Nutanix On Microsoft Azure: 5 Big Things You Should Know

Just weeks after unveiling Nutanix on AWS, the hyperconverged software star has formed another huge public cloud partnership with Microsoft. CRN breaks down the five things you need to know about Nutanix Clusters on Azure.

Nutanix On Azure To Boost Hybrid Cloud Experience

With an eye towards becoming the hybrid cloud software leader, Nutanix has formed a new blockbuster partnership with Microsoft aimed at providing seamless application, data and license mobility along with unified management across on-premises and Azure public cloud environments.

“We made an announcement a few weeks ago with AWS. We feel like it’s time to take it up a notch,” said Nutanix CEO Dheeraj Pandey during Nutanix’s .NEXT 2020 virtual conference this week. “What about running all of Nutanix inside Azure? That’s the thing that really excites us.”

Nutanix said the new Microsoft Azure partnership gives businesses a single software stack across public and private clouds that will boost agility, streamlined operations and lower total cost of ownership. All the new features and capabilities are currently under development or in preview with select customers.

Here are the five things customers and channel partners need to know about the new joint offering from Nutanix and Microsoft Azure.

Nutanix Clusters On Microsoft Azure

The new partnership will extend Nutanix’s hybrid cloud infrastructure to Azure. The collaboration includes the development of Nutanix-ready nodes on Azure to support Nutanix Clusters and services.

Nutanix said customers running workloads on Nutanix Clusters on Azure will benefit from Azure Hybrid Benefit as well as extended security updates to improve cost, security and efficiency. Clients will also be able to deploy and manage Azure instances from Nutanix‘s management interface, which will deliver a consistent experience, tooling and operational practices. It will enable customers to run hybrid workloads seamlessly across private and public clouds without needing to rearchitect their applications.

Nutanix Clusters is a hybrid cloud platform that manages applications and infrastructure in both private and public clouds, operated as a single cloud.

“With this partnership, Microsoft and Nutanix show our commitment to delivering a true, unified hybrid and multi-cloud environment,” said Tarkan Maner, Nutanix’s chief commercial officer in a statement. “We know customers are looking for solutions to truly — and simply — advance their cloud journey.”

‘Seamless’ Support; Azure Credits

Microsoft and Nutanix said the companies are collaborating to offer customers both seamless sales and support experiences.

Customers of Microsoft Azure will be able to use their existing Azure credits, as part of Microsoft Azure Consumption Commitment (MACC), to purchase Nutanix software. Azure credits are applied to customer accounts to help cover costs and save money on their cloud bill.

In turn, Nutanix customers will be able to port their existing term licenses to Nutanix Clusters on Azure or get on-demand consumption of Nutanix software through the Azure Marketplace. Nutanix said the move enabling frictionless movement between private and public clouds within Azure.

Nutanix Integration With Azure Arc

Nutanix and Microsoft will enable managing servers, containers and data services on Nutanix hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI), on-premises or in Azure, through the Azure Arc control plane. Microsoft’s Azure Arc allows the deployment of Azure services anywhere and extends Azure management to any infrastructure.

This unique integration allows customers to extend key Azure services to their Nutanix environment, including running Azure Arc servers, Azure Arc containers, and Azure Arc data services. This allows customers to adopt Azure cloud practices on-premises and extending Azure security anywhere.

The Nutanix HCI on Azure solution aims to provide the flexibility of choosing the right cloud for each workload without the operational and technical challenges of managing multiple environments.

Nutanix’s Microsoft Partnership Follows AWS Launch

The unveiling of Nutanix Clusters on Microsoft Azure comes just weeks after Nutanix made available Nutanix Clusters on AWS. For years, AWS has held the public cloud leadership position over Microsoft Azure.

Looking at Nutanix’s AWS partnership in comparison to Azure, Nutanix Clusters on AWS offers built-in networking integration to make it easy to create a hybrid cloud. Due to this built-in integration with the AWS networking layer, Nutanix Clusters delivers benefits around ease of deployment and performance.

The Nutanix AWS offer allows customers to move applications to the cloud as well as consolidate their data centers by a simple “lift and shift” without any changes needed, eliminating the need to re-architect applications. This enables seamless application mobility across multiple clouds. Customers can also scale capacity or expand to different regions in minutes by bursting into public clouds to support seasonal demands and changing priorities.

Nutanix CEO Weighs In

During Nutanix’s CEO keynote during .NEXT, Dheeraj Pandey said its new partnerships with AWS and Azure are a game changer that helps takes “hybrid cloud infrastructure to the next level.”

“How do you make this HCI, this hybrid cloud infrastructure, even more real? We made an announcement a few weeks ago with AWS. We feel like it’s time to take it up a notch. What about running all of Nutanix inside Azure? That’s the thing that really excites us,” said Pandey.

“Now we have two of the powerhouses, the hyperscale powerhouses, which we are running all our software with,” said Pandey. “The same experience for both sides of the aisle. Portable licenses being able to run not just Nutanix but also be able to connect to native Azure services: AI, ML and storage and everything else that Azure has come to deliver – all through a single veil, single identity and that singular experience that we all crave for in terms of what it means to have the same software run on both sides of the aisle.”