Best of Show at Nutanix .NEXT By Jerome Wendt, DCIG

This article was written on May 13, 2019 by Jerome M. Wendt, DCIG, LLC.

Best of Show at Nutanix .NEXT

Every time DCIG attends a conference, we attempt to meet with as many exhibitors as possible to get an overview of their solutions and the key business challenges they solve. We then identify three that best address these challenges. In attending the Nutanix .NEXT event in Anaheim, CA, DCIG awarded these three products as Best of Show.

Winner #1: Nutanix Mine
Nutanix Mine was one of the announcements made during the opening keynote at conference that prompted spontaneous applause from the audience in attendance. That applause came for good reason.

(Source: Nutanix)

Companies who standardize on Nutanix ideally do not really want to introduce another HCI platform to host their data protection platform. Using Mine, companies get all the HCI benefits that Nutanix offers that companies can then use to host the data protection solution of their choice.

Data protection providers such as HYCU, Commvault, Unitrends, and Veritas all announced their intentions to use Mine as an option to host their data protection software. Further, other data protection providers in attendance at Nutanix .NEXT privately shared with DCIG that they plan to adopt Mine as a platform hosting option at some point in the future, one even going so far as to say it views Mine as a platform it must adopt.

Winner #2: Lenovo TruScale
TruScale literally introduces enterprises to utility data center computing. Lenovo bills TruScale clients a monthly management fee plus a utilization charge. It bases this charge on the power consumed by the Lenovo-managed IT infrastructure.

(Source: Lenovo)

This power consumption-based approach is especially appealing to enterprises and service providers for which one or more of the following holds true:
• Data center workloads tie directly to revenue.
• Want IT to focus on enabling digital transformation, not infrastructure management.
• Need to retain possession or secure control of their data.

TruScale does not require companies to install any extra software. It gets its power utilization data from the management processor already embedded in Lenovo servers. It then passes this power consumption data to the Lenovo operations center(s) along with alerts and other sensor data.

Lenovo uses the data to trigger support interventions and to provide near real-time usage data to customers via a portal. The portal graphically presents performance vs. key metrics including actual vs budget.  Lenovo’s approach to utility data center computing provide a distinctive and easy means this technology while simultaneously simplifying billing.

Winner #3: HYCU 4.0
I have known about HYCU for a while so its tight integration with Nutanix AHV is not the motivation for DCIG awarding HYCU Best of Show. Rather, the testimony that a staff member from Nutanix’s internal IT department shared about Nutanix’s own experience running HYCU to protect its data center caught my attention.

(Source: HYCU)

Nutanix internally deployed HYCU in three data centers across the United Stated and in its small data centers in its global offices. It protects over 3,500 VMs that includes both Linux and Windows VMs with no agents installed. It provides both file and VM level restores and uses Active Directory for its RBAC (role-based access control).

Nutanix evaluated data protection products from other data protection providers. It chose HYCU over all of them. Pretty strong testimonial and endorsement of HYCU by Nutanix when almost other data protection provider would give their eye teeth to be Nutanix’s internal go-to provider of backup software.