Missed Nutanix NEXT? Check Out the Main Highlights
It’s a hybrid and multicloud world. Nutanix aims to make life easier for IT admins.
![Highlights from Nutanix NEXT Highlights from Nutanix NEXT](https://eu-images.contentstack.com/v3/assets/blt10e444bce2d36aa8/blt756b616dbd56475e/6523fab7a1862c2695376d33/Highlights.jpg?width=700&auto=webp&quality=80&disable=upscale)
christitzeimaging.com/Shutterstock
Everyone likes options. To that end, Nutanix has unveiled Project Beacon. It’s a platform-as-a-service initiative that will span several years. The goal? To make data-centric PaaS available on Nutanix or (and that “or” is where the options enter the picture) from public cloud providers.
A lot of PaaS is available only through a specific vendor. So, an enterprise gets locked in with that provider, making it difficult to change brands (which, of course, is what proprietarily focused vendors want, right?). Nutanix says it is solving that dilemma with Project Beacon.
Enterprises’ developers, Nutanix said this week, can use Project Beacon to write and run applications anywhere.
What will Project Beacon look like? Go to the next slide.
In terms of an interface, Project Beacon will feature a single console that integrates with Kubernetes.
On that note, database services — “the foundation of all apps,” as Nutanix put it — will stand out as the first Project Beacon effort. Streaming, caching and search will come later.
“We can take our database-as-a-service offering and allow that to go and run directly on AWS without requiring a customer-controlled hypervisor,” Lee Caswell, Nutanix’s senior vice president of product and solutions marketing, told media this week. That comes from Channel Futures sister site Data Center Knowledge, which attended .NEXT.
From there, enterprises decide how they want to consume hyperconverged infrastructure. They may do so through a hyperscaler, or in their own data centers or on an as-needed basis.
“We hope to enable enterprises to fully embrace the benefits of hybrid multicloud, not only at the infrastructure layer but also at the application data layer,” said Rajiv Ramaswami, president and CEO of Nutanix.
On the next slide, we share some industry reactions to Project Beacon.
On Twitter, LinkedIn and elsewhere, people are expressing excitement over Project Beacon. Here are three examples.
“Giving IT administrators a single management plane is a compelling vision that speaks to the real problems that IT shops face daily. In addition, abstracting away the intricacies of specific cloud services and doing that in a way that equally applies to on-prem deployments reduces the complexity of managing workloads across a hybrid-cloud infrastructure.” — Steve McDowell, principal analyst and founding partner at NAND Research
“With Project Beacon, Nutanix will build on our mission with a vision of data-centric platform services delivered consistently, anywhere, further extending customer choice on Red Hat’s open hybrid cloud platforms with Nutanix’s advanced data services.” —Matt Hicks, president and CEO of Red Hat
“Organizations have come to rely on public cloud services to accelerate the speed of development and innovation, but there are trade-offs — in terms of complexity, cost, lock-in and more. With Project Beacon, Nutanix aims to reduce lock-in and increase application development simplicity through unified management, automated mobility, and the ability to write applications once and deploy them as-needed on appropriate infrastructure.” —Dave Pearson, regional vice president for infrastructure systems, platforms and technologies at IDC Research
Managing multiple cloud environments is no easy task. IT administrators (or their channel partners) have to access each brand through a different portal. Not only does this consume more time, it also heightens security risks and can increase costs.
Nutanix aims to solve those problems with Nutanix Central. The tool will work across public clouds, on-premises data centers and edge locations. Capabilities within Nutanix Central will include federated identity and access management, global fleet management, and global projects and categories.
“With Nutanix Central, Nutanix will push the envelope on what hybrid multicloud means by delivering the same operating model and management across multiple clouds along with full license portability,” said Scott Sinclair, practice director at research firm Enterprise Strategy Group.
Customers using Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure will get access to Nutanix Central. Nutanix hasn’t said when the new tool will launch but it is allowing end users to sign up for early access.
On the next slide, find out what else debuted at .NEXT 2023.
Speaking of cloud management, Nutanix also is beefing up Nutanix Cloud Platform with some new resources.
Soon, users will be able to integrate management of data — for both containerized and virutal applications — across multiple environments. This includes Kubernetes applications and cross-cloud data mobility, Nutanix said.
First, look for the ability to extend storage provisioning, snapshots and disaster recovery operations to Kubernetes applications via Nutanix Data Services for Kubernetes. This will help accelerate containerized application development, according to Nutanix. The tool works with Red Hat OpenShift.
Second, Multicloud Snapshot Technology will enable that aforementioned cross-cloud data mobility. Here’s how Data Center Knowledge explained the capability:
“[It] will enable Nutanix customers to create a snapshot directly to cloud-native object stores, such AWS’ S3 object storage service. Use cases include the ability to create snapshots for data backup and recovery. Nutanix Data Services for Kubernetes can leverage this technology to protect and migrate stateful Kubernetes applications and data across cloud infrastructures, the company said. ‘You can take your snapshots and move them into an S3-compatible location of your choice,’ Caswell said.”
The data services and snapshot technologies are both under development.
We round out this look at Nutanix’s .NEXT reveals with a quick update on Nutanix Objects Storage. This is a fairly arcane update for the most data-centric of IT admins.
Nutanix said its objects storage capabilities now work with Snowflake. Organizations using Snowflake Data Cloud can analyze data directly on Nutanix Objects. The function is available now.
We round out this look at Nutanix’s .NEXT reveals with a quick update on Nutanix Objects Storage. This is a fairly arcane update for the most data-centric of IT admins.
Nutanix said its objects storage capabilities now work with Snowflake. Organizations using Snowflake Data Cloud can analyze data directly on Nutanix Objects. The function is available now.
Nutanix NEXT 2023 in Chicago is a wrap.
As hybrid and multicloud grow more popular, Nutanix finds itself competing ever more against the likes of VMware and Red Hat (even as Red Hat also teams up with Nutanix). As such, the company this week debuted a series of capabilities and resources intended to keep setting itself apart from rivals.
Nutanix NEXT featured a lot of talk around data services (Kubernetes, in particular) and cloud management. To the latter point, Enterprise Strategy Group analyst Paul Nashawaty told Data Center Knowledge (Channel Futures sister site) that Nutanix is working to “reduce the complexity and increase harmonization across a multicloud environment.”
That’s vital. Enterprises are tightening their IT budgets, which makes life harder for IT staff. These experts have to do more with less (ah, the corporate way), all while keeping the organization equipped with the latest and greatest capabilities. Tools such as Nutanix’s new cloud management portal, which you’ll read about in the slideshow above, help to address that challenge.
Find out more about the launches this week at Nutanix NEXT. Click the photo above to get started.
Want to contact the author directly about this story? Have ideas for a follow-up article? Email Kelly Teal or connect with her on LinkedIn. |
Read more about:
VARs/SIsAbout the Author(s)
You May Also Like