How do you create order in the hybrid (multi)cloud? Nutanix is ​​happy to answer this question for companies. The company invited the press and sympathizers to Paris to explain its vision.

The second floor of the Palais de Congrès is dressed in purple for the arrival of Nutanix. The company has rebranded this year and is excited to showcase this as part of their event. Purple neon lights color the stage and all speakers wear eye-catching purple Veja sneakers. Unfortunately, our reporter present did not adhere to the dress code and is wearing normal gray shoes, but as a supporter of the City team he appreciates Nutanix’s style.

The honor goes to CEO Rajiv Ramaswami, who also wears purple shoes and opens the debates. “I have been traveling around Europe over the last few months to shape our vision for the future. More applications will be created in the next two years than in the last forty years. Every company becomes a software company.”

It is no coincidence that Ramaswami is personally present at Nutanix events in Europe. In contrast to many American IT companies, Nutanix does not want to dismiss Europe as a secondary market. “Europe is one of our fastest growing markets. For this reason, we have decided to hold our .NEXT conference next year in Europe instead of the USA. The public sector remains our top segment, but we see that private companies face the same problems.” We are already expecting an invitation.

Chaos in the multicloud

Anyone who has read our previous interviews with Nutanix knows that the company has a big mission: to create order in the multicloud. A new look doesn’t change this mission. Nutanix has a very different vision than the hyperscalers in the public cloud. While they would love nothing more than to put everything in one cloud and throw all your servers in the trash, Nutanix preaches a hybrid approach where on-prem servers still have utility.

Managing a hybrid cloud is also not without its challenges. Ramaswami outlines the problem that will sound recognizable to many business leaders today. “Data is everywhere. Each cloud has its own tools, while companies often only have one IT team. The challenge is getting these different platforms to communicate with each other and manage costs. More than nine out of ten companies say they prefer one-click software where everything can be controlled from one platform.”

Isn’t it actually easier to place everything with a public cloud provider? The answer to this question belongs to Paulo Pereira (VP System Technology) just no. “Companies used to think the public cloud was the solution. But applications were constantly being moved, which is a complex matter. From an economic perspective it doesn’t make sense either. We are seeing companies taking the opposite approach again. The best solution depends on where data and workloads are most useful.”

One for all

Enter Nutanix. The company has transformed from a pure hardware provider to a SaaS specialist. This transition has taken some time, but Nutanix is ​​now ready to fully participate in the cloud debates. Infrastructure remains an important part of the offering, but what sets Nutanix apart is its underlying software.

Nutanix sits between your on-premises infrastructure and the public cloud you subscribe to, Pereira explains. “The platform as a whole is the glue in the hybrid cloud. You take a workload from the on-premises environment and run it wherever you want, just as you would run it in the cloud. We see that companies are keen to leverage the cloud experience and we are bringing that experience to on-prem. Nutanix is ​​not a hyperscaler: working with companies has taught us to understand their needs and try to solve them.”

By placing a unified software layer over all your applications, companies can combine the best of both worlds. Perreira: “Hybrid cloud is a choice: you decide where you run each workload. Even if you run a workload in the cloud, it remains available on your own hardware. To be absolutely sure that your data is safe, it is often better to stay on site.”

AI in a box

Nutanix is ​​now extending this philosophy to a trend that every self-respecting IT company is working on today: AI. Nutanix recently announced “GPT-in-a-Box,” a new offering that will unlock AI models from the public cloud. Using generative AI should not require a cloud subscription for a hyperscaler, believes Ramaswami.

“Many companies are in the experimental phase with AI, they are ‘playing’ with it. AI requires robust infrastructure and there is already a shortage of GPUs. It may be easier to build a model in the public cloud, but implementation is much more cost-effective in a hybrid cloud. With GPT-in-a-box, we offer a cloud platform with unified storage for data and an open source MLOps stack to simplify workloads,” explains the CEO.

The hunger for data from AI models is causing a lot of headaches for companies. But Nutanix can be helpful here too, says Pereira. “Companies recognize the potential of generative AI and want to achieve the same results. But they are wondering whether they want to move their data to the cloud. Your internal data becomes publicly available. But models themselves are worthless without data. GPT-in-a-box uses open source models and trains them with private data. Users remain in control of their data as it remains within the organization.”

Companies see the potential of generative AI and want to achieve the same results. But models are worthless without their data.

Paulo Pereira, VP System Engineering Nutanix EMEA

Help from an unexpected source

Nutanix is ​​rapidly expanding its ecosystem. It partnered with Cisco and also acquired Hyperflex from the co-party. Cisco is also allowed on stage during the sessions. “For us, this is an ideal collaboration as there is no overlap in the technology we both offer. Our software is the best complement to Cisco hardware,” says Pereira, who has many years of experience with the network specialist.

A helping hand could also come from an unexpected source. In a previous life, Ramaswami led VMware’s cloud business as COO, and the transition to Nutanix was not smooth. He continues to keep an eye on what is happening at his previous employer and sees interesting opportunities for his new employer.

“Broadcom’s acquisition of VMware could be beneficial for Nutanix. Many customers are considering switching to another provider. This won’t happen in one day, customers are at different stages on this spectrum. In addition to customers, employees also go. There is a lot of talent to be attracted,” said Ramaswami.

When we spoke to Ramaswami, the VMware acquisition had not yet been fully completed. Barely a few hours later, white smoke finally followed. Ramaswami will undoubtedly have seen (and probably welcomed) this news.

In the lion’s den

The next big step for Nutanix is Project Beacon, announced in May. With this initiative, Nutanix is ​​moving further into the domain of public cloud providers. But that doesn’t mean that Nutanix sees itself as a direct competitor: Microsoft is also represented at the event.

The idea is that not only should you be able to manage and run applications on a cloud platform of your choice, but you should also be able to build cloud native applications on the Nutanix platform without having to get involved in a provider’s network. Where an application lives and functions should make no difference, although Ramaswami and Pereira recognize that it will take a long time to realize this. Project Beacon was intended to be the chronicle of Nutanix’s long-term vision.

The cloud industry is changing and companies are facing difficult decisions. Vendor lock-in is not desirable, but a hybrid (multi-)cloud, where data is distributed as loose blocks across different ecosystems, is at least as unattractive. Nutanix wants to be the glue that brings the fragments back together into a unified whole.