As more organizations turn to a hybrid cloud and multicloud model to serve a diverse user base, Nutanix has taken a lead in providing a platform to serve any workload, anywhere. Data is a core component to this platform and providing flexible storage to enable data anywhere is the mission of Nutanix consolidated storage solutions. In recent weeks we’ve been excited to announce new capabilities that deliver on the promise of data anywhere to support workloads where users need them.

Nearly limitless scale

A critical component to a multicloud solution is the ability for a platform to scale to the size required by a workload and cloud location. Sometimes the location is at the edge and the needs are small and other times the workload spans the core datacenter and public cloud, with massive capacity and performance requirements.

Nutanix consolidated storage solutions continue to push the boundaries of storage capacity with extremely dense nodes. We now offer 350 TB capacity nodes for both Nutanix Files and Nutanix Objects. These nodes can be configured with 320 TB of HDD and 30 TB of SDD, providing a mix of performance and capacity that allows you to fine tune your storage to your needs. 350 TB nodes are available on the HPE DX platform and are available to be configured and ordered immediately.

The nodes allow Nutanix customers to deploy 10 PB of raw capacity in a single 32-node cluster. And when combined with Nutanix Objects multi-cluster support (announced with Objects 2.2, and which allows an object storage namespace to span multiple clusters) customers can combine multiple clusters to meet very large scale requirements in a single name space.

Scale for capacity is only one aspect of the multicloud need; scale for performance is similarly important. Our latest release of Nutanix Files enables variable block size for file storage. With this new capability made available with Files version 3.7, block sizing is made more efficient, with block sizes as small as 1KB and sized based on the file size. Maximum block size of 64 KB can be used to support more sequential I/O workloads, which would benefit them. Testing has shown sequential workload performance improvements up to 25 percent, and random workload benefit up to 45 percent. For details on the performance benefits see the release notes here.

Finally, scale includes supporting data wherever it lives. Nutanix can deploy at remote and branch offices on a single node where smaller scale is required and resiliency is less critical. This makes our storage solutions ideal for very small to very large scale deployments. This also allows you to standardize on a single platform for all of your data and applications.

Managing those remote offices has become even easier with central management via Prism Central, the single pane of glass that now supports Nutanix Files. Prism provides administrators one management view for unstructured data and infrastructure in the core, at the edge, and out to their multicloud environments.

Diverse platform support

A key factor in the multicloud architecture is support for a broad set of platforms and technology.  Our consolidated storage solutions have expanded our coverage to offer storage services in the cloud as well as on-prem and at the edge. We’ve also expanded our ecosystem to support a greater set of technologies that underpin many of our customers’ critical workloads.

In August, Nutanix announced the availability of Nutanix Clusters on AWS. This important development also provides a way for customers to run file storage in AWS, as Nutanix Clusters supports Nutanix Files. Customers who are looking to extend their single, simple architecture with Nutanix Files on AOS can now do so by deploying on Nutanix Clusters. They will benefit from the simplicity of a single point of management with Nutanix Prism Central, which can now be used to manage their Nutanix Files deployments. And they can do this without complex licensing, as licenses are portable between on-prem and Nutanix Clusters.

Nutanix Objects 3.1 enables tiering of object data to S3-compatible object stores, including Amazon AWS S3. This provides flexibility for customers looking to leverage cloud storage as part of their data life cycle management for availability and economic benefits. And even when data is tiered from your object storage, object data is stubbed, leaving access pathways intact; Objects also maintains meta-data locally, providing search and visibility into the data even when put into the cloud for archive.

Nutanix also optimizes tiering in Objects to minimize the number of PUT requests to the AWS S3 target; this directly lowers AWS S3 cost, and maximizes write performance over WAN. As an example, with an average object size of 100 KB, Objects tiering would provide a 50:1 efficiency in terms of number of PUT requests.

Data availability has always been a critical task for administrators. Recent enhancements in our consolidated storage solutions provide superior availability and easier management across clouds. Both Nutanix Files and Objects now offer streaming replication capabilities. Replication of object and file data can achieve RPOs (recovery point objectives) in a matter of seconds, depending on the object size. These lower RPOs will enable critical workloads that rely on always-available data to recover from disaster with minimal interruption of productivity.

Expanding ecosystem

As our consolidated storage solution continues to expand, we also expand our ecosystem of supported applications and environments. With the most recent releases we have enabled the following:

• VMware ESXi - Nutanix Objects is now supported as a deployable service on top of ESXi. This makes Objects one of the first object storage solutions available on the ESXi platform and gives administrators new ways to provide next-generation storage to their customers.
• Change Healthcare PACS - Nutanix Files is validated as a PACS/VNA data storage solution by Change, the world’s largest healthcare software provider, for Change’s Healthcare Enterprise Imaging Portfolio.
• IBM Watson Health PACS - Nutanix Files is validated for short term and long term archive data stores for Merge PACS, Merge Cardio, Merge Hemo, and IBM Watson iConnect Enterprise Archive.
• IBM SpectrumProtect - Nutanix Objects is validated as a storage target for backup with IBM SpectrumProtect.
• Milestone Surveillance - Nutanix Files is validated with Milestone XProtect to provide an intelligent and powerful solution capable of recording, monitoring, and retaining thousands of camera feeds simultaneously.

Test Drive

We have always made our storage solutions easy to try. Nutanix customers are entitled to a free TB of Files and two free TB of Objects so that they can deploy these solutions in their own environments for test and use. But not everyone has ready access to a cluster for testing new storage solutions, and the effort to bring POCs online and deploy test equipment before making a purchase can be prohibitive. Fortunately, Nutanix now offers Test Drive so that you can try Nutanix Files or Objects in a matter of minutes.  For details, go to https://www.nutanix.com/one-platform.

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