaction with engineering teams. The senior manager of cloud platforms at the higher education institution commented: “I work very closely with the Nutanix engineering team, and I was impressed with how they solved issues. They listened and worked through problems with us.”
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Disaster recovery (DR) enhancement. The chief technology officer said their downstream oil and gas organization eliminated the need for a second DR data center by using NC2 on AWS, then tiering workloads according to criticality and SLAs. This enabled extending replication to new AWS regions and allowed their organization to replace some disaster recovery tools. The CTO stated, “It gives us another avenue to be able to get some of the on-prem into the cloud and give our business confidence that there’s access in case of an emergency.”
Flexibility
The value of flexibility is unique to each customer. There are multiple scenarios in which a customer might implement NC2 and later realize additional uses and business opportunities, including:
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Strategic cloud flexibility without vendor lock in. Interviewees spoke favorably of NC2’s consistency across platforms, which allowed their organizations to move workloads across on‑premises environments, public clouds, and between clouds without refactoring applications or retraining teams. They commented that workloads could be shifted between clouds and rebalanced based on cost, compliance, or regional needs. This would reduce long‑term dependency on a single cloud vendor and allow these organizations to align workloads with regulatory requirements, data residency, and Microsoft licensing constraints. Several interviewees emphasized this anticipated benefit.
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Adoption of native cloud services alongside NC2. Several interviewees referenced the value of using modern cloud-native technologies (e.g. Kubernetes, analytics, AI/ML) in conjunction with NC2-managed workloads. Examples included enabling incremental modernization initiatives, while maintaining legacy environments or the ability to migrate specific workloads from VMs to managed services as business cases arise.
Flexibility would also be quantified when evaluated as part of a specific project (described in more detail in Total Economic Impact Approach).
Analysis Of Costs
Quantified cost data as applied to the composite
Total Costs
| Ref. | Cost | Initial | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | Total | Present Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dtr | AWS compute and management fees | $0 | $1,116,000 | $1,488,000 | $1,860,000 | $4,464,000 | $3,641,743 |
| Etr | NC2 subscription fees | $0 | $537,600 | $537,600 | $537,600 | $1,612,800 | $1,336,932 |
| Ftr | Migration costs | $124,200 | $0 | $0 | $0 | $124,200 | $124,200 |
| Total costs (risk-adjusted) | $124,200 | $1,653,600 | $2,025,600 | $2,397,600 | $6,201,000 | $5,102,875 |
AWS Compute And Management Fees
Evidence and data. The largest and most variable cost for interviewees’ organizations was AWS fees for compute, storage and cloud services. Interviewees cited costs ranging from several hundred thousand dollars to several million dollars.
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Interviewees’ organizations used EC2 bare metal instances, which is required to run NC2.
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Some of the interviewees noted their organizations received credits or discounts, such as AWS Migration Acceleration Program (MAP) funding, for the migration.
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Workload scale, such as VMs, data sizes, number of hosts, and disaster recovery requirements, impacted AWS costs for some interviewees’ organizations.
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Some interviewees stated that they were able to reduce the number of hosts and nodes compared to previous virtualization software by rightsizing core counts and sizes.
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Pricing may vary. Contact Nutanix for additional detail around AWS sizing, costs, and available savings plans.
Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:
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The composite hardware sizing requires 48 bare metal instances (e.g., i3.en.metal or equivalent), each at an undiscounted cost of $38,750.
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The composite ramps up its AWS usage from 60% to 100% over three years.
Risks. The amount that organizations pay for AWS costs may vary based on:
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Correctly rightsizing the workloads prior to migration.
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Instance types and sizing vary by workload requirements.
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AWS instance family, region and length of contract.
Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this cost upward by 0%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of $3.6 million.
AWS Compute And Management Fees
| Ref. | Metric | Source | Initial | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| D1 | License fee per host | Nutanix | $38,750 | $38,750 | $38,750 | |
| D2 | Instances | Composite | 48 | 48 | 48 | |
| D3 | Capacity utilization | Composite | 60% | 80% | 100% | |
| Dt | AWS compute and management fees | D1*D2*D3 | $1,116,000 | $1,488,000 | $1,860,000 | |
| Risk adjustment | 0% | |||||
| Dtr | AWS compute and management fees (risk-adjusted) | $0 | $1,116,000 | $1,488,000 | $1,860,000 | |
| Three-year total: $4,464,000 | Three-year present value: $3,641,743 | |||||
NC2 Subscription Fees
Evidence and data. Interviewees said their organizations licensed Nutanix NC2 with subscription term-based agreements tied to their AWS hosts and core usage. Licenses were purchased via AWS Marketplace or directly from Nutanix.
