Nutanix presents itself as an alternative for frustrated VMware customers

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Since the takeover by Broadcom around 18 months ago, there have been increasing reports of frustrated VMware customers. It is therefore hardly surprising that VMware was the "elephant in the room" at the US edition of the .NEXT in-house exhibition of its current most important competitor Nutanix. With over 5000 visitors on site in Washington DC, the US software manufacturer's trade fair was also able to celebrate a record number of visitors. Many interested parties wanted to get an idea of the technology and delivery capability of the manufacturer, which has declared it its current strategy to offer customers a comprehensive and valid alternative to VMware.

Broadcom's customer-unfriendly licensing policy and constant back and forth, for example regarding the availability of the free version of the ESXi hypervisor, which was first canceled and has recently been offered again, has considerably damaged VMware's once high reputation. Nutanix CEO Rajiv Ramaswami, who incidentally previously held management positions at Broadcom and VMware for almost eleven years, sees this as an excellent opportunity for his company. In an interview with iX, he emphasized that the aim now is to position Nutanix as the main alternative and second manufacturer for customers. There are currently many customers who want to introduce a two-vendor strategy for virtualization for risk management reasons. Once Nutanix is established with customers, they are extremely satisfied, says the CEO.

Change in storage strategy

As the inventor of hyperconverged storage and virtualization systems, Nutanix has already established itself as VMware's main competitor in the past. Around ten years ago, the two manufacturers engaged in intense battles for technological leadership in the storage sector after VMware followed suit with vSAN in 2014. After a few quieter years with stable incremental innovations and a rounding off of the portfolio thanks to in-house developments and acquisitions, Nutanix is now the only competitor to VMware that has been able to build up a product portfolio that is essentially on a par. However, in some areas Nutanix has not yet reached the level of maturity that VMware has with its flagship VCF.

The growing market significance and the increased influx of customers are also forcing Nutanix to rethink some fundamental things. Until the beginning of 2024, the manufacturer's strategy was to only allow hyperconverged storage provided by Nutanix's own platform. This was softened a year ago when support for external storage from Dell's PowerFlex series was announced. This support is now generally available in the Nutanix portfolio: a PowerFlex-based storage system built from Dell servers can be expanded to up to 128 storage nodes and docked to Nutanix clusters.

Partnership with Pure Storage

One of the most important announcements at the in-house exhibition is also in line with this new storage policy: The strategic partnership with storage system manufacturer Pure Storage, which enables integration of Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) with Pure Storage FlashArray. With this cooperation, Nutanix wants to address the demand for flexible, disaggregated storage systems that work independently of the hypervisor servers and are therefore not hyperconverged. This is particularly relevant for customers looking for alternatives to VMware.

The combination of Nutanix's proprietary AHV hypervisor with the high-performance Pure Storage FlashArray systems will allow organizations to scale and manage virtualized workloads more efficiently without being locked into traditional 3-tier architectures. The partnership was also positioned as a response to market changes following the Broadcom acquisition of VMware, which is currently causing many customers to rethink their infrastructure strategies.

Canonical integration: Kubernetes and Ubuntu Pro

Another major announcement was the collaboration with Canonical to add support for Ubuntu Pro to the Nutanix Kubernetes Platform (NKP). This integration is intended to simplify the deployment and management of Kubernetes clusters, especially for AI workloads. Ubuntu Pro's secure Linux platform, combined with Nutanix's cloud-native approach, is designed to provide companies with a robust foundation for containerized applications. This reduces the complexity of Kubernetes implementations and reduces the effort required for AI and cloud-native projects, said Nutanix manager Tobi Knaup in an interview with iX.

Nutanix Enterprise AI: AI agents with Nvidia

In the area of artificial intelligence, Nutanix presented the latest version of Nutanix Enterprise AI (NAI), which now supports agent-based AI workflows. Deeper integration with Nvidia Enterprise AI, including Nvidia's NIM-optimized inferencing microservices, enables enterprises to securely and scalably deploy large-scale language models – from the edge to the public cloud, Nutanix promises.

NAI also enables a consistent hybrid multicloud operating model that facilitates the adaptation of AI models to private data and meets high security and resilience requirements. Nutanix also wants to become a key player for companies that want to use generative AI in business-critical applications.

Big surprise: cooperation with Omnissa

Nutanix also no longer offers an in-house platform for end user computing and virtual desktop infrastructure. Instead, it has partnered with several specialized providers, such as Citrix, Dizzion, Parallels and now also the former EUC/VDI division of VMware, Omnissa, which was spun off and sold in 2024 and which further develops and distributes the former VMware Horizon. As a big surprise at the conference, Omnissa announced that, in addition to VMware's hypervisor, it would now also be supporting another hypervisor for the first time, Nutanix AHV, which is also the main competitor of the family of origin, another indicator that there is rumbling in the scene.

Overall, Nutanix was able to demonstrate at its in-house exhibition that the company can be a good alternative for medium-sized and large VMware customers who are willing to switch, and that it basically covers VMware's entire current portfolio. In addition to the pure hypervisor, this also includes hyperconverged storage systems that are closely wired or directly integrated with the hypervisor and now also selective support for external storage systems. There are also network security functions (Nutanix Flow), automation (Nutanix Cloud Manager Self-Service) and a Kubernetes platform for cloud-native applications (Nutanix Kubernetes Platform / NKP and now Cloud Native AOS) and an AI platform (Nutanix Enterprise AI).

One thing is clear: The company wants to take advantage of the opportunities presented by the current market upheavals and further expand its position as a leading provider of hybrid multicloud solutions. The new partnerships with Pure Storage and Canonical as well as the further development of Nutanix Enterprise AI make it clear that Nutanix is actively tackling the challenges of modern IT landscapes. For companies that want to modernize their infrastructure and scale AI workloads efficiently, Nutanix should offer a flexible platform.

And what about small customers?

One fly in the ointment remains: For the small customers left alone by VMware, who have been able to take advantage of virtualization in small(est) environments in the past with vSphere Essentials or Essentials Plus, Nutanix doesn't have a panacea either. Small Nutanix environments with two or three servers require an investment of around 40,000 to 60,000 euros for hardware and software, according to a Nutanix partner in an interview with iX.

VMware no longer wants to serve this market niche and Nutanix is also too big for this size of environment due to its architecture. Perhaps this will change in the future with the support of further external storage systems, but the manufacturer did not make any concrete statements on this at the event. Local offshoots of Nutanix .Next will be offered as free events on June 24 in Zurich and on November 26 and 27 in Darmstadt.

(olb)