Spoiler Alert: No Spoilers in this post 🙂
We just wrapped up the inaugural Nutanix NTC Tech Summit in San Jose at the Nutanix Headquarters, sitting here reviewing my notes and adding additional thoughts has me revisiting the last 48 hours. First off, I can’t say enough fantastic things about how Nutanix treats the NTC group every year. With this being my 8th year in the program (fingers crossed I see year 9 in a few months), the engagement and interactions with Nutanix as an organization has increased year over year. From the platform briefings, to the Slack channel where Nutanix employees engage constantly, to the peer networking and fun the group has, I honestly cannot say I know of another professional group that offers what the NTC group does, especially backed by Nutanix.
I mean they flew everybody out to San Jose for this! Find me another vendor that helps their evangelists evangelize even more for the product than Nutanix does!
To run this type of program, you need a solid leader, and the NTC program has had that just about since day 1 in Angelo Luciani. All of us in the NTC program owe him an incredible amount of gratitude for the efforts that he puts in to ensure we’re engaged.
Day 1
We started the Summit with a visit from Rajiv Ramaswami, the CEO of Nutanix. Nothing like bringing in the big guns to kick off the morning! Rajiv let us know some of the Nuatnix direction (talk about transparency) with NDB and NKE, er NKP, and some discussions around the current Broadcom/VMware and Nutanix as it relates to migrations and AHV. Great content there, some of which we’ll see coming out over the next few months, but it really continues to solidify my and eGroup Enabling Technologies direction with Nutanix for our customers.
Before Rajiv, we were joined by the LCM and Foundation Master Cameron, giving us some highlights of what’s to come and also giving the attendees a direct line for commentary – of which this group always has feedback! LCM continues to be a gold star function for our customers with Nutanix and the roadmap there is exciting, and while Foundation is a small piece of that overall puzzle, it was great to see the focus that the team is putting into Foundation to make it even better.
With a jam-packed session, we went into briefings by the teams on the current and future Nutanix Cloud Manager roadmap, and driving home the ability to consistently enable that cloud operating model with the Nutanix Cloud Platform – Build, Operate, Use and Govern. I’ll honestly say I’ve struggled with selling the value of NCM to our customers, but as it continues to evolve and provide that full-stack visibility, gaining insights to Operate and Scale becomes critical for many customers, so it was a reminder to myself not to forget the value proposition, and the balance that NCM can provide between operations and that reduced time to value.
Following the NCM session, we flipped over to Nutanix Kubernetes Platform (NKP), the evolution of NKE (Nutanix Kubernetes Engine) coupled with the features from acquiring D2IQ. NKP automates the lifecycle management of Kubernetes clusters using a consistent API across various environments, significantly simplifying provisioning and operations. It supports multiple deployment models, including managed, hybrid, single, and multi-cluster setups, with the capability to deploy EKS, AKS, and NKP clusters. Basically, WOW. A single solution to support various Kubernetes deployments across different environments. Going one step further to ensure platform resiliency isn’t left behind, NKP offers application DR and backup using open-source tools like Velero for business continuity and disaster recovery. Additionally, NKP Insights provides predictive analytics to scan configurations and workloads for vulnerabilities, ensuring compliance with security best practices.
I won’t lie – Kubernetes is still that technology I just don’t fully grasp, and something I vow to spend more time on in the coming months. Not just for me and my own curiosity, but for our customers and their application journeys!
Quick break, and then we dove into AOS/AHV updates and roadmap, and got to spend time diving into all the wonderful goodness that is AOS 6.10, the latest release of AOS and a LTS release a LOT of us have been waiting for! I won’t spoil reading the release notes of 6.10, but needless to say it incorporates all of the performance items that Nutanix has been focusing on in AOS 6.6 – 6.8. So I’ll summarize:
- It’s Faster
- It’s More Secure
- It’s More Scalable
Following up on AOS/AHV, we got some updates around the Nutanix Data Services for Kubernetes, which for some reason my notes are weak – I’m gonna chalk it up to being right before lunch….
Following lunch, we dove into Nutanix Central, which I gotta admit, might be one of the features I’m most interested in coming away from this Summit, based not on the current feature sets, but on the possibilities. A cloud control plane, a Prism Central to manage all Prism Centrals. Single Pane of Glass for Prism Central visibility and governance. YES PLEASE!!!!
We wrapped up Day 1 with some GPT in a Box. I’ll be a bit more vague on this one for the time being, but what Nutanix is doing with GPT in a box is pretty cool, with a goal to treat GPT in a box with Generative AI no differently than any application. One-click deployment, upgrades and scalability. Very cool.
Ok, I lied, we didn’t wrap up Day with GPT in a box, we wrapped it up in the Nutanix Garden.
Day 2
We started off Day 2 with the Flow team, talking about Flow NextGen, and where Nutanix is taking the Flow product to ensure that no matter where you are running the Nutanix stack, expose a consistent service stack for networking and security. I really appreciated the teams thinking here, to model virtual networking behind Hyperscaler consumption of networking.
The group was then briefed on NUS, with both Files and Objects being covered. I had to step out during this time to present at the eGroup Microsoft Roadshow Day.
After wrapping up the Files and Object sessions, we called it a wrap. With folks coming from all over the world, we dispersed to our corners of the globe, to continue to preach the Nutanix story!
Parting Thoughts
I’m still digesting my time with a great group of people whom I admire in the industry. I get the opportunity to contribute to and learn from some brilliant folks, and we’re all swimming in the same direction. Whether we’re customers, partners (and in some cases even competitors in the same market), we’re all here with a rabid sense of bringing value and solving the problems we face. The fact that Nutanix gives us this avenue and listens to our feedback, highlights the kind of organization they are, and the solutions they are bringing to the table.
I for one appreciate everything Nutanix does for the Partner and Customer communities, from the NTC group, to the newly announced Partner Elite, to highlighting activities such as Charity Water at the .Next conference. In the Nutanix HQ (and I’m sure this is in other offices as well), there’s a logo on the wall of the the four H’s: Hungry, Humble, Honest, with Heart. I wish I had snagged a picture of that, as I think it can really highlight the good.
At eGroup Enabling Technologies, in my 11+ years, I think our mission mirrors the 4 H’s, but slightly in different terms. But when it comes down to it, we’re here to solve problems for our customers and make their lives easier, better, or more efficient so they can go do more/good in this world. That’s what it’s all about. Together we make IT Happen #WeGroup
Thank you Nutanix for the opportunity this week, it’s not one I take lightly and I’m humbled to be able to be a part of the #NTC group!