Nutanix to release 'community version' of its secret software sauce

Nutanix is months away from releasing a free, “community” version of the secret software sauce that turns its collections of storage and servers into hyperconverged spin up VMs almost before you know it beasts. CEO Dheeraj Pandey yesterday told The Register development work on the version is under way and will be released in …

[Barry Rueger]

"Secret software sauce"

Is it too much to ask that the first paragraph of an article include some hint what a product does?

The Great Unwashed of the Internet would appreciate something like "Nutanix, whose software does this, is months away from releasing a free, “community” version..."

[Barry Rueger]

Re: "Secret software sauce"

OK. It's hyper-converged....

"Nutanix hyper-converged solutions marry web-scale engineering with consumer-grade management to simplify every aspect of the IT infrastructure lifecycle and deliver real business benefits."

[diodesign]

Re: "Secret software sauce"

It's assumed if you know what Nutanix