Cisco is discontinuing the Hyperflex platform for multi-cloud applications. The company now has Nutanix-provided hyperconvergence software on its servers.

On September 12, Cisco announced the end of the Hyperflex Data platform, or Hyperflex for short. Orders can be placed until May 2024 and Cisco promises to support customers until their subscription expires. However, customers who attempt to force a refund of their license will be banned, Cisco’s FAQ says.

Cisco doesn’t give a reason for discontinuing Hyperflex, but perhaps we don’t need to look too far: the platform simply didn’t sell well enough. The best estimate of Cisco’s market share in the hyperconvergence market may be IDC’s numbers shared with VMware. The virtualization specialist announced this and can boast a market share of 41 percent.

The other big player in the hyperconvergence market is Nutanix with a 25 percent share. Although HPE can call itself number three, it is well behind at seven percent. Cisco is relegated to the “Other” category, meaning the individual percentage isn’t even worth mentioning for IDC.

Nutanix is ​​taking over

Under the motto “If you can’t beat them, join them,” Cisco announced a collaboration with Nutanix at the end of August. Nutanix’s hyperconvergence software will run on Cisco’s UCS servers in the joint offering. Hyperconvergence is the merging of cloud components from different providers in a (hybrid) multi-cloud structure.

Cisco therefore remains present on the market, but in more of a supporting role. The company’s own software has to give way to Nutanix’s. In a 55-page technical white paper, Cisco explains step-by-step how customers can begin migrating their Hyperflex workloads to this common platform, and the FAQ list also answers questions about the migration process. Licenses cannot be exchanged for credits to purchase Nutanix services.