Nutanix Weekly: Introducing Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure for External Storage

We are pleased to announce the general availability of the NCI Compute product, enabling Nutanix customers to leverage external storage as part of their NCP deployments.

The first supported solution at launch is the Nutanix Cloud Platform with Dell PowerFlex, a complete server-based infrastructure solution designed for large mission-critical environments where resiliency, security, scalability, and performance are essential.

Blog Post: https://www.nutanix.com/blog/nutanix-cloud-infrastructure-for-external-storage

Host: Phil Sellers, XenTegra
Co-Host: Chris Calhoun, XenTegra
Co-Host: Jirah Cox, Nutanix
Co-Host: Ben Rogers, Nutanix

Transcript

1
00:00:03.630 --> 00:00:21.709
Philip Sellers: Welcome to another episode of Nutanix Weekly. One of the many Podcasts that we produce here at Zintegra, I'm, your host, Phil Sellers, practice director for modern data center. And we like to call our podcast here context, excuse me, content with context.

2
00:00:22.205 --> 00:00:31.329
Philip Sellers: and and we do that because we take all the news that's happening out in the industry. And bring it here. Apply some real world knowledge.

3
00:00:31.600 --> 00:00:36.785
Philip Sellers: apply our experiences and talk about it so that we can go a little deeper and

4
00:00:37.220 --> 00:00:58.150
Philip Sellers: drive a little further today's episode is the 1st post 2025 nutanix dot next episode. So we've got lots of news that came out from the Nutanix dot next show last week, and so we're really happy to kinda unpack some of the major announcements and

5
00:00:58.220 --> 00:01:16.910
Philip Sellers: talk through those. You know. I can't talk all by myself while I could, but it'd be really boring so I've got good guests joining me on the horn today. Chris Calhoun, one of our solutions architects here at Zintegra, former Nutanix se

6
00:01:17.000 --> 00:01:22.160
Philip Sellers: turned var Essie, Chris, how you! How are things going today?

7
00:01:22.520 --> 00:01:43.059
Chris Calhoun | XenTegra: Fantastic, glad to be back from dot next, and excited about the offerings that were announced and the new technology to share with our customers, because I definitely think that this is a spark and it's something definitely that our customers have been asking for

8
00:01:43.190 --> 00:01:46.900
Chris Calhoun | XenTegra: a little Teaser, but definitely anxious to get started with that.

9
00:01:47.380 --> 00:02:01.010
Philip Sellers: So. So the biggest question is, I know you were on booth duty and on your feet most of the week. How are your feet doing? Are they fully rested from the weekend? Or you're gonna need to to see a podiatrist.

10
00:02:01.430 --> 00:02:07.250
Chris Calhoun | XenTegra: I have 2 still, and they look like Bigfoot. So yeah.

11
00:02:07.250 --> 00:02:10.530
Chris Calhoun | XenTegra: and need some rest and relaxation at some point.

12
00:02:11.180 --> 00:02:34.789
Philip Sellers: So yeah, I mean, that's that's conference life in a nutshell. Right? You're you're walking around and and you're talking 24, 7 during a week like that. Next, the community reaching out to people getting to see folks. You only maybe get to see 2 or 3 times a year. It's all a great part of it. And that brings me to our next guest, Jira Cox.

13
00:02:35.259 --> 00:02:55.110
Philip Sellers: Jira, you you! I say you were holding court on Wednesday. I I think you know just about everybody that walked into the hall and was was trying to get their badge and stuff ahead of the conference. So yeah. How was the the court of Jaira on.

14
00:02:55.110 --> 00:03:12.199
Jirah Cox: It was great to get to see everybody. It was a lot of fun yeah, it was. It was shocking even to me how I have a percentage of our 5,000 attendees. I I actually didn't know, and was able to make connections with so so kind of surprised even me, but definitely, very enjoyable.

15
00:03:12.490 --> 00:03:34.629
Philip Sellers: Yeah. Well, you know you, you're definitely notable within the community for Nutanix. And so it's not a shock that you know everybody. But it is really fun to to watch you, you know, interact with the community. And you know, so many people respect you. And we we appreciate you here on the podcast and everything that you you bring to things.

16
00:03:34.990 --> 00:03:35.830
Philip Sellers: We're also.

17
00:03:35.830 --> 00:03:36.580
Jirah Cox: Way to do it.

