Workload flexibility drives Nutanix cloud and AI strategy – News

Workload freedom is no longer a wish — it’s a demand. Enterprises want workload flexibility that lets them run apps anywhere, across any environment, with AI-ready infrastructure built in. Nutanix Inc. is answering that call with a bold platform evolution designed to power the next generation of intelligent, autonomous workloads.

Nutanix’s latest announcements at its annual conference in Washington, D.C., underscore a strategy built around making workload flexibility real. The company introduced the general availability of its Cloud-Native AOS operating system — a hypervisor-independent solution that extends from core HCI deployments and supports cloud-native apps such as Kubernetes. It’s a clear signal Nutanix is pushing further into cloud and edge, offering more deployment choices for modern workloads, according to the Rajiv Ramaswami (pictured), president and chief executive officer of Nutanix.

“We want to be the platform for companies to run applications and manage their data,” Ramaswami told theCUBE. “The specific set of applications are going to evolve. It used to be VM applications, now it’s cloud-native applications. Tomorrow, it’s going to be AI and AI-influencing applications. We have to continue to evolve the platform as we go.”

Ramaswami spoke with theCUBE’s John Furrier and Bob Laliberte at Nutanix .NEXT in Washington, D.C., during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, News Media’s livestreaming studio. TheCUBE’s coverage featured on-site interviews with Nutanix executives and partners to explore the company’s long-term growth strategy, including its evolving platform vision and an expanding network of strategic partnerships designed to support modern applications and AI workload flexibility. (* Disclosure below.)

Here’s theCUBE’s complete interview with Rajiv Ramaswami:

Plus, here’s three key insights you may have missed from theCUBE’s coverage:

Insight No. 1: Nutanix crystallizes its AI solutions around agents and a threefold strategy.

The most recent release of the Nutanix Enterprise AI platform includes tighter integration with Nvidia NIM Microservices and the Neural Modules framework for AI deployment. Customers can develop and run agentic AI workloads — intelligent systems that can plan, reason and act autonomously — across on-prem and cloud infrastructure. The release positions Nutanix AI as a unified control plane for AI agents spanning multicloud environments, according to Tarkan Maner, chief commercial officer of Nutanix.

“We’re talking about thousands of nodes, hundreds of thousands of cores transforming and getting ready for these AI-specific workloads,” he said during the event. “For one of our financial services customers, we’re now doing a fraud detection application, all agentic. The entire application is going to run on thousands of cores, and the entire deployment is through an agent-based model running on our security manageability automation capabilities, and the key thing is scale.”

Here’s theCUBE’s complete interview with Tarkan Maner, who was joined by Kevin Deierling, senior vice president of networking and storage at Nvidia:

Integrating with Nvidia’s AI tools positions Nutanix to connect infrastructure with AI model deployment and management. The company’s goal is to help organizations move beyond experimentation to fully integrated, agentic AI operations that drive competitive advantage across industries. Debo Dutta, chief AI officer at Nutanix, in a conversation with theCUBE, further explained the mission.

Nutanix’s Debo Dutta and Jason Langone talk with theCUBE about platform readiness and AI operationalization

“We have a threefold strategy to deal with the rapid pace of innovation,” Dutta said. “The way we look at it is AI on Nutanix, so we want to have the best agentic platform we’re running on Nutanix, our whole infrastructure, so that we can speed up things. Then AI at Nutanix, so we’re using the same platform to optimize Nutanix. Then AI in Nutanix is [where] we’re trying to improve our products with AI.”

This evolving approach also reflects Nutanix’s focus on delivering AI-ready infrastructure that maintains workload flexibility as customers scale across environments.

Here’s theCUBE’s complete interview with Deebo Dutta, who was joined by Jason Langone, global AI business development leader at Nutanix:

Insight No. 2: Partnerships with Dell and Google drive the trend toward software-defined architectures and hybrid cloud cluster solutions.

In late April, Dell Technologies Inc. and Nutanix announced the general availability of a solution that combined Dell PowerFlex with the Nutanix Cloud Platform. The collaboration provides customers with a unified platform for delivering scalable storage and compute in concert with automation, security and enhanced workload flexibility. The joint offering provides yet another example of how customers are gravitating toward software-defined architectures in modernizing IT environments, with workflow flexibility as a key priority, according to Lee Caswell, senior vice president of product and solutions marketing at Nutanix.

“The idea that you give choice, that’s what a platform is about — and that you’re moving towards server-based, software-defined architectures,” he said in an appearance on theCUBE. “We’ve been talking about that for years. Now, we have the opportunity to make it real, to use the power of server-based as an underlying hardware architecture.”

Here’s theCUBE’s complete interview with Lee Caswell, who was joined by Anthony Cinelli, senior director for global PowerFlex sales at Dell:

Providing customers with a wider range of architecture choices has been further enhanced by Nutanix’s recent collaboration with Google LLC. By launching Nutanix Cloud Clusters or NC2, Nutanix is taking advantage of Google’s bare metal service to extend its cloud cluster offering and provide users with faster migration and modernization tools for applications. The collaboration with Google, currently in preview, will also create a common operating model across hybrid and multicloud environments, according to Kelly Ciccone, head of sales for Silicon Valley Enterprise, Google Cloud.

Google Cloud’s Kelly Ciccone and Nutanix’s Michal Lesiczka talk with theCUBE about their cloud cluster solution.

“Customers have data on-prem, they’re using Google for training, and they might be using AWS for inferencing,” she explained during an interview with theCUBE. “This is an opportunity for Nutanix to be that management layer. They have the prowess with the management aspect of it, the simplicity, and then we’ve got the robust infrastructure and … the AI innovation to enable and accelerate those AI workloads.”

Here’s theCUBE’s complete interview with Kelly Ciccone, who was joined by Michal Lesiczka, vice president for cloud and databases partner ecosystem at Nutanix:

Insight No. 3: Workload flexibility and management are central to Nutanix’s IT approach.

The rise of AI and its accompanying demands on compute and networking have propelled workload modernization and management higher up the priorities list. Enterprise IT teams are seeking unified platforms that can manage workloads across a wide range of environments, including virtual machines, AI frameworks and containers.

Nutanix’s Tarkan Maner and AWS’ Rachel Skaff talk with theCUBE about hybrid cloud.

An example of how Nutanix has approached this need for IT organizations to manage workloads — while maintaining workload flexibility, control and data mobility — is reflected its partnership with Amazon Web Services Inc. By extending its Cloud-Native AOS into cloud-hosted services on AWS, Nutanix is anticipating that customers will embrace the ability to perform workload repatriation from public cloud to private infrastructure, with unified storage management across hybrid deployments, according to Rachel Skaff, managing director for Americas channel and partner sales at AWS. A hybrid cloud model enables companies to meet the needs of dynamic infrastructure requirements, and it all starts with workloads.

“Getting all of those workloads over, whether it’s NC2 on AWS, that’s going to help you see around corners, because who knows where the technology’s going to go, even tomorrow,” she told theCUBE. “By leveraging our platform and that partnership, it allows you to quickly migrate that, and then you can start to modernize those workloads.”

Here’s theCUBE’s complete interview with Rachel Skaff, who was joined by Tarkan Maner of Nutanix:

To watch more of theCUBE’s coverage of Nutanix .NEXT, here’s our complete event video playlist:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=videoseries

(* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for Nutanix .NEXT. Neither Nutanix, the sponsor of theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or News.)

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