Today we proudly announced Xi Cloud Services, a native cloud extension to the Nutanix Enterprise Cloud Platform that powers more than 6000 end-customers around the globe. This announcement marks another significant step towards the realization of our Enterprise Cloud vision – delivering a true cloud experience for any application, in any deployment model, using an open platform approach. For the first time, Nutanix software will be able to be consumed as a cloud service.
Hybrid Clouds Need a Fresh Approach
A seamless hybrid cloud, garnering the best from private and public cloud infrastructure, is the goal of many IT teams. A well-designed hybrid cloud is needed to make strategic workload placement decisions. For many critical and predictable workloads, owning infrastructure is most appropriate, while some workloads are best consumed as a public service.
But hybrid cloud is hard. Traditional third-party cloud environments don’t integrate with on-prem infrastructure. These public services have separate set of constructs and management tools. An all too common result is yet another IT silo, with distinct operational requirements. Given this complexity, most organizations resign themselves by experimenting with new workloads (think cloud native or Mode2 apps) in public clouds, while keeping traditional, Mode1 apps in the datacenter.
To resolve this point of friction, and to create a more unified fabric across different cloud environments, we need an integrated approach that builds on a common Cloud Operating System. One that gives teams the freedom to run their applications in the optimal environment based on budget, SLA or scale requirements – not restricted by technology limitations.
Nutanix is uniquely qualified to deliver on this premise with Xi Cloud Services. Utilizing access to the entire infrastructure stack, Xi Cloud Services will uniquely enable IT teams to extend their environment beyond traditional datacenter boundaries to a native cloud environment that can be instantly provisioned and automatically configured using the same Cloud OS constructs as your Enterprise Cloud.
For the first time, consuming public services doesn’t require “lift-and-shift” projects between environments, so Mode1 applications can finally benefit from a public cloud extension.
Xi Cloud Services will be operated by Nutanix and delivered from datacenters in the U.S., located in Northern Virginia and San Francisco Bay Area. We have also teamed up with Google to Fuse Cloud Environments for Enterprise Apps and deliver Xi from Google Cloud Platform datacenters.
Leap Service
The first Xi Cloud Service that will be available is Leap, a turnkey and integrated service that rapidly and intelligently protects the applications and data in your Nutanix environment without the need to purchase and maintain a separate infrastructure stack. Customers will be able to simply select VMs for protection, choose one of several subscription plans and setup protection – all from within Prism! The VMs will then be replicated in the background, ready to be recovered in the public environment in the event of a site failure.
Fundamental Challenges in Disaster Recovery
Today, customers still need to fuse many solutions to achieve DR readiness. First, there’s a need to provision a second site. Then, setting up replication to protect data in the recovery site. Next, defining a DR runbook – set of operational steps needed to bring up your environment in the secondary site. And finally, security and networking must be configured to facilitate connectivity and proper recovery during a site failure.
Each of these products must be installed, configured and maintained separately. As a result, DR is not only a substantial upfront undertaking, but also drives ongoing operational burden. Leap drives unparalleled simplicity by converging all of those elements into a single service.
The First Built-In DR
Natively built-in to the Nutanix Platform, Leap will eliminate the need to install multiple products to protect your environment. All DR elements will be managed within Prism. Replication is integrated and can be set up to protect specific VMs at a desired recovery point objective (RPO) level. End-to-end security ensures that both data at-rest and in-flight are encrypted for data confidentiality. And even the recovery plan will be defined and managed from within Prism.
True Extension Across Clouds
Leap will dramatically streamline the onboarding process by porting your workloads profiles to the Xi cloud. Utilizing a single OS across the environments, the service understands your VMs’ configuration for the recovery site.
Leap discovers your network topology and lets you extend the network into the cloud in a few clicks. During recovery, the network topology is preserved, eliminating the need to re-IP as part of recovery in the Xi Cloud.
One-Click Testing and Failover
Leap will offer non-disruptive testing to ensure you can routinely examine their readiness, eliminating the need for “fly-and-test” missions in remote locations. By testing non-disruptively, you can practice more often and reduce Recovery Time Objectives (RTOs).
In case of a site failure, One-Click failover process provides reliable execution of recovery plans that can include multiple steps and external scripts. And during routine maintenance, partial failovers can be triggered as an effective way to temporarily transition applications to a second site.
Leap is planned to be offered for early access in 2018! Building on the Nutanix Enterprise Cloud OS, Xi takes a unique approach to public services, offering new levels of simplicity, integration and convenience – supporting all applications running in the enterprise datacenter. So make sure to learn more and stay up to date:
- Sign up here to get updates and access to our early access program
- Read more about our partnership with Google
- Watch our Product Video
Forward-Looking Statements
This blog includes forward-looking statements, including but not limited to statements concerning our plans and expectations relating to product features and technology that are under development or in process and capabilities of such product features and technology and our plans to introduce product features in future releases. These forward-looking statements are not historical facts, and instead are based on our current expectations, estimates, opinions and beliefs. The accuracy of such forward-looking statements depends upon future events, and involves risks, uncertainties and other factors beyond our control that may cause these statements to be inaccurate and cause our actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially and adversely from those anticipated or implied by such statements, including, among others: failure to develop, or unexpected difficulties or delays in developing, new product features or technology on a timely or cost-effective basis; delays in or lack of customer or market acceptance of our new product features or technology; the introduction, or acceleration of adoption of, competing solutions, including public cloud infrastructure; a shift in industry or competitive dynamics or customer demand; and other risks detailed in our Form 10-Q for the fiscal quarter ended April 30, 2017, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this presentation and, except as required by law, we assume no obligation to update forward-looking statements to reflect actual results or subsequent events or circumstances.
© 2017 Nutanix, Inc. All rights reserved. Nutanix, the Enterprise Cloud Platform, Xi and the Nutanix logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of Nutanix, Inc. in the United States and other countries. Google and Google Cloud Platform are registered trademarks or trademarks of Google Inc. All other brand and product names mentioned herein are for identification purposes only and may be the trademarks of their respective holder(s).