18
00:03:37.000 --> 00:03:38.010
Jirah Cox: I think that's my

19
00:03:38.640 --> 00:03:44.450
Jirah Cox: 7th dot next, and and easily the best of the 7. I've had the pleasure to attend.

20
00:03:44.660 --> 00:04:07.889
Philip Sellers: Yeah 100%. And let's talk about that for just a quick second, because, you know, this was definitely a bigger event there was a lot of interest, a lot of buzz. The overall feeling was really good, and I talked to a lot of excited people, so it it was easily the best that I've been to now I've only been to 2. So this was only my second.

21
00:04:07.890 --> 00:04:09.189
Jirah Cox: Still a good friend.

22
00:04:09.450 --> 00:04:10.080
Philip Sellers: Yup.

23
00:04:10.510 --> 00:04:23.499
Philip Sellers: We're also joined with Ben Rogers. Ben is a enterprise se for Nutanix, based in Charlotte, good friend of Syntegra's. Good friend of mine Ben, you didn't get to make the trip out, though, did you?

24
00:04:23.500 --> 00:04:26.789
Ben Rogers: Well, you almost have to hear the pop up.

25
00:04:27.580 --> 00:04:56.319
Ben Rogers: Not every employee gets to go to dotnext, unfortunately, but man, I did feel the buzz through the week, though, as I was, you know, Zoom, casting both the keynotes of the start morning in the end afternoon. All the special events we had. I mean, there's just a lot of buzz around Nutanix right now. And at that national event, even though I didn't attend, I could still feel the energy coming through. You know, our communication channels, what we're podcasting out so

26
00:04:56.320 --> 00:05:08.470
Ben Rogers: overall, even though I didn't get a 10, I do feel connected. And I do feel like it was a successful event and a lot of work to be done afterwards. Man, we've made a lot of good announcements, and now we need to go back and capitalize on some of those announcements.

27
00:05:08.760 --> 00:05:30.218
Philip Sellers: That's right. Well, and that that plays perfectly into what comes next. We've got a great blog post that we're talking about. Perhaps one of the biggest announcements, and it's not necessarily a surprise because it was announced last year@next. But this year it's generally available. And so we wanna dig a little deeper today.

28
00:05:30.620 --> 00:05:45.200
Philip Sellers: but we're reviewing a blog post called introducing Nutanix cloud infrastructure for external storage. Yep, you heard that right external storage. The Hci Company Nutanix is now supporting external storage.

29
00:05:45.270 --> 00:05:48.070
Philip Sellers: and so it's a huge shift

30
00:05:48.632 --> 00:06:02.030
Philip Sellers: it's been in the makings for a year. But now with this we officially have support for dell power, flex and nutanix. And so we're gonna delve in and talk a little bit about that

31
00:06:02.523 --> 00:06:12.706
Philip Sellers: again one of the bigger announcements, and we'll save a little teaser for the next episode towards the end of what we're talking about today. But

32
00:06:13.460 --> 00:06:19.700
Philip Sellers: I guess without further ado. Jaira, I'm gonna turn it over to you. What's generally available.

33
00:06:20.967 --> 00:06:44.439
Jirah Cox: Well, it's cloud infrastructure for external storage. According to the title there and and to your point, Phil, I wanted to underline 1 point you made. And there's there's a huge shout out for Euphoenix engineering, because to your point it's it's not a small feat to announce a major feature like this, and then actually also deliver it in the span of about a year. Right? So I've actually had a front row seat to

34
00:06:44.460 --> 00:06:51.519
Jirah Cox: watching engineering develop this. And it's been a major undertaking congrats to literally everyone involved

35
00:06:51.968 --> 00:07:12.351
Jirah Cox: delivering this, of course, like you said to our customers and to our our friends with the joint solutions at dell as well. So, so with this. Yeah, we now have our 1st supported way to use the Nutanix software stack, but also be able to use external storage. That you might already have laying around right? So

36
00:07:13.084 --> 00:07:36.160
Jirah Cox: traditionally right, most purchases have started off with, you know. Hey? You have the opportunity now, right we would call it an opportunity to purchase. You know your storage and your compute and your software to integrate it all together, all in one big bang, right? Which is obviously very doable. And we've got, you know, thousands of customers have done that already.

37
00:07:36.453 --> 00:07:49.080
Jirah Cox: But now we have a way to say, Hey, look! Just maybe. Buy the software and perhaps use the compute. You have perhaps use the storage you already have, and be able to make a transition there on existing equipment.