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License cost per core varied among interviewees’ organizations based on sizing and negotiated discounts. Contact Nutanix for additional details around NC2 costs.
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The rightsizing of AWS hosts and cores resulted in a 15% to 30% reduction in cores required with NC2.
Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:
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The composite sizes its needs at 3,072 cores, which is approximately 15% less than with its previous virtualization platform software.
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The undiscounted cost per core is $175 per year.
Risks. The amount that organizations pay for NC2 subscription fees will vary based on the sizing of the AWS environment and length of contract.
Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this cost upward by 0%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of $1.3 million.
15%
Reduction in cores with NC2
NC2 Subscription Fees
| Ref. | Metric | Source | Initial | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| E1 | Annual subscription fees per core | Nutanix | $175 | $175 | $175 | |
| E2 | Cores | Composite | 3,072 | 3,072 | 3,072 | |
| Et | NC2 subscription fees | E1*E2 | $0 | $537,600 | $537,600 | $537,600 |
| Risk adjustment | 0% | |||||
| Etr | NC2 subscription fees (risk-adjusted) | $0 | $537,600 | $537,600 | $537,600 | |
| Three-year total: $1,612,800 | Three-year present value: $1,336,932 | |||||
Migration Costs
Evidence and data. All interviewees’ organizations required upfront planning and migration efforts before realizing value from NC2. These included architecture review, network design, rightsizing, and migration execution. Various internal roles were involved, including disaster recovery, network architects, virtualization support engineers, and storage specialists.
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Some interviewees noted their organizations used professional services engagements to accelerate migration or train internal staff. The master director of IT said their hospitality firm used a trusted consulting partner to completely manage the migration, completing it in just five days. One of the interviewees from the upstream oil and gas organization said their team engaged with Nutanix professional services for planning and migration for one of two clusters, then learned enough during that process to manage the second cluster internally. They completed their migration in under two months.
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The CTO at a downstream oil and gas organization said their organization migrated thousands of servers across multiple sites in approximately six weeks. They engaged with Nutanix professional services early in the process, then also found it manageable enough for internal teams to take over approximately halfway through the project. The CTO commented, “We were able to execute large‑scale migrations without increasing staff, and [Nutanix] support was there when we needed it.”
Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:
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The composite allocates four FTEs to support the migration at 50% time over three months.
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The composite engages with Nutanix professional services for migration design and planning at a cost of $18,000.
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The blended fully burdened monthly rate for various IT roles involved in the migration is $15,000.
Risks. The costs associated with migration may vary based on:
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The number and types of workloads migrated to AWS.
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Average salaries and benefits for various IT roles.
Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this cost upward by 15%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of $124,000.
3 months
Migration period
Migration Costs
| Ref. | Metric | Source | Initial | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| F1 | Migration FTEs | Interviews | 4 | |||
| F2 | Fully burdened monthly rate for a migration FTE | Composite | $15,000 | |||
| F3 | Duration of migration (months) | Interviews | 3 | |||
| F4 | FTE time allocated to migration | Interviews | 50% | |||
| F5 | Nutanix professional services fees | Nutanix | $18,000 | |||
| Ft | Migration costs | F1*F2*F3*F4+F5 | $108,000 | $0 | $0 | $0 |
| Risk adjustment | ↑15% | |||||
| Ftr | Migration costs (risk-adjusted) | $124,200 | $0 | $0 | $0 | |
| Three-year total: $124,200 | Three-year present value: $124,200 | |||||
Financial Summary
Consolidated Three-Year, Risk-Adjusted Metrics
Cash Flow Chart (Risk-Adjusted)
Cash Flow Analysis (Risk-Adjusted)
| Initial | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | Total | Present Value | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total costs | ($124,200) | ($1,653,600) | ($2,025,600) | ($2,397,600) | ($6,201,000) | ($5,102,875) |
| Total benefits | $0 | $3,069,350 | $3,069,350 | $3,069,350 | $9,208,050 | $7,633,019 |
| Net benefits | ($124,200) | $1,415,750 | $1,043,750 | $671,750 | $3,007,050 | $2,530,144 |
| ROI | 50% | |||||
| Payback | <6 months |
Please Note
The financial results calculated in the Benefits and Costs sections can be used to determine the ROI, NPV, and payback period for the composite organization’s investment. Forrester assumes a yearly discount rate of 10% for this analysis.
These risk-adjusted ROI, NPV, and payback period values are determined by applying risk-adjustment factors to the unadjusted results in each Benefit and Cost section.
