A look back: Nutanix and VMware
Famous hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) and virtualization companies include Nutanix and VMware. Using a web-scale, distributed cloud architecture that runs all business-critical workloads, cloud-native, and AI apps on off-the-shelf servers, Nutanix modernized IT design and operations, paving the way for the HCI industry.

By popularizing the use of virtualization and making it possible for several workloads to operate on a single physical server, VMware vSphere reshaped the IT environment. Users of VMware vSphere's management-simplifying and virtualization-platform ESXi® may rest certain that Nutanix® HCI is compatible with VMware's hardware since it is certified to run on VMware's Hardware Compatibility List (HCL). For customers who do not want to utilize VMware, Nutanix also provides its native solution, the Nutanix AHV® hypervisor, at no extra charge.

While both firms' technologies are used by thousands of business IT teams worldwide, they are now competitors in several important areas. These markets include HCI, virtualization, IT automation, software-defined file storage, software-defined multi-cloud management, and network-based micro-segmentation.

Nutanix Cloud Platform provides a future-proof architecture and the ability to run the most common applications and workloads on multiple vendors' platforms, reducing risk and making it the go-to choice for organizations looking to implement hybrid and hybrid multi-cloud strategies, rather than VMware vSphere.

Why are Nutanix and VMware good for customers?

Technology designs differ greatly depending on specific company demands, but both VMware and Nutanix provide solutions to address these needs. By comparing and contrasting the two, you can better understand how VMware vSphere on Nutanix HCI meets your current needs and how Nutanix Cloud Platform can prepare your IT for the future by allowing you to manage mission-critical applications and databases across different environments, including the cloud, datacenters, and the networking edge.
 

Designed with virtualization in mind: VMware's architecture

For certain use cases, in particular, VMware has concentrated on providing virtualization that is advertised as generally effective:

• Virtualized workloads certified for VMware vSphere/VMware hypervisor ESXi should be run.
• Empowering VMware Virtualization Workloads to Migrate to Public Clouds with VMware Cloud

When it comes time to go outside VMware, these ways might be somewhat limiting, like:

• First, avoiding virtualization lock-in by enabling a multi-vendor strategy for configuring a genuine hybrid multi-cloud solution
• Distributed workload scalability across many public and private clouds
• Thirdly, letting users pick their hardware, hypervisor, and cloud service
• Decreased overall ownership cost with little to no change to the underlying architecture or technology

With Nutanix, virtualization is made easy. Simplifying operations and making architectural changes easier and more adaptable for tomorrow may be achieved by running vSphere on Nutanix.

Embrace the future with Nutanix architecture: prepared for anything

Flexibility has been a cornerstone of Nutanix's business model since its inception. When it comes to hardware, virtualization, and clouds, Nutanix has you covered. Take Nutanix HCI software as an example. It's compatible with industry-leading hypervisors like VMware ESXi, Microsoft Hyper-V®, and—for free—Nutanix's own AHV hypervisor.

Customers are increasingly moving to Nutanix AHV to run business-critical workloads, reduce virtualization licensing costs, and enable single-pane-of-glass management across hypervisors. While some Nutanix customers choose to run ESXi on the Nutanix platform, others choose Microsoft Windows Server Hyper-V.

The ability to adapt to changing architecture requirements, market situations, or technological solutions is a key feature of Nutanix. Nutanix provides important ideas like:

• Facilitating the management of dual hypervisors to reduce cost and offload risk by utilizing a multi-vendor solution strategy
• Introducing user-focused self-service options and integration with partners like ServiceNow

Overall, Nutanix delivers more hybrid multi-cloud value outside of legacy virtualization solutions by:

• Enabling a multi-vendor strategy to reduce the risk of a single virtualization platform
• Scaling business-critical, cloud-native, and AI workloads across public and private clouds
• Running different hypervisors simultaneously under a single management “pane of glass”
• Protecting your freedom to choose the best hardware and cloud provider for your solution
• Enabling the possibility of significant reductions to the total cost of ownership with web-scale design through software-defined-storage
• Enabling the portability of Nutanix NCI licenses between on-premises, the edge, and public clouds, such as the AWS® and Azure® clouds.

Full lifecycle simplicity and ease of use—from initial setup to production scaling and troubleshooting—are hallmarks of Nutanix technologies, which are based on popular cloud and SaaS services. Workloads can grow from on-premises to the edge to the cloud with Nutanix's comprehensive platform design, which prioritizes cost-efficiency at all times.

Comparing hyper converged infrastructure solutions from Nutanix and VMware

Here’s a side-by-side comparison of HCI architectures from Nutanix vs. VMware:

Developing a flexible multi-vendor strategy to navigate a dynamic market
Companies need to be nimble enough to adjust to the ever-changing vendor market. For instance, mergers and acquisitions pose a risk of company disruption, uncertainty, premature changes, increased expenses, and product reduction or price hikes. Options to consider when deciding on a multi-vendor strategy are:

• Platform flexibility to run multiple vendor solutions
• Full license portability (across clouds and on-premises) and choice
• Support quality and extend reach to reduce downtime
• Cost consistency without being blindsided by changing price overhead
• Nutanix routinely beats the competition with a Net Promoter Score of 90+ in terms of customer loyalty, referrals, and repeat business.

Nutanix is devoted to providing transparent and definite assistance for the aforementioned factors in light of the various uncertainties that may persist following Broadcom's purchase of VMware. Neither we nor you should ever consider a future without VMware. However, if you are faced with the unfortunate need to find a replacement, Nutanix might be a good choice to prevent major disruptions to your business caused by rigid technological solutions.

Manage your tasks any way you like

By supporting a multi-vendor approach, Nutanix's future-proof design lowers risk while efficiently, resiliently, and cost-effectively running your applications and workloads. You have complete control over the security and scalability of your apps and workloads as they expand to end-user devices, public clouds, and the network edge.

Our perception of contemporary IT workloads is evolving, and with it, cloud-like architectures. Examples of such workloads include business-critical apps, cloud-native apps, artificial intelligence apps, data lakes, and unstructured data. Nutanix HCI has integrated web-scale for workloads that span several servers, data centers, and cloud environments; it was formed from the same DNA that established how the current web scales. Choice is a feature that is exclusive to Nutanix and was born out of this notion.

Your choice to:

• Extreme flexibility in selecting the off-the-shelf hardware you want
• Create networks that intelligently scale
• Run workloads where you need them to run, not within the confines of a rigid architecture
• Stand-up data-centric designs focused on your business
• Decide on a license model that makes sense to your budget, whether that’s CAPEX or OPEX-focused
• Align public clouds to do what they do best, run dynamic workloads and data, and keep static workloads under your control in a private cloud
   

Analyzing VMware and Nutanix's hybrid cloud offerings
Here are a few key points contrasting Nutanix with VMware in terms of hybrid cloud functionality:

To future-proof, decrease risk, and operate things your way, Web Werks VMX (Nutanix Complied Cloud) offers a platform of choice. A real hybrid multi-cloud is built on choice.

Vendor lock-in?

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