Advanced Computing in the Age of AI | Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Nutanix Adds Object Storage to Hybrid Cloud 

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Nutanix introduced a series of upgrades this week that include cloud tiering of object storage, promoted as a way of leveraging public cloud infrastructure while improving data management across different clouds.

The upgrades are a response to the growing number of enterprise customers adopting multi-cloud strategies as they extend workloads like cloud databases to the network edge.

Nutanix said its new storage services allow users to target any S3-compatible platform to tier its object storage offering.

Object storage is supplemented by a hybrid cloud file storage capability running on public clouds via the recently released Nutanix Clusters. Nutanix Files, available now, is the latest to offer a unified data management capability across core data centers, edge deployments and public clouds, the company said.

Nutanix recently extended its hyperconverged infrastructure software to public clouds, initially to Amazon Web Services, and will soon add it to Microsoft Azure.

The upgrades reflect infrastructure vendors’ efforts to expand storage and networking offerings in response to enterprise efforts to cope with growing volumes of unstructured data soaked up by hybrid cloud deployments.

Similar approaches emerged this week from several storage vendors, including Lenovo. Meanwhile, Nutanix extended its cloud storage options to include object and file storage capabilities for hybrid clouds and, like Lenovo, for edge computing applications.

Storage vendors note that emerging cloud-native edge applications are often tailored to object storage. San Jose-based Nutanix said Thursday (Dec. 3) its new hybrid cloud capabilities including cloud tiering of object storage on AWS Simple Cloud Storage and similar S3-compatible object stores.

Those enhancements are being integrated with the storage vendor’s Nutanix Objects and Nutanix Files offerings.

Nutanix and other storage vendors are also adding scale-out storage fabrics running across private and public clouds as a data management tool. The intent is to help enterprise customers deploying edge computing platforms better handle and analyze growing volumes of moving, unstructured data.

“Now the focus is on strengthening the overall platform, including delivering an easy-to-use, scale-out storage fabric across their different cloud environments,” said Rajiv Mirani, CTO at Nutanix.

Storage vendors are emphasizing this unified data management approach as a way to get a handle on growing volumes of moving data, much of its unstructured. Once formatted, it can be turned over to data analysts. The goal is providing a single access point to data stored as files or, increasingly, as objects, regardless of location.

These and other cloud storage upgrades are driven by growing enterprise demand for object storage as more companies embrace cloud-native applications.

"Unstructured data created and retained by users is creating a need for file and object storage solutions across various workloads and industries," said Amita Potnis, IDC’s research director for content infrastructure at IDC.

"While the recent pandemic crisis will see a slowdown of infrastructure spend[ing], the drivers for growth in this market will be all-flash file and object storage offerings and traditional file storage providers developing deep partnerships with public cloud providers,” Potnis added.

 

 

About the author: George Leopold

George Leopold has written about science and technology for more than 30 years, focusing on electronics and aerospace technology. He previously served as executive editor of Electronic Engineering Times. Leopold is the author of "Calculated Risk: The Supersonic Life and Times of Gus Grissom" (Purdue University Press, 2016).

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