The initial investment column contains costs incurred at “time 0” or at the beginning of Year 1 that are not discounted. All other cash flows are discounted using the discount rate at the end of the year. PV calculations are calculated for each total cost and benefit estimate. NPV calculations in the summary tables are the sum of the initial investment and the discounted cash flows in each year. Sums and present value calculations of the Total Benefits, Total Costs, and Cash Flow tables may not exactly add up, as some rounding may occur.
From the information provided in the interviews, Forrester constructed a Total Economic Impact™ framework for those organizations considering an investment in NC2.
The objective of the framework is to identify the cost, benefit, flexibility, and risk factors that affect the investment decision. Forrester took a multistep approach to evaluate the impact that NC2 can have on an organization.
Due Diligence
Interviewed Nutanix stakeholders and Forrester analysts to gather data relative to NC2.
Interviews
Interviewed six decision-makers at organizations using NC2 to obtain data about costs, benefits, and risks.
Composite Organization
Designed a composite organization based on characteristics of the interviewees’ organizations.
Financial Model Framework
Constructed a financial model representative of the interviews using the TEI methodology and risk-adjusted the financial model based on issues and concerns of the interviewees.
Case Study
Employed four fundamental elements of TEI in modeling the investment impact: benefits, costs, flexibility, and risks. Given the increasing sophistication of ROI analyses related to IT investments, Forrester’s TEI methodology provides a complete picture of the total economic impact of purchase decisions. Please see Appendix A for additional information on the TEI methodology.
Total Economic Impact Approach
Benefits
Benefits represent the value the solution delivers to the business. The TEI methodology places equal weight on the measure of benefits and costs, allowing for a full examination of the solution’s effect on the entire organization.
Costs
Costs comprise all expenses necessary to deliver the proposed value, or benefits, of the solution. The methodology captures implementation and ongoing costs associated with the solution.
Flexibility
Flexibility represents the strategic value that can be obtained for some future additional investment building on top of the initial investment already made. The ability to capture that benefit has a PV that can be estimated.
Risks
Risks measure the uncertainty of benefit and cost estimates given: 1) the likelihood that estimates will meet original projections and 2) the likelihood that estimates will be tracked over time. TEI risk factors are based on “triangular distribution.”
Financial Terminology
Present value (PV)
The present or current value of (discounted) cost and benefit estimates given at an interest rate (the discount rate). The PVs of costs and benefits feed into the total NPV of cash flows.
Net present value (NPV)
The present or current value of (discounted) future net cash flows given an interest rate (the discount rate). A positive project NPV normally indicates that the investment should be made unless other projects have higher NPVs.
Return on investment (ROI)
A project’s expected return in percentage terms. ROI is calculated by dividing net benefits (benefits less costs) by costs.
Discount rate
The interest rate used in cash flow analysis to take into account the time value of money. Organizations typically use discount rates between 8% and 16%.
Payback
The breakeven point for an investment. This is the point in time at which net benefits (benefits minus costs) equal initial investment or cost.
Appendix A
Total Economic Impact
Total Economic Impact is a methodology developed by Forrester Research that enhances a company’s technology decision-making processes and assists solution providers in communicating their value proposition to clients. The TEI methodology helps companies demonstrate, justify, and realize the tangible value of business and technology initiatives to both senior management and other key stakeholders.
Appendix B
Endnotes
1 Total Economic Impact is a methodology developed by Forrester Research that enhances a company’s technology decision-making processes and assists solution providers in communicating their value proposition to clients. The TEI methodology helps companies demonstrate, justify, and realize the tangible value of business and technology initiatives to both senior management and other key stakeholders.
2 While this study focuses specifically on a migration to AWS, NC2 is also available on Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, and OVHcloud. The AWS-specific costs and sizing assumptions represent the scope of this analysis, not limitations of NC2.
Disclosures
Readers should be aware of the following:
This study is commissioned by Nutanix and delivered by Forrester Consulting. It is not meant to be used as a competitive analysis.
Forrester makes no assumptions as to the potential ROI that other organizations will receive. Forrester strongly advises that readers use their own estimates within the framework provided in the study to determine the appropriateness of an investment in NC2.
Nutanix reviewed and provided feedback to Forrester, but Forrester maintains editorial control over the study and its findings and does not accept changes to the study that contradict Forrester’s findings or obscure the meaning of the study.
Nutanix provided the customer names for the interviews but did not participate in the interviews.
Consulting Team:
Jonathan Whaling
Published
August 2026
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