By
Publication Date: 2026-10-28 02:22:00
Nutanix and Red Hat partnered to make it easier for customers to combine their software to build, scale and manage cloud-based containerized and virtualized applications.
The deal calls for the Nutanix Cloud Platform to become the “preferred choice” for hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and the OpenShift Container Platform. Red Hat’s OpenShift also becomes the preferred option for full-stack Kubernetes on the Nutanix Cloud Platform, which includes the Acropolis Operating System (AOS) and Acropolis Hypervisor (AHV).
Nutanix AHV joined VMware ESXi and ESX, Microsoft Hyper-V and Red Hat’s KVM on the list of hypervisors certified to work with RHEL and OpenShift. The Nutanix-Red Hat partnership also calls for ongoing joint engineering work to ensure interoperability and support for RHEL, OpenShift and AHV.
James Governor, an analyst and co-founder of RedMonk, said certification and joint support is crucial in the HCI market. The partnership also enables Red Hat and Nutanix to “push back” against growing competition from VMware in the expanding market for hybrid Kubernetes platforms, he said.
“OpenShift was the early market leader and has customers in a range of sectors using the platform to modernize software delivery,” Governor said. “For Nutanix customers, the deal means a potential pricing lever against VMware, as they can use Nutanix’s hypervisor, rather than VMware, if…
