Enterprise infrastructure is getting into one of the vital consequential transitions in a long time.
New workloads are reshaping how purposes are constructed, deployed, and operated. On the identical time, organizations are rethinking the underlying platforms that help them. What we’re listening to from prospects is constant: they’re on the lookout for higher flexibility, operational simplicity, and freedom of alternative in how their infrastructure evolves.
Cisco and Nutanix have been engaged on this downside collectively. Not in principle, however within the concrete actuality of how enterprise infrastructure will get deployed, managed, and supported.
“Our collaboration with Cisco is giving prospects precisely what they’ve been asking for: the liberty to run any workload wherever—with constant efficiency, safety, and ease,” says Thomas Cornely, Govt Vice President of Product Administration at Nutanix.
“Collectively, we’re delivering an built-in platform that helps organizations speed up AI adoption and modernize their operations with out added complexity. From empowering excessive‑efficiency AI on the edge to supporting mission‑crucial purposes within the knowledge middle or throughout the cloud, we’re making certain prospects have the flexibleness, alternative, and confidence to innovate on their phrases.”
At .NEXT we’re sharing a number of milestones that transfer that work ahead.
AI infrastructure wants repeatable structure
There’s a niche proper now between AI proof-of-concepts and AI environments working at scale. A part of that hole is about fashions. However plenty of it comes right down to infrastructure complexity: integrating GPUs, networking, storage, and software program stacks into methods that may truly be deployed and operated reliably.
That’s why Cisco AI PODs, the constructing blocks of Cisco Safe AI Manufacturing facility with NVIDIA, exist. They supply modular, validated infrastructure that simplifies deploying and scaling AI environments.
We’re now extending these architectures to incorporate the Nutanix Agentic AI resolution, encompassing Nutanix Enterprise AI (NAI), Nutanix Kubernetes Platform (NKP), and Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS), as a part of Cisco AI PODs. A Cisco Validated Design and a Nutanix reference structure might be accessible quickly.
The aim is simple: give organizations a transparent, repeatable blueprint for deploying AI infrastructure that integrates compute, networking, and storage virtualization right into a single operational mannequin.
AI is shifting nearer to the place work occurs
Plenty of the present AI dialog nonetheless focuses on knowledge facilities. However in observe, most of the most beneficial AI workloads are actually being deployed throughout the core and on the edge.
Retail environments detecting stock gaps. Manufacturing strains figuring out high quality points. Healthcare methods analyzing imaging knowledge in actual time. Logistics networks optimizing routing as situations change. These workloads run on the edge.
The problem isn’t simply inserting compute in these areas. It’s working that infrastructure persistently.
Organizations can’t afford to run one virtualization platform within the knowledge middle and a totally completely different operational mannequin throughout dozens or lots of of distant websites. That fragmentation slows down deployments and will increase operational threat.
That’s why we constructed Cisco Unified Edge: to increase enterprise infrastructure into distributed environments with out introducing new operational silos, enabling you to help all of your core and AI workloads on the edge.
And it’s why we’re bringing the Nutanix Cloud Platform to Cisco Unified Edge. With help for Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure and Nutanix Acropolis Hypervisor (AHV), prospects will be capable to run the identical Nutanix operational mannequin they use within the knowledge middle on the edge.
Early entry begins in April, with normal availability deliberate for June.
Collectively, Cisco Intersight and the Nutanix Cloud Platform allow organizations to handle throughout core and edge environments, serving to IT groups extra simply handle distributed infrastructure at scale, and with far much less overhead.
For patrons, this implies edge deployments turn out to be far simpler to scale. The identical virtualization platform. The identical lifecycle administration. The identical operational tooling, whether or not workloads are working in a centralized knowledge middle or throughout lots of of distributed websites.
Enterprises need confirmed platforms that ship alternative
For greater than a decade, FlashStack, developed collectively by Cisco and Everpure (previously Pure Storage), has offered a validated infrastructure basis for enterprise workloads, combining Cisco infrastructure with Everpure options like FlashArray, FlashBlade and Portworx.
A couple of months in the past, we introduced that we’re extending that worth by bringing the Nutanix Cloud Platform into the FlashStack structure. This offers prospects a brand new validated choice to run Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure and AHV on Cisco UCS whereas persevering with to leverage Everpure FlashArray for high-performance, impartial storage scaling.
Along with Nutanix Prism and Cisco Intersight, organizations achieve a unified, VM-centric operational mannequin for end-to-end provisioning, monitoring, and lifecycle administration of the total stack.
We’re targeted on delivering a modular converged platform that preserves what prospects already belief whereas increasing architectural alternative, permitting organizations to modernize their infrastructure with out disrupting current investments or operational fashions.
Now, we’re extending this mannequin throughout our ecosystem to platforms like FlexPod, our long-standing joint resolution with NetApp, the place we see related alternatives to increase flexibility and selection for purchasers as their infrastructure methods evolve.
Following the latest announcement between Nutanix and NetApp, we’re working carefully collectively to allow prospects to undertake new virtualization choices whereas persevering with to leverage NetApp’s enterprise storage and knowledge companies.
The result’s a brand new validated choice to run Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure and AHV on Cisco UCS, enabling prospects to proceed leveraging NetApp for unified storage, wealthy knowledge companies, and scalable, impartial storage progress.
Prospects want extra flexibility in how they purchase
There’s one other issue that always will get neglected in infrastructure modernization: how know-how is bought. Complicated procurement processes, separate {hardware} and software program agreements, and misaligned contract cycles can decelerate infrastructure adoption as a lot as technical complexity.
That’s why we’re making Nutanix software program accessible by way of the Cisco Enterprise Settlement (EA) program. This marks the primary time Cisco has included a third-party software program platform inside our EA framework, and it’s the one Nutanix associate to incorporate Nutanix licenses as an EA.
For enterprises, it means infrastructure and software program may be aligned beneath a single lifecycle settlement, simplifying how environments are deliberate, deployed, and renewed. It additionally brings extra predictability into how these environments are consumed—by way of constant pricing, the power to increase capability as wants evolve, and the flexibleness to undertake extra Nutanix capabilities over time with out remodeling contracts.
For Nutanix prospects, it additionally offers a brand new strategy to undertake the platform by way of the versatile shopping for packages many Cisco prospects already depend on.
What comes subsequent
Infrastructure is turning into extra distributed, extra AI-driven, and extra software-defined than ever earlier than. Prospects want platforms that give them flexibility with out complexity and selection with out fragmentation.
That’s the main target of our work with Nutanix: delivering infrastructure that runs persistently from the core to the sting to help your whole utility portfolio. By offering higher flexibility in shopping for fashions, expanded decisions for exterior storage, and improved {hardware} reusability, we’re simplifying the way you handle your IT setting.
As a result of ultimately, the aim isn’t to construct infrastructure that appears spectacular on paper. It’s to construct infrastructure that lets the enterprise transfer sooner.
For extra particulars, go to Cisco Compute Hyperconverged with Nutanix and be part of us at Cisco Reside, Might 31–June 4, to remain on high of the newest Cisco and Nutanix bulletins.
