Dell and Nutanix’s vision for simplified hybrid cloud infrastructure

The cloud is not a place anymore; it’s an operating model. From edge to on-premises, co-located and hyperscale infrastructures, companies are expanding with the hybrid cloud infrastructure. However, with the growing enterprise taste for generative AI comes complexity, which can bring operational friction.

Dell Technologies Inc. and Nutanix Inc. have joined forces to blueprint a streamlined approach to the unified cloud operating model.

“We’re seeing customers deal with the fact that they have to be ready for these [many] applications, dealing with modernizations, things running at the edge in the private cloud, in public clouds, having to think about Kubernetes, having to think about AI and how to make the get value out of enterprise AI,” said Thomas Cornely (pictured, left), senior vice president of product management at Nutanix. “There’s a lot of different things going on, and those are all forward-looking. At the same time, we’re seeing changes in the ecosystem, with acquisitions disrupting existing environments and customers having to go and make adjustments to what that means for their install base.”

Cornely and Travis Vigil (right), senior vice president of product management at Dell Technologies, spoke with theCUBE Research’s Rob Strechay at the Hybrid Cloud Made Easy With Dell Technologies and Nutanix event, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. They discussed both companies delivering simplicity, flexibility and scalability for hybrid cloud infrastructure through products such as Dell XE Plus and the Nutanix Cloud Platform-integrated Dell PowerFlex. (* Disclosure below.)

Simplifying hybrid cloud infrastructure management

With the rapid adoption of AI and cloud-native applications, the complexity of IT infrastructures has skyrocketed. This complexity increases operational costs and increases the risk of system failures. To address these challenges, companies are looking for solutions that offer streamlined management experiences.

“The focus for us is to think along four key pillars,” Cornely said. “The first one is in terms of a platform, a hybrid multicloud platform. The whole foundation here is to have one environment and a consistent way of doing things wherever you’re running. The second one is to make sure you think about having options for the future — it’s not about optimizing for now only. The third one is consistently managing all these environments. Then last but not least in all this, it’s about being ready for the future.”

Hyperconverged infrastructure has emerged as a key player in this space, offering an integrated system combining compute, storage and networking into a single solution. This integration simplifies hybrid cloud infrastructure resource management, enabling teams to focus on strategic initiatives rather than getting bogged down by the intricacies of maintaining separate systems, according to Vigil.

“From our perspective, customers need a modern data center that’s smart, flexible and resilient,” he said. “Those last two, flexibility and resiliency, are top of mind for us at Dell Technologies because we’re continuing to build out a virtualization portfolio that offers customer’s choice.”

Flexibility and scalability for the future

As businesses navigate the complexities of modern IT, the ability to scale and adapt to changing needs becomes crucial. The partnership between Dell and Nutanix has led to the development of solutions that provide customers with the flexibility to scale their compute and storage resources independently, ensuring that they can meet the demands of high-performance applications without unnecessary overhead. Executing on those themes are two announcements from the Dell-Nutanix partnership: Dell XE Plus and PowerFlex with Nutanix Cloud Platform, according to Vigil.

“Dell XE Plus is a suite of integrated turnkey hyperconverged appliances that combines Nutanix cloud platform software with Dell’s portfolio of industry-leading PowerEdge servers,” he said. “We are also pre-announcing support for Dell PowerFlex with Nutanix Cloud Platform. This, I think, is going to be a very powerful combination that will provide customers with a flexible approach that includes bare metal, hypervisors, Kubernetes distributions and more.”

Given the rise of AI-enabled and cognitive applications, it is prudent for companies to stay “future-proof.” Nutanix’s cloud platform is designed to support innovation by providing a flexible and secure foundation that can evolve alongside emerging technologies, Cornely noted.

“We’re not stopping there; the whole idea here is an evolution of the architecture,” he said. “We evolved from appliance to software. We made the software portable across all servers, across all clouds, and we’re now extending the reach of the software to existing environments that are combining compute on one side and IP-based storage on the other.”

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE Research’s coverage of the Hybrid Cloud Made Easy With Dell Technologies and Nutanix event: 

(* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the Hybrid Cloud Made Easy With Dell Technologies and Nutanix event. Neither Dell Technologies Inc., the sponsor of theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE