Nutanix Expands Hyperconverged Infrastructure Clusters to AWS

Hyperconverged infrastructure vendor Nutanix is bringing Nutanix Clusters to the Amazon Web Services public cloud, adding options for customers.

It’s the first time Nutanix Clusters will be available on a public cloud platform, the company said. Nutanix Cluster services will come to other cloud platforms in the future.

The Nutanix clusters on AWS will be available in 20 AWS regions. Customers can use the services under their existing Nutanix licenses and can choose fixed or pay-as-you-go pricing. Nutanix hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) combines compute, storage, networking and virtualization together in one package for customers.

Christian Alvarez, Nutanix’s senior VP of worldwide channels, said the clusters pool resources for a group of physical servers. That protects data against hardware failure and allows applications to run on any node in the cluster. Nutanix HCI software powers the clusters, which deliver hybrid cloud infrastructure to run applications in private or public clouds. Instead of running on physical servers in customer data centers, they run on physical servers in AWS bare metal instances.

Nutanix’s Christian Alvarez

“Nutanix Clusters enables seamless application migration and unified operations across multiple clouds to help businesses accelerate their cloud journey with AWS,” said Alvarez.

The ease of use and architecture are key differentiators for Nutanix Clusters and its hyperconverged infrastructure, he added.

“It allows organizations to build a hybrid cloud in under one hour,” he said. “The architecture is ready to support enterprises’ most mission-critical applications and workloads, including VDI, databases and more.”

Partner Sales Points

For channel partners, the clusters extend the simplicity of its software to the cloud, he said.

“Nutanix Clusters provides customers with the flexibility to choose the right cloud environment for each application. The added benefit is license portability across multiple clouds, which has a direct impact on cost and resource optimization. Additionally, customers will be able to take advantage of the company’s full software stack on private and public cloud.”

This gives partners significant new opportunities by allowing them to reach customers that have emerging hybrid cloud strategies.

“We know our partners are looking for solutions that can simplify their hybrid cloud deployments,” he said. “We also want to address the technical and operational challenges they often face when managing public and private clouds. Nutanix Clusters on AWS addresses these challenges.”

Vinu Thomas, CTO for Nutanix channel partner and managed services provider, Presidio, said the Nutanix Clusters are good for customers.

Presidio’s Thomas Vinu

“They extend the simplicity and ease of use of its software to the cloud,” he said. “This eliminates the cost, security and management complexity of hybrid environments.”

The services will help channel partners better serve their customers, he said.

“The Nutanix hybrid cloud infrastructure now available on AWS enables channel partners to meet customers where they are. It allows them to overcome technical and operational challenges of the hybrid cloud era,” said Thomas. “Customers looking to move applications to the cloud, or consolidate their data centers, can ‘lift and shift’ them without any change.”

Nutanix also provides application mobility between non-Nutanix solutions and clusters, which prevents vendor lock-in, said Thomas.

Analyst Corner

Bob Lailberte, an analyst with Enterprise Strategy Group, said the new product will extend the Nutanix platform for existing customers.

“Partners can leverage Nutanix Clusters to enable hybrid cloud and hybrid multicloud environments using the management interface they know. This should drive operation efficiency for the customer,” said Lailberte.

Lailberte said the new hyperconverged infrastructure cluster services are “a significant new capability for Nutanix customers.”

ESG research shows that the top business digital transformation goal is to operate more efficiently.

“And that is exactly what Nutanix Clusters will do, make it easier to harness the complexity of a highly distributed, hybrid and multicloud application environment by abstracting the underlying infrastructure, regardless of where it is located or who is providing it. Channel partners have an opportunity to be that trusted partner, not just for the initial cloud deployment, but over time,” he said.