38
00:07:50.950 --> 00:08:20.310
Ben Rogers: I would like to add something to this. I'm gonna pay homage to my manager, Tom Powell, when we sit in meetings and we discuss, you know, issues, our customers might be having or support cases. One thing Tom really says to us as a team is, we're a software company. We're not a hardware company. We got to get our, you know, customers to understand that. So there's been a couple of things that have happened in my career at Nutanix that have really showed me that we're driving on that software sense. One is when we went to Nc. 2, and we were able to

39
00:08:20.310 --> 00:08:49.060
Ben Rogers: put cloud clusters in our cloud providers, even though the nodes are bare metal, and they have, you know, an Hci resemblance still showing that we're software this to me, and some of the things that we're coming out with, you know, particularly with attaching the external storage is really where I see the software play come in, and we are starting to move away from hardware dependency and all that. And so again, homage to Tom. And he's always saying we're a software company.

40
00:08:49.060 --> 00:09:01.320
Ben Rogers: This step right here definitely goes into that proving that we are software and that we are not dependent on hardware. And we can be very friendly to different hardware players that are out there.

41
00:09:01.880 --> 00:09:02.540
Philip Sellers: Yeah.

42
00:09:02.770 --> 00:09:17.900
Philip Sellers: Yeah. And and you know, again, you know, to to Jairus Point, this is power flex. This is the 1st and to achieve it in under a year is is a huge feat, absolutely

43
00:09:18.413 --> 00:09:28.899
Philip Sellers: but it's not the last. And so we'll we'll definitely dig into that a little bit more and and talk about where the software abilities

44
00:09:29.150 --> 00:09:35.490
Philip Sellers: really kind of play. But it's not just an engineering thing. Right at the end of the day

45
00:09:35.670 --> 00:09:44.819
Philip Sellers: we, we have an opportunity that is presented primarily because of business and finance. The the possibility

46
00:09:45.040 --> 00:09:54.949
Philip Sellers: that we're responding to with this announcement with customer demand is really generated around financial implications of a competitor. And so.

47
00:09:55.532 --> 00:10:05.229
Philip Sellers: you know, Chris is as I think about this. You know, we've had a lot of customer conversations. External storage comes up a lot. And so I'm curious, like, you know.

48
00:10:05.840 --> 00:10:17.520
Philip Sellers: this being the first, st you know, there's always gonna be. Well, I wish it was X, or I wish it was y but you know, what? What do you think customers

49
00:10:17.760 --> 00:10:30.479
Philip Sellers: are are thinking? I know it's early. We haven't really had a lot of conversations with them yet, but, you know, put back on your customer hat from your days, and and I mean, just kind of think about what? What does this mean to customers?

50
00:10:31.290 --> 00:10:43.169
Chris Calhoun | XenTegra: I think it it makes sense, obviously from a financial perspective, leading with the ability to repurpose and not have to

51
00:10:43.210 --> 00:11:11.949
Chris Calhoun | XenTegra: repurchase or even plan for new hci infrastructure. And that's 1 of the things in the past that folks have looked for is okay. I've got to have all of my in a leasing type fashion, where they lease their gear every 3 years. You've got to have your timing lined up perfectly for those financial purchases in order to say, Okay, I want to repurpose all of these

52
00:11:11.990 --> 00:11:21.579
Chris Calhoun | XenTegra: plain Xc. Or x 86 servers and and move to an Hci model. Well, you don't have to do that as much now, in the sense that

53
00:11:22.103 --> 00:11:44.820
Chris Calhoun | XenTegra: being able to repurpose, and even around mergers and acquisitions. I think that this makes sense, too, from from an organizational standpoint, where you have some technical debt that's still at some of the subsidiaries or things like that, where you may now be able to reuse that

54
00:11:44.850 --> 00:11:54.139
Chris Calhoun | XenTegra: in architecting a better solution for tomorrow, and instead of having to just purchase new for everything, I think it makes sense.

55
00:11:54.660 --> 00:11:55.310
Philip Sellers: Yeah.

56
00:11:55.470 --> 00:12:24.050
Philip Sellers: well, I mean, we. We've certainly had a lot of customers ask about it in the past, and each customer has their own choice of external storage. And so now comes the hard part of prioritizing those storage platforms of what comes next. I I teased it at the top. But as soon as power flex was announced, Nutanix also announced future support for pure, soft pure storage. So we know what comes next.

57
00:12:24.260 --> 00:12:51.955
Philip Sellers: We don't know what comes 3, rd we don't know what comes forth, and so that's an unenviable task for the folks at Nutanix to figure out who to support after but the endorsement for external storage in general, and delivering that is a huge step forward. So let's dig in a little bit. And, Jaira, I've got a technical question for you. How does this actually work? What did Nutanix choose to do?

58
00:12:52.420 --> 00:12:54.269
Philip Sellers: to support power flex.

59
00:12:55.484 --> 00:13:08.950
Jirah Cox: So what's neat here? Actually, and we, the next thing is we get to run. We had to. We got to run a bunch of sessions about this@uhat.next. Now, because now that it's ga we can, we can talk about it. Is

60
00:13:09.210 --> 00:13:19.699
Jirah Cox: like we've always told customers right? Because the the question of external stories come up. For, as you can imagine, years and years with nutanix and and the customers we meet with.

61
00:13:20.165 --> 00:13:39.919
Jirah Cox: And as we get, you know, compared to alternative Hypervisors, you know, the answer has been simply, HP doesn't support external storage. Right? What's neat is that that has not fundamentally changed with this release. We've not taught HP. Any new tricks, right? The data path for a Vm

62
00:13:40.440 --> 00:13:47.169
Jirah Cox: on Hv. Remains unchanged, it still targets a Cvm. What's different now is the Cvm. Now, instead of running local disks.

63
00:13:47.400 --> 00:13:57.713
Jirah Cox: can now look externally right and find today a dell power flex cluster and send that block. I/O off to external block. I/O storage

64
00:13:58.390 --> 00:14:12.660
Jirah Cox: So today we get there via the dell connector to do that to pick powerflex the best way. It's called the the Sdc. Their software Connector, right talking to the Sds on their side the software storage stack.

65
00:14:12.660 --> 00:14:33.960
Jirah Cox: So yeah, by embedding that that Dell Stc connector into the Cvm. We've now taught it. You know how to find a different storage target there and be able to send vm, I/O there. So vms. Don't notice right? It's still managing any which we look and feel of. It is unchanged all of the standard like Nci and utx cloud infrastructure operations around.

66
00:14:34.290 --> 00:14:52.390
Jirah Cox: Ha vm, provisioning front operations, you know, building virtual servers out managing them live migrating. Nothing changes right. It's all still just ahvvms talking to Cvms on every note of the cluster to get their job done.

67
00:14:53.040 --> 00:15:12.470
Philip Sellers: You know, the 1st time I heard that I I thought, Wow, that's smart. Because I think, like most technologists, you know, we we took what we knew in the past and thought, Okay, well, we're gonna make HD and Iscsi compatible, you know, operating system. And it's gonna be able to talk Iscsi, and

68
00:15:12.700 --> 00:15:15.613
Philip Sellers: that's the world we know. And instead,

69
00:15:16.140 --> 00:15:24.720
Philip Sellers: this is a really smart rethink utilizing the Cvm preserves a lot of capabilities for

70
00:15:26.020 --> 00:15:53.907
Philip Sellers: value above the hypervisor. So one of the things that that we're seeing is support for other nutanix products, because the Cvm is intact. And so you know that, I think, is the really intelligent part of this. And so for customers listening, you're not gonna have to relearn anything. Cvm, still there? You know just just some of the storage functions are changing under the covers, but

71
00:15:54.390 --> 00:15:57.569
Ben Rogers: Oh, good old Stargate, still in place.

72
00:15:57.570 --> 00:16:00.270
Jirah Cox: I think I think Jerry made a fantastic call with that decision.

73
00:16:00.630 --> 00:16:23.970
Ben Rogers: And I think that's really smart of our engineering and development staff to go. We don't need to re-engineer the whole stack. Let's re-engineer what's talking to the storage, which is the Cvm. And to me it makes the product very modular, not only from a purchasing or running position, but just from a maintenance and engineering position, we're able to go on our goodness and go. Hey.

74
00:16:23.970 --> 00:16:43.660
Ben Rogers: what pieces of this do we need to play with to make it work with other environments. So I was really thrilled when we were sitting in meetings and they were going, hey, we're going to start doing this, that they basically said everything you know, everything you're used to talking about and messaging won't change. The only thing that'll change is where the Cvm. What it's talking to.

75
00:16:43.660 --> 00:16:44.280
Philip Sellers: Yeah.

76
00:16:44.410 --> 00:16:47.500
Ben Rogers: Instead of disk. Now we're talking to a connector.

77
00:16:47.770 --> 00:16:58.079
Philip Sellers: Yeah. And and realistically, it opens a a lot more possibilities. Right now that you're talking to external storage, the requirements of the individual server nodes, changes

78
00:16:58.676 --> 00:17:10.330
Philip Sellers: support, for server nodes can change in the future. And and again, this is a 1 release. So you know, functionality. Compatibility is pretty narrow

79
00:17:10.520 --> 00:17:16.599
Philip Sellers: that will change over time as the product continues, releases and future support.

80
00:17:16.670 --> 00:17:41.540
Philip Sellers: Now, one of the things that did also come out here, and Chris and I were digging into this a little bit last week, but there's a new packaging as well. So we're calling it Nutanix cloud infrastructure, nci, compute. And so this is a completely new package, you know we we've had Nci starter pro and ultimate, for you know traditional Hci stacks for a long time.

81
00:17:41.710 --> 00:17:57.219
Philip Sellers: But the way you're coming to market with this external storage support required a new set of skews, and so we've got nci compute. Driver. Can you tell us a little bit more about that and and what does that mean? From a

82
00:17:57.470 --> 00:18:00.160
Philip Sellers: purchasing or procurement standpoint?

83
00:18:01.830 --> 00:18:15.700
Jirah Cox: Honestly, it's still pretty simple. It's it's still just Nci, it's just the one that is designed, that when you it's really a foundation time choice. So when you're provisioning your bare metal servers right to build nutanix clusters.

84
00:18:16.171 --> 00:18:33.319
Jirah Cox: There's a checkbox in there where you can tell the cluster this is going to be an external storage cluster, and that's about it. The rest of the foundation process looks the same cluster creation looks the same. And then, once you're running your cluster, you tell it where to go, find the power flex

85
00:18:33.779 --> 00:18:47.700
Jirah Cox: manager and make a connection over there. And then you're basically done. So it's actually like 99.9 9% the same as traditional Nci, just with a very, very major change under the hood. Yeah.

86
00:18:48.130 --> 00:18:59.329
Philip Sellers: Now there are still additions. Right? So there's a starter edition and a pro, and an ultimate edition of Nci. C. Or Nci. Compute. Is that right? Or do I have that wrong?

87
00:18:59.690 --> 00:19:00.320
Jirah Cox: I,

88
00:19:00.520 --> 00:19:28.730
Jirah Cox: you're a little ahead of me, actually looked at the at the quoting system. Yet that does sound correct, right? That you know, because all the goodness of Nci still applies right? So the reasons why you want to look at using things like flow network security right for micro segmentation, using flow Vpcs for Sdn routing and overlays all that still applies here. Right? This is still the same nci stack. So yes, absolutely the value of things like pro. Things like ultimate, all still applies.

89
00:19:30.150 --> 00:19:43.110
Philip Sellers: So then the next question for me then becomes, okay. We've preserved everything. We still have the additions we're somewhat familiar with with their capabilities. We have, you know, preserved the Cvm. So

90
00:19:43.330 --> 00:19:50.063
Philip Sellers: I I don't know. Dell power flex. So what do I need to know about that? And and what's compatible.

91
00:19:51.271 --> 00:19:54.700
Philip Sellers: let's do. Power flex 1 0, 1 real quick.

92
00:19:56.919 --> 00:20:24.060
Jirah Cox: That's a great question. I didn't bring the powerflex one on one collateral with me here. Powerflex is a software defined storage solution, right in the Dell family back in the day, right? The scale. I/O technology where so it's gonna run on traditional, you know kind of X basic servers that are branded as power flex nodes. Run the power flex software, of course, that creates an aggregate. You know, storage cluster

93
00:20:24.720 --> 00:20:46.059
Jirah Cox: that we can then use. I mean, the nice thing is, if this, if this solution is interesting to you and the solutions for you, you probably already own the power flex that you need to do it right? So you know, I don't think this needs to be a the the tech marketing deep dive on. What is power flex? Because if you're interested in this, you probably already already have one in your nearest data center.

94
00:20:46.480 --> 00:20:53.969
Philip Sellers: Yeah. But there are 2 different types of nodes. Right? So there's storage nodes. And then there's you know, the

95
00:20:54.470 --> 00:21:03.419
Philip Sellers: compute only notes, and so, from a certification standpoint, we do have the compute nodes that can be used with

96
00:21:03.680 --> 00:21:19.729
Philip Sellers: nutanix HP, with aos those will be compatible with other servers, maybe coming in the future. But we do have the support for using those. What what was it? Power? Flex compute nodes, I think is the official. Yeah.

97
00:21:19.980 --> 00:21:42.620
Philip Sellers: So that that's super helpful, right? And you know again, to one of the core things you were talking about. Chris, you get that reuse? I think customers have been really looking for so existing power flex today would be basically we would be replacing vmware as the hypervisor on those compute nodes to then connect it to the

98
00:21:42.940 --> 00:21:47.304
Philip Sellers: power flex storage which is really,

99
00:21:48.450 --> 00:21:55.649
Philip Sellers: I think, the core of what a lot of customers are looking for. They're looking for that drop in replacement for vmware.

100
00:21:55.850 --> 00:22:01.699
Philip Sellers: So you know, Ben is as you're talking with folks, I mean, how often is that

101
00:22:01.910 --> 00:22:06.360
Philip Sellers: their end goal, I guess. What what are customers saying to you?

102
00:22:06.360 --> 00:22:27.890
Ben Rogers: Oh, yeah, I mean the the few customers that I am talking to this about. What they ideally want to do is do all this within power flex. They want to have their vmware environment. They want to stand up an H an Hv environment, and they actually want to be able to migrate within their power flex systems. So they see doing an in place migration

103
00:22:27.960 --> 00:22:48.440
Ben Rogers: on the powerflex system, but not having to do it, like, you know, you've got to take your cluster that's running Esx and turn it into an ahv cluster. They'll have their Esx clusters, and they'll build ahv clusters in their powerflex environment, and they'll do the migration within the powerflex which sometimes keep me honest here.

104
00:22:48.440 --> 00:23:02.479
Ben Rogers: gyrus. Sometimes it's just repointing. It's not like really having the refactor any of the zeros and ones. This is going. Now you're here. Now you're being pointed over there. So yeah, customers are looking at the flexibility of this. And I think one of the things

105
00:23:02.480 --> 00:23:19.169
Ben Rogers: that kind of needs to be asked is, you know, how did we get here? What kind of brought our hand to the point of looking at this type of technology and expanding our capabilities. And a lot of is driven by customer response. Man customers own these units. They're using these units and

106
00:23:19.220 --> 00:23:39.339
Ben Rogers: high demand areas. And they're looking for alternative solutions to run on these environments. And so I think that's 1 of the reasons that we looked at doing this with Dell first.st Is that a lot of our customers are saying we would love to have the Hv. Nutanix, nci ncm. Experience

107
00:23:39.340 --> 00:23:52.390
Ben Rogers: on this powerful engine. And so I think that's what brought us to the plate, you know, is customer demand. I think the other question that would be interesting to ask. And, Jaira, this is going to fall back on you. I apologize for that is.

108
00:23:52.500 --> 00:24:16.819
Ben Rogers: you know. You ask, I'm a powerflex user. What's you know, or what do I need to know about powerflex? Jaira? Tell us a little bit about the lifecycle management, because I have been in some presentations where, you know, lifecycle management will change with this type of scenario. But I didn't catch all the details during that. Could you talk to us a little bit about that.

109
00:24:17.460 --> 00:24:30.538
Jirah Cox: So you could say that life lifecycle management changes. It's actually probably more accurate to say, life cycle management doesn't change in a in an unintuitive way, because the whole solution right is built for customers that

110
00:24:31.260 --> 00:24:57.200
Jirah Cox: that are looking to, you know, maintain their existing separate management of storage, and then the compute stack right? And so so if you're, you know already administering a dell powerflex environment, it doesn't change that right updates to the powerflex side of the solution are still performed by powerflex administration and the management. So what's cool there, it's really almost, for it's like a common joke that I use around

111
00:24:57.558 --> 00:25:05.630
Jirah Cox: with Nutanix. Right? You you get the opportunity to hyper. Converge your org chart as well. Right. The server guys and the compute guys and the virtualization guys.

112
00:25:05.780 --> 00:25:32.840
Jirah Cox: With this, you know new solution, right? We now have an opportunity where you are not required to do that right. You are not required to hyper. Converge your storage teams into the broader administration set. So the parts of it that we build right, the the ahv, the aos, the nci prism central. All that. Nothing changes right we are. Lcm engine still covers all of that. The parts that you're already used to patching with power flex and their administration councils also doesn't change for you. They still manage all of that.

113
00:25:33.800 --> 00:25:38.180
Philip Sellers: And I think that's an interesting point, too. We we were having some discussions last week.

114
00:25:38.788 --> 00:25:40.540
Philip Sellers: This isn't 3 tier.

115
00:25:40.960 --> 00:25:45.411
Philip Sellers: Yeah, that may shock people when when they hear that the 1st time. But

116
00:25:45.920 --> 00:25:50.709
Philip Sellers: You know, everyone that I talked with is saying, this is more of a 2 tier solution

117
00:25:51.195 --> 00:26:03.060
Philip Sellers: than 3 tier, because of the point that you're making there, jayra, that everything's still automated. It's still busting silos. It's still bringing teams together, just like original Nutanix. Hci!

118
00:26:03.598 --> 00:26:29.350
Philip Sellers: The goal is to continue with simplified operations. That's turnkey and helping customers succeed without a dedicated fiber channel. Network. You know that that a lot of customers traditionally have with their 3 tier architecture. So I I think that that is a a huge advantage for customers, too, because you're learning curves

119
00:26:29.510 --> 00:26:31.249
Philip Sellers: gonna continue to be low.

120
00:26:31.840 --> 00:26:40.660
Jirah Cox: Sure. Yeah, we're we're requiring you know, less procedural change, right? Less. You know, Hci can be a wonderful disruption

121
00:26:41.136 --> 00:26:47.140
Jirah Cox: it can be fantastic, right from an efficiency and new processes and thinking, acting like a cloud provider standpoint.

122
00:26:47.300 --> 00:26:59.320
Jirah Cox: Not everyone is looking to go on that journey as quickly as possible. Right? So it's wonderful to be able to kind of build a bigger tent and invite more people to be in the genex family, you know, wherever they are.

123
00:27:00.710 --> 00:27:01.776
Philip Sellers: Yeah, I

124
00:27:03.620 --> 00:27:18.340
Philip Sellers: I think this is a a great springing point, right? As as we've talked about before you know. Ga, of this came out the next platforms already announced being pure storage.

125
00:27:18.470 --> 00:27:44.169
Philip Sellers: you know. Again, the Cvm continues to play that role. We can kind of see a strategy that Nutanix is gonna undertake. And and I agree with Ben. It's a very intuitive approach. To maintain the Cdm because the rest of your value proposition stays intact. You've got all of the other higher level features that continue to work because the Cvm's there.

126
00:27:44.810 --> 00:27:48.969
Philip Sellers: Yeah, this is cool. You know, we're we're starting to get to see

127
00:27:49.080 --> 00:27:55.475
Philip Sellers: things under the covers for the 1st time, as external storage comes into play and

128
00:27:56.520 --> 00:28:00.029
Philip Sellers: Customer choice is still at the forefront. I think that's the

129
00:28:00.420 --> 00:28:04.370
Philip Sellers: the underlying thing. We we talk a lot about choice

130
00:28:04.879 --> 00:28:13.969
Philip Sellers: here on this podcast because seems like it's at every level. And this is just another avenue for customer choice. At the end of the day.

131
00:28:15.990 --> 00:28:30.785
Jirah Cox: Yeah, it's it. That's 1 of the one of the most encouraging parts to me, for sure is just that it's been great to watch the customer demand for this right? The the frequent customer asks of, Oh, I just wish you guys could X or Y or Z. It would make it would make

132
00:28:31.506 --> 00:28:38.850
Jirah Cox: our evaluation a lot different, you know, and then for engineering to deliver. That is a really cool cycle to be a part of.

133
00:28:40.530 --> 00:28:53.379
Chris Calhoun | XenTegra: And I think to the point that you're making, Jaira. And you said it earlier is, Hey, 99.9% being the same. Nutanix has always prided itself on taking difficult technical

134
00:28:53.610 --> 00:29:21.410
Chris Calhoun | XenTegra: solutions and making it simple to the customer. And that's really back to customer choice customer demand. And that's what we're seeing here. It's hey we? We had an avenue where customers need to utilize some of that existing infrastructure. And how can we continue? And to me you you congratulated the engineering team because they and Ben you mentioned it, too. The path forward

135
00:29:21.410 --> 00:29:31.180
Chris Calhoun | XenTegra: seems to be very, very foundational, laid out and intelligently

136
00:29:31.320 --> 00:29:41.710
Chris Calhoun | XenTegra: derived, architected so that you could then back in additional storage types. That's kind of what Philip was talking about, of, hey? This being version 1.0.

