Support Policies and FAQs

Entitlement is based on the support offering (Production or Mission Critical) purchased by the customer and drives the SLA and hours of support (24/7 or 8/5). Nutanix will not provide support if the customer does not have a valid support contract for the hardware asset (NX appliances) and software asset (Software Only licenses).

A case is closed when you confirm that a resolution has been reached, or if we do not hear from you within two weeks of a request for information, and at least two attempts have been made to contact you during this period. A case may also be closed without final resolution, with acknowledgement and agreement from you.

A case is escalated if your expectations of an issue resolution are not in line with the outlined action plan and timeframes that follow the normal resolution process. You may escalate a support case at any time by contacting your SRE, or asking to speak with the Head of Support for your region. The manager who takes on the escalation then creates a task force consisting of the necessary resources from Technical Services, Engineering, QA, and Product Management and formulates an action plan to address the issue. This action plan is then shared with you, the checkpoint schedule and the milestones determined, and agreement sought on the closure criteria of the escalation. Updates are provided on the progress as agreed upon.

For the purposes of this FAQ, “support” or “supported” means that Nutanix will attempt to resolve any issues with the third party technology not working correctly with Nutanix technology.

See the Nutanix Compatibility Matrix for AOS versions, models, and hypervisor versions supported. Nutanix does not support Free vSphere Hypervisor. Nutanix requires that customers deploy a supported hypervisor version on Nutanix systems.

For hypervisor releases:

• For Major/Minor hypervisor releases (eg ESXi 6.5, Windows Server 2016 Build 14393) the goal is to qualify within 90 days of the software GA release date.
• Nutanix may qualify the latest hypervisor Major/Minor release in conjunction with the latest (or upcoming) AOS release first.
• Nutanix advises customers to wait until any Major/Minor release is qualified by Nutanix prior to deployment.
• Nutanix qualified hypervisors will have a related JSON metadata upgrade file on the Nutanix Support Portal for one-click upgrade through the Prism web console Software Upgrade feature.
• Nutanix may not qualify a hypervisor with newer software and firmware releases once a hypervisor vendor ceases to provide support (i.e. through that vendor's end of support policy or other similar end of life policy).
  

For hypervisor updates:

• Update/patch Releases (eg. ESXi 6.5a, 6.5d, Windows Server 2016 Build 14393) are supported immediately with the goal to have the latest update qualified within 45 days of the update release date.
• In the event of multiple hypervisor releases occurring rapidly in the same train, Nutanix will officially qualify the 'latest' update only (when released) and restart the qualification for the newest update and reset the 45-day clock.
• Nutanix may qualify the latest update in conjunction with the latest (or upcoming) AOS release first.
• One-click hypervisor upgrade JSON files only include the qualified versions.
• Nutanix supports the ability to patch upgrade hosts with versions that are greater than or released after the Nutanix qualified version, but Nutanix may not have qualified those releases at that time.
• For updates that are made available by the hypervisor vendor that do not have a Nutanix-provided JSON metadata upgrade file (ie. not officially qualified), obtain the offline bundle and md5sum checksum available from the hypervisor vendor, then use the Prism web console Software Upgrade feature to upgrade.
• If the hypervisor vendor withdraws a release from their web site prior to the 45 days target for Nutanix qualification, Nutanix will stop the qualification process for that particular build and the clock restarts for the previous version listed by the hypervisor vendor (or until a newer release is provided).
• If the hypervisor vendor releases a newer update within 45 days of the previous update for Nutanix qualification, Nutanix will stop the qualification process for that previous build and the clock restarts for the new version.

Please contact your hypervisor vendor for any questions regarding their support policies. Nutanix strongly recommends that customers deploy an “in-support” hypervisor version on Nutanix systems.

Nutanix hyperconverged solutions integrate with popular offload capabilities, including VMware API for Array Integration (VAAI) and Microsoft Offloaded Data Transfer (ODX) to create clones in a matter of seconds with minimal overhead.

Support for vStorage API for Data Protection (VADP) and application-level consistent snapshots through Volume Shadow Services (VSS) provide full integration with third-party tools such as Symantec NetBackup, Veeam, Commvault and VMware SRM.

Integration with Commvault IntelliSnap delivers Commvault backup capabilities with enterprise grade storage features from Nutanix for a highly efficient backup solution.

For a list of currently certified backup partners supported by, and certified with, Nutanix AHV and Nutanix Files, see Nutanix Technology Alliance Partners program.

Nutanix product support is delivered primarily in English, and the target response times (see Priority Definitions and Response Times policy) are based on support being provided in English language.

Limited local language support for some Asian and European countries is available, during business hours of those countries. Some of the languages available are: Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish and Arabic.

Definitions

Ordered Date/Time = Date/Time that the dispatch is created

Shipped Date = Date that the dispatched part will be shipped per the SLA

Promised Delivery Date = Date that the customer should expect the part to be received per the SLA

Ship/Delivery Table (AMER, EMEA, APAC, LATAM)

The table below represents the timing of when a part and or Field Engineer will ship and arrive at the customer site based on when the dispatch is submitted. In the case of a local holiday the shipment and delivery dates would defer to the next business day. See table below for additional detail.

Ship/Delivery Table (Select countries in the Middle East)

The table varies somewhat to account for the normal business week in some countries in the Middle East (Currently for Nutanix this includes Israel, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, and Kuwait).

FE Service Level Agreement

FE availability is aligned to the parts delivery process and the entitled support level. Unless specifically requested, the target FE arrival time will be in parallel with the physical part.

Mission Critical Support (24x7, 4 hours). FEs can arrive onsite within four hours of when the dispatch is created. The FE will be coordinated with part delivery.

Production support – field engineer (FE) will work onsite between 8:00 AM and 5:00 PM Monday through Friday, excluding local holidays. The FE needs to be scheduled no later than 3:00 PM on the day of service in order to complete the work by 5:00 PM. A dispatch must be created before 3:00 PM local time (i.e. where the asset is located) one business day before the maintenance in order to meet this service level. If multi-day FE events are required, they must be approved and scheduled prior to the initial part shipment.

After hours FE support is available for purchase as an add to Production Support. Once purchased, an FE can arrive after regular business hours. To meet this service level Dispatch requests must be made one day prior to onsite break-fix support.

Should a Field Engineer (FE) be leveraged as part of the support offering an FE will be dispatched to the customer site to perform hardware replacement only. The FE does not perform any hardware or software troubleshooting and relies on the remote SRE to perform any software activities.

Nutanix NRDK support option is available to customers who need to keep your defective hard drives (HDDs or SSDs) that require replacement, in order to comply with data security compliance regulations.

The NRDK program is an optional add-on to existing support packages. The program applies to all existing models of the Nutanix product. Customers are responsible for disposing of the replaced hard disk drives in agreement with their own data security compliance requirements and other applicable laws.
Service terms:

• NRDK option is only available for purchase in conjunction with one of Nutanix’s support programs
• NRDK can be purchased as an optional add-on to one of Nutanix Support programs, and is available for all Nutanix product models.
• NRDK must be purchased on all disks (SSD, HDD, NVMe) in the block configuration.
• NRDK must be purchased at the time of the asset purchase.
• NRDK must be purchased for the same term as the asset purchase.
  

Please note that both NRDK and NRNODE options are required for customers who want to maintain possession of their disks and nodes. 

All issues reported to Nutanix are assigned a priority. The priority will establish a targeted initial response level. Customers should expect to receive an initial analysis of the problem from Nutanix within the indicated time. These targeted response levels are not a guarantee of service within the timeframe.

Definitions of Priority Level and Targeted Initial Response

Nutanix will use the following guidelines to assess issues and provide an initial response in a timely manner based on their priority level:

Mixed Support Level Guidelines. When a Nutanix cluster has a Mixed Support Level, the Software Support provided by Nutanix will be at the lowest active Support contract within that cluster. Hardware Support will not change based on the Software Support level applied to a cluster with a Mixed Support level and will continue to be the actual hardware Support contract entitlement for the specific asset with the issue

From time to time, we may add features and request feedback on their utility and design. Designating them as “Technical Previews” in product documentation indicates that we may modify or remove them without official deprecation notices. You can use them at your own risk. You may provide feedback through your account team representative if you use them successfully or otherwise.

Support for these features is delivered through Account and Product Management teams with the following caveat:

1. Experimental features of a release should not be deployed in a production environment. Nutanix is not responsible for loss of any data or instability of the system caused by using these features in a production environment.
2. All support requests against experimental features will be treated as normal or low priority, and treated as such.

My Dashboard is a personalized view within the award-winning Nutanix Support Portal, available to customers with active Mission Critical or Production Support agreements. It provides an at-a-glance summary of your installed Nutanix assets and support requests, bringing improved insights and convenience to your Nutanix experience.

Gain insight into:

• Open cases and any escalations
• Locations of all installed Nutanix assets and status of contracts
• Any Pulse diagnostic alerts within the last 48 hours globally
• Current status and past history of component parts dispatches
• And more

To access My Dashboard, log in to the Support Portal, click on your profile menu in the top right corner, and select My Dashboard in the list.

Nutanix is committed to the compatibility of our products with RHEL. You can learn how Nutanix stands ready to go the extra mile for our customers deploying their workloads on RHEL running on Nutanix by reviewing the Understanding RHEL Certification and Support for AHV Environments.