By
Publication Date: 2025-05-08 07:00:00
Nutanix has been a pioneer in simplifying the process of managing complex infrastructure over the years. Now it’s extending this idea to replace hypervisors outright, at least for Kubernetes workloads on cloud infrastructure and bare metal. It’s also extending its own hypervisor to support partnerships with former competitors like Dell PowerFlex and Pure Storage. And it’s validating more AI models to run across its infrastructure safely.
Lee Caswell, SVP Product and Solutions Marketing at Nutanix, argues the key morsel from their bevy of updates is the new cloud native AOS solution, which extends Nutanix enterprise storage and advanced data services to Kubernetes services without requiring a hypervisor. It’s the first realization of Project Beacon, which has been under development for a few years.
Caswell was at VMware when the hypervisor was first built in 2002. At the time, all the other elements, including the data services, were direct bolt-ons to the hypervisor. He says:
That architecture presumed that the hypervisor was the core innovation element. Twenty years later, the hypervisor is a commoditized element, and it’s the data services that are now the key element, particularly if you, like us, believe that data will be more distributed over time.
Some of these may run without a hypervisor, others might continue to use VMware, and others might use the Nutanix AHV hypervisor. Caswell explains:
A big value proposition is choice. So, we’ve had a choice of…
