Unlocking the future: Modernizing virtual infrastructure
NetApp and Nutanix announce technical partnership
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Spencer Sells
Rising virtualization costs are pushing enterprises to rethink long-standing virtualization platform assumptions. Organizations are increasingly prioritizing flexible platforms that support multiple deployment models and enable gradual modernization without disruptive migrations. In that context, NetApp ONTAP is the best storage option for consistent data management across virtualization and Kubernetes environments, on-premises and in the cloud.
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) stands out as a leading option for virtualization, delivering the flexibility and simplicity enterprises are looking for.
Against this backdrop, NetApp and Nutanix have announced a strategic partnership that enables organizations to modernize their virtual platform with minimal disruption. This collaboration brings together the strengths of Nutanix NCI and NetApp’s intelligent data infrastructure to deliver choice, security, and an efficient way to scale compute and storage.
What are NetApp and Nutanix announcing?
For the first time, NetApp ONTAP storage can serve as external storage for Nutanix environments, giving enterprises a new level of architectural flexibility and choice. Customers can scale storage and compute independently, maximize the value of existing storage investments, and take advantage of NetApp’s industry-leading data services on workloads running in Nutanix environments. The result is a modern virtualization foundation built on the strengths of both companies.
Why this matters
1. Simplified Management
Together, NetApp and Nutanix deliver a simplified operational experience by aligning responsibilities across compute, virtualization, and storage. Nutanix Prism orchestrates the full VM lifecycle, while ONTAP provides best-in-class data management capabilities that have been trusted in enterprise environments for decades. This model supports organizational flexibility by enabling storage teams and virtualization teams to operate independently, while benefiting from a cohesive infrastructure strategy. Customers gain operational clarity, faster resolution of issues, and greater efficiency.
2. Operational Flexibility
Customers can modernize at their own pace and minimize disruption while preserving architectural choice. ONTAP will deliver simplicity via NFS API connections, giving customers granular control of VM operations at scale. This maximizes ROI by leveraging customers’ existing server hardware and storage, eliminating forklift upgrades, preserving NetApp skills, and extending the value of current investments. NetApp ONTAP’s data management capabilities, proven and enhanced over the last 30 years, can now be invoked by Nutanix Prism, providing flexible operations and best-in-class data management capabilities.
3. Security and Resiliency You Can Trust
Nutanix environments gain ONTAP data protection services, including application-consistent snapshots, efficient replication, and NetApp’s AI- powered Autonomous Ransomware Protection (ARP/AI) backed by a recovery guarantee, a significant advantage in today’s threat landscape. Together, we’ll deliver a secure infrastructure with comprehensive data security across your entire IT environment – VMs, networking, and data.
4. Faster, Lower Risk Migrations
With NetApp Shift Toolkit, customers benefit from zero-copy virtual disk conversion, accelerating migrations and removing months from transition timelines regardless of VM size. The end result is faster Nutanix AHV adoption, lower costs, and reduced risk.
A better path forward for customers
Both companies recognize the growing need for choice in virtualization architectures. Nutanix NCI offers a compelling option, and through this partnership, NetApp helps customers adopt it more easily while delivering greater value from their data infrastructure.
Looking Ahead
Early Access for the integration is now underway, with general availability (GA) targeted for Q3 2026. As joint development progresses, customers can expect deeper platform integration and a more refined joint value across the solution stack. Future capabilities will include NetApp cloud storage services with Nutanix Cloud Platform and further ONTAP integration for Nutanix Kubernetes Platform.
This partnership marks a meaningful evolution in how enterprises can modernize their virtualization platform with NetApp and Nutanix. We’re committed to delivering a better, more efficient, and more secure virtualization experience, without compromise.
Spencer Sells
Spencer leads the Cloud Services Solution Planning team in the Cloud Data Services Business Unit focused on enabling customers to run workloads in public clouds. The team consists of product managers and solution architects that work on Cloud Volumes Service and Azure NetApp Files. Prior to this role, Spencer spent eight years at NetApp leading the product and solution management team responsible for providing the best storage for virtual server, virtual desktop, and cloud environments. Spencer has worked in enterprise storage industry for over twenty years. Prior to joining NetApp Spencer held various product management and product marketing positions for Brocade Communications, as well as product management, marketing and operations positions at Gadzoox Networks and Amdahl. Spencer holds a bachelor’s degree in International Relations from Stanford University, and a Master of Arts in International Economics and Japan Studies from Johns Hopkins.
