Nutanix Expands Cloud Platform and Forms Partnership with NetApp for AI
Nutanix Expands Cloud Platform and Forms Partnership with NetApp for AI
Nutanix has chosen the annual conference .NEXT 2026, taking place in Chicago from April 7 to 9, which Edge9 is following closely, to present a comprehensive update of the Nutanix Cloud Platform (NCP) touching on storage, data services, operational management and, above all, the ecosystem of infrastructure partners. The core message is clear: in a market where the hardware supply chain remains under pressure and many companies are rethinking their virtualization choices, Nutanix aims to position itself as a flexible platform for converging virtual machines, containers, and AI workloads, regardless of the underlying hardware.
We will sift through the many announcements made by Nutanix during the event, which become like the pieces of a puzzle that need to be reassembled to understand the overall vision. In this news, we talk about hybrid cloud, and two more news pieces will follow: one dedicated to virtualization, specifically with tools for migrating from VMware, and the other focused on agentic AI, with a focus on new cloud providers specialized in GPUs.
Storage, Management, and Data Sovereignty
The most significant news on the data services front concerns storage and data management in the context of AI and sovereignty. Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) 5.3, available immediately, expands automatic data migration capabilities to Google Cloud and the S3-compatible object storage of OVHcloud, and introduces multitenant scalability for object stores. The declared goal is to transform object storage from a simple storage tier to a cornerstone for infrastructure dedicated to AI, and in the 2026 roadmap, RDMA acceleration appears, designed for large training datasets.
Data Lens 2.0, also available now, brings anti-ransomware analytics and data governance capabilities to fully on-premise environments, including air-gapped installations: a response to the needs of those who cannot rely on SaaS services for storage security.
Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) 2.0 completes the picture with a new multisite and multidomain management architecture, capable of controlling multiple Prism Central instances from a single console. The most significant novelty for operations is the integration of cost management directly into the on-premise platform, with consumption measurement, reporting, and budgeting without relying on external SaaS applications.
On the Hybrid Cloud Front
Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) expands into government and sovereign regions, with already active support for AWS GovCloud and upcoming support for AWS European Sovereign Cloud by the end of the year. In the second half of 2026, support for bare-metal instances with Hyperdisk on Google Cloud will also arrive, allowing storage to scale independently of computing resources. For companies struggling to procure hardware, these cloud options serve as a release valve: workloads can run in the public cloud without having to be redesigned, with the option to bring them back on-premise when hardware becomes available.
The Broadest Hardware Ecosystem in Nutanix's History
Perhaps the most significant aspect of the announcements relates to the expansion of the infrastructure ecosystem, which Nutanix defines as the widest in its history. The new Foundation Central appliance simplifies the installation of Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure and the AHV hypervisor on enterprise servers from Cisco, Dell, Fujitsu, HPE, and Lenovo. Synchronous disaster recovery for Dell PowerFlex and extended support for Everpure FlashArray //c are already available. The 2026 roadmap includes support for AMD GPUs, integrations with Cisco Unified Edge, Secure AI Factory and AI Pod, expansion of collaboration with Lenovo ThinkSystem on storage and servers, and support for Dell PowerStore (currently in early access).
In this context, the most significant news regarding partnerships is the strategic alliance with NetApp. The two companies will integrate NetApp’s enterprise storage based on ONTAP with NCP and the AHV hypervisor by the end of the year. The logic of the partnership is one of decoupling computing resources from storage: companies will be able to modernize their virtualization layer by adopting NCP and AHV, while keeping their existing NetApp data infrastructure and its management, protection, and data mobility capabilities.
On the technical side, the NFS-based integration aims to simplify VM migration with direct conversions in a few minutes via NetApp Shift and Nutanix Move, and to offer granular management at the individual VM level for performance, capacity, and recovery. The joint solution will include NetApp ONTAP Autonomous Ransomware Protection with AI (ARP/AI) capabilities for real-time detection of threats and exfiltration attempts.
Cisco is involved in the initiative through the evolution of FlexPod with computing and networking resources from Cisco, NetApp storage, and Nutanix software. Looking ahead, the two companies plan to integrate ONTAP into the Nutanix Agentic AI solution as well.
It’s not easy to keep up with the numerous innovations presented by Nutanix, but each single piece of the puzzle seems to fit together to outline a clear overall picture: the many announced partnerships, very notably with NetApp, the expansion into sovereign clouds, and the new management capabilities delineate a strategy that aims to reduce the risk of lock-in and provide customers with concrete options for infrastructure modernization. Infrastructure that is increasingly hybrid, as Nutanix operates openly and flexibly on public cloud, at the edge, and on-premise.