Nutanix adds AI & cloud tools amid infrastructure push

Nutanix has added new AI, cloud management and infrastructure features to its Nutanix Cloud Platform, while extending partnerships with hardware, storage and cloud providers.

The updates focus on support for AI workloads, broader deployment options across on-premises systems and public cloud, and tools to help organisations manage data sovereignty and operations across distributed environments. They are intended to help customers facing server and storage supply constraints while reassessing virtualisation and cloud strategies.

Among the additions is Nutanix Agentic AI, now in early access. It is a full-stack platform for building and operating AI applications on Nutanix Cloud Platform, combining virtualisation, compute, storage, networking and Kubernetes services.

NKP Metal, also in early access, extends the Nutanix Kubernetes Platform to support Kubernetes deployments on bare-metal infrastructure. It is aimed at edge deployments and AI training workloads that use dense GPU systems.

Nutanix has also updated its storage and data management products. Nutanix Unified Storage 5.3 is now generally available, with expanded smart tiering to Google Cloud and OVHCloud S3, plus multitenant object scaling and quotas for large data lakes. Data Lens 2.0 is also generally available and can run fully on premises, including in air-gapped environments, with ransomware analytics, audit and governance functions, and visibility across distributed storage footprints.

A certified integration between Nutanix Database Service and MongoDB Ops Manager is now generally available. The integration is intended to simplify database provisioning and lifecycle management across infrastructure and database environments.

Infrastructure reach

Nutanix is also widening hardware support as customers look to use existing systems for longer. A new Foundation Central appliance is designed to simplify deployment of Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure and the AHV hypervisor on enterprise servers from Cisco, Dell, Fujitsu, HPE and Lenovo, as well as Nutanix NX systems.

Support for synchronous disaster recovery with Dell PowerFlex is now available. The Everpure integration has also been expanded to support the new //c FlashArray platform alongside Nutanix synchronous disaster recovery.

Zero-copy migrations from VMware vSphere Virtual Volumes to AHV vDisks are also generally available, allowing near-instantaneous in-place workload conversion without duplicating data.

Further planned ecosystem work includes support for AMD GPU-accelerated compute servers for AI workloads, Dell PowerStore, NetApp ONTAP, Lenovo ThinkSystem storage and servers, and additional Cisco integrations. Nutanix described these additions as its broadest infrastructure support expansion to date.

Cloud and sovereignty

On the cloud side, Nutanix Cloud Clusters now support AWS GovCloud. Support for additional sovereign and hyperscaler options is also being expanded as Nutanix targets customers with regulatory, latency and procurement requirements that may force workloads to move between on-premises systems and public cloud.

Nutanix Cloud Manager 2.0 is now generally available. Built on a new architecture, it is designed to manage large numbers of clusters across multiple Prism Central instances. The update adds multisite and multidomain management from a single console, covering inventory, alerts, reporting, capacity planning and cost governance.

Thomas Cornely, Executive Vice President of Product Management at Nutanix, said organisations are trying to balance hybrid multicloud flexibility with tighter requirements around data and application sovereignty. "As organisations continue to modernise their cloud infrastructure in a supply-constrained environment, organisations are having to balance leveraging the flexibility of hybrid multicloud infrastructure and the need to maintain sovereignty of their data and applications," he said. "With the Nutanix Cloud Platform, customers can make better use of existing hardware infrastructure, expand across a growing ecosystem of cloud and infrastructure providers, and maintain choice and control over where workloads run, even as hardware availability and procurement timelines shift."

Industry analysts said the update reflects wider market pressures. "The market is facing multiple pressures as organisations grapple with the uncertainty and potential cost increases from AI transformation and modernisation initiatives, virtualisation market changes, and hardware supply chain disruptions in both memory and media which are going to take several quarters if not years to resolve. By expanding its ecosystem and providing alternative deployment options including on-ramps to public cloud, Nutanix is providing a path for customers to make the changes they need to make, ensure long-term platform choice, and deploy critical AI and modern workloads without being held hostage by a constrained infrastructure supply," said Dave Pearson, Group Vice President, Global Lead, Core Infrastructure, IDC.

Customer reaction focused on infrastructure flexibility. "As a customer using the combined Everpure and Nutanix solution, we're excited to see support for the new Everpure //C arrays. Having more storage options gives us greater flexibility to scale efficiently while continuing to modernise our environment. It's reassuring to know that Nutanix and Everpure continue to expand the choices available to us so we can optimise flexibility and cost without having to rethink our entire infrastructure," said Stephen Hall, VP of Infrastructure & Operations, BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee.