Since we launched Acropolis File Services (AFS) less than two years ago, we have been pleased with the speed of end user adoption. We now have close to one thousand customers with petabytes of data under management. Many of these customers have deployed AFS as a standalone NAS cluster, replacing a legacy NAS solution. These customers have helped us realize that the substantial engineering investment we have made over the past four years has resulted in a solution that can effectively compete in the NAS market.
As a result, on November 15th of last year, we launched Nutanix Files and Files Pro. Files is for customers who want to add NAS capabilities to their existing AOS cluster. Files Pro is for customers who want to deploy our solution as a dedicated NAS cluster.
Capacity based licensing
Both Nutanix Files and Nutanix Files Pro are introducing the new “used capacity” based licensing. “Used capacity” refers to the capacity under management and is the meter for the licensing metric. As an example, if a customer has 250 TB of File data in a dedicated NAS cluster, then they purchase a 250 TB Nutanix Files Pro license. Even if the cluster has more physical capacity, the customer only needs to purchase a software license for the capacity they need today.The benefits of our capacity-based licensing structure
There are a number of benefits for this method of licensing. A primary benefit is that it enables customers to use a pay-as-you-grow model in order to eliminate the expenses associated with having to pre-buy capacity that may be unused for months or even years. Another related benefit is simplifying long term planning. Many of our customers are experiencing explosive growth in their unstructured data and forecasting that growth with any level of accuracy is a challenge.Combining the capacity-based licensing with the unique scale up-scale out architecture of Nutanix Files and Nutanix Files Pro means customers can easily and flexibly scale their environment over time to match their needs. They no longer have to guess and then find they either paid too much or, worse, find themselves having to scramble in order to support their data growth requirements.
Nutanix Files free capacity for AOS customers
This new licensing model will undoubtedly interest many Nutanix customers who have not yet adopted Nutanix Files or Nutanix Files Pro in their environment. Right now we offer 1 free TB of Nutanix Files capacity as part of every Nutanix AOS cluster. This capacity will give existing AOS customers an opportunity to test Nutanix Files in their environment and see the benefits of this simple, flexible and intelligent file storage solution first hand.Nutanix Files and Nutanix Files Pro benefits
The used capacity-based licensing is just one of many new features coming from Nutanix Files and Nutanix Files Pro. In our March release, we will be introducing new file analytics capabilities which will give unparalleled insights into how end users are accessing data and provide visibility into potential threats. We will also be releasing new NFSv3 and multi-protocol capabilities which provide flexibility to customer’s mixed architecture environments.You can learn about all of these great advancements in file storage at http://nutanix.com/files
2019 Nutanix, Inc. All rights reserved. Nutanix, the Nutanix logo and the other Nutanix products and features mentioned herein are registered trademarks or trademarks of Nutanix, Inc. in the United States and other countries. All other brand names mentioned herein are for identification purposes only and may be the trademarks of their respective holder(s).Photo by William Iven on Unsplash