Nutanix (NASDAQ: NTNX), a global provider of hybrid multicloud computing solutions, has announced significant advancements in its AHV hypervisor at the .NEXT Conference. These new features and deployment options are designed to accelerate infrastructure modernization for large-scale enterprise environments by leveraging existing server hardware investments and offering greater flexibility to meet diverse workload and cost management needs.
One of the key announcements is the introduction of new AHV server capabilities aimed at simplifying customer migrations from legacy hypervisors. Nutanix is collaborating with Cisco to certify Cisco UCS blade servers as part of their strategic partnership. This new functionality will enable enterprises to repurpose existing servers, including blade servers, to run the Nutanix AHV hypervisor. The flexibility of the Nutanix architecture would be enhanced with compute-only nodes connected to hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) or storage-only nodes. Additionally, Nutanix plans to expand AHV compatibility to a broader set of server configurations through its Elevate Program.
Jeremy Foster, SVP/GM of Cisco Compute, highlighted the benefits of this collaboration: “As customers race to modernize their infrastructure for their most demanding applications, we are collaborating with Nutanix to enable AHV to run on more server form factors than ever before, starting with the Cisco blade and rack server portfolio including the industry-leading Cisco UCS X-Series. This will provide joint Cisco and Nutanix customers more choice as they look to modernize their data centers.
Nutanix also supports repurposing popular vSAN ReadyNode configurations, simplifying the migration to Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure with the AHV hypervisor. This ability to reuse existing server hardware can significantly lower the total cost of ownership (TCO) for customers seeking to modernize their IT infrastructure.
Thomas Cornely, SVP of Product Management at Nutanix, expressed enthusiasm for these developments: “We are excited to work with our partners to expand the reach of Nutanix AHV to compute-only servers beyond traditional hyperconverged servers, further accelerating its adoption by enterprise customers to simplify operations and increase cyber-resilience. This year celebrates the 10th anniversary of the launch of Nutanix AHV hypervisor with a continued focus on innovation to deliver the best enterprise virtualization and containerization platform.”
Disaster Recovery , Application Provisioning
In addition to new deployment options, Nutanix has announced enhancements to its AHV hypervisor to bolster digital resilience and support enterprise-scale deployments. The enhanced Secure Snapshot capability introduces a new multi-party approval control for privileged operations, protecting against malicious actors and ransomware. Furthermore, Nutanix AHV’s Metro solution will now support multi-site disaster recovery (DR), enabling customers to recover more quickly from two simultaneous site failures. This functionality is particularly relevant for financial services organizations in the European Union preparing for the Digital Operations Resilience Act (DORA), which will take effect in 2025.
Automatic Cluster Selection is another new feature in AHV that simplifies self-service application provisioning. This feature would intelligently place newly created virtual machines (VMs) across clusters, balancing resource utilization without requiring administrator involvement.
Additionally, Nutanix has improved core virtualization features such as live migration. The latest innovations in live migration accelerate the process, especially for large and highly active VMs, by intelligently managing memory replication to the destination host.
Dave Pearson, IDC’s Research Vice President for Infrastructure, noted the resurgence of enterprise virtualization and the attractiveness of Nutanix AHV: “Enterprise virtualization is back in the spotlight, and Nutanix AHV is emerging as an attractive alternative for customers looking to manage risk while modernizing their IT operations. The ability for customers to reuse existing servers as part of a new Nutanix HCI deployment removes a common point of friction for migrations, and improves the return on investment for organizations looking to migrate to HCI.”
Nutanix’s new AHV server capabilities and multi-site DR support are currently under development, while Secure Snapshot and Automatic Cluster Selection are available to customers.
