US hardware maker Nutanix is seeking UK partners for its data centre convergence Nutanix Cluster hardware, which handles three key functions in one platform. By converging networking, storage and virtualisation into one machine, the vendor claims it can slash costs by improving the management and durability of data centre and cloud environments.
With SDG acting as its single pan-EMEA distributor, Nutanix promised minimal barriers to entry to its partner programme but pledged competitive margins, along with sales, technical and marketing support. “We are not looking for mass numbers,” said Alan Campbell, Nutanix’s EMEA director, “we want focused, specialist virtualisation and cloud partners.”
Campbell said the objective of reseller partners should be to “cut the complexity of VDI and private cloud deployments” with Nutanix’s converged infrastructure platform. The plan is to collapse the conventional two-tiered data centre design of storage and compute into one single scalable appliance, said Campbell. Nutanix has signed three UK partners, Mason IT, Nugensis and Viadex as the first step in an “aggressive expansion strategy”.
This could be the beginning of the end for the SAN industry, one analyst hinted. The flash-accelerated datacentre of the future will have a much tinier footprint, hosting thousands of virtualised workloads without the need for a SAN, predicted Ovum analyst Roy Illsley.
“Nutanix’s highly virtualised and flexible environment will lower the barriers to entry,” he said.
Companies are suffering problems as their virtual workloads shoot up and the associated costs are making a huge SAN-shaped hole in their IT budgets, he continued. Now smaller companies can offer them a solution to that problem, as a Nutanix Cluster could help them rationalise hardware and management costs.
“Ovum considers it suitable for both SME and enterprises alike and it is not surprised that channel partners are looking to sign with Nutanix,” he concluded.
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