137
00:29:41.710 --> 00:30:05.730
Chris Calhoun | XenTegra: But this leads itself into questions about okay, what's the next next external storage? Well, we know it's pure. What's the next? After that? So basically, you'll have those opportunities to utilize your existing infrastructure. And again, it's it's making difficult technical architecture seem simple to the customer. With that customer choice.

138
00:30:07.260 --> 00:30:34.290
Ben Rogers: Now, that being said, we've got to give huge kudos to the engineering staff of Nutanix and the engineering staff of Dell coming together, figuring out how to make this work. It's very simple to sit here and talk about it in a podcast among us, it's more difficult. When you got to get into the lab and whiteboard this out and test, and then, you know, see what the results of our tests. So to both companies Nutanix and Dell.

139
00:30:34.290 --> 00:30:37.659
Ben Rogers: Good job on the engineering side, bringing this to the table.

140
00:30:38.550 --> 00:30:41.349
Philip Sellers: Yeah, absolutely. You know, current

141
00:30:41.460 --> 00:31:06.709
Philip Sellers: compatibility is power flex. You'll be able to buy Ncp on power flex. You can also buy Ncp on dell xc plus. So that's been the you know, nutanix node type for a long time running. Hci. So 2 different types of hardware you can get from Dell, and then I do want to return back to the packaging for just a minute, because, you know, I was.

142
00:31:06.790 --> 00:31:25.770
Philip Sellers: I was thinking about this after attending some sessions, but you know broadcom's made lots of changes right. And now customers can't get what they were really looking for, which is a hypervisor solution. And for Nutanix the new Nc.

143
00:31:26.050 --> 00:31:28.980
Philip Sellers: I compute version starter.

144
00:31:29.350 --> 00:31:38.669
Philip Sellers: It's about as close to enterprise plus as anything on the market. And so this really gives a compelling alternative

145
00:31:39.020 --> 00:31:46.820
Philip Sellers: moving forward for broadcom customers. You're looking for something to replace enterprise plus, and you don't necessarily need

146
00:31:47.010 --> 00:31:53.439
Philip Sellers: all of those other things. This is this is a play. And so, just like Nutanix address the need

147
00:31:53.670 --> 00:32:14.479
Philip Sellers: with Nci. Edge Nci computes coming along to address another need in the marketplace. So I don't want that to fall off the radar, either, because I think there's a lot of value for customers in the small to medium sector who may not be looking at

148
00:32:15.281 --> 00:32:23.909
Philip Sellers: everything. But again, Nutanix also offers all these other services on top that could be valuable files, for instance.

149
00:32:24.710 --> 00:32:25.370
Philip Sellers: So

150
00:32:25.480 --> 00:32:39.459
Philip Sellers: you know, it's it's a a great entry point again, for you know users with external storage again today, Power Flex. So I know it's pointed further up the stack. But as time wears on.

151
00:32:39.660 --> 00:32:48.130
Philip Sellers: we're looking at a potential game changer in in the competition and alternatives for vmware. So

152
00:32:48.330 --> 00:32:57.259
Philip Sellers: that, I think, is is something to look forward to and version 2 version 3 of external storage support. You know.

153
00:32:57.570 --> 00:33:17.329
Philip Sellers: with with that, said there's a lot of technical details that I know we need to get into the weeds with that all of us are still learning, you know, in in light of this being a newer announcement. But you know, if this is something that sounds good to you from a power flex customer perspective, we'd love to go deeper.

154
00:33:17.930 --> 00:33:28.349
Philip Sellers: definitely reach out our teams are collectively ready to talk about it and ready to dive deeper into what this could mean in your environment.

155
00:33:30.150 --> 00:33:32.759
Philip Sellers: On behalf of of everybody

156
00:33:32.970 --> 00:33:56.240
Philip Sellers: on the Podcast, Jaira, Chris and Ben. I want to say, thanks for spending a little time with us this afternoon. It's been fun going to dutanics. Next, getting to bring back the news. This is one of many topics. We're going to start unpacking, I think. Jaira sent us a link with the top 10 announcements, and that's not exhaustive. There was so much news last week. So

157
00:33:56.500 --> 00:33:57.910
Philip Sellers: we're gonna be

158
00:33:58.150 --> 00:34:05.649
Philip Sellers: slowly getting this out week after week and talking about all the exciting things that are on the horizon.

159
00:34:06.900 --> 00:34:13.849
Philip Sellers: So on behalf of everyone. Thanks for listening. We will catch you in the next episode, but have a great day in the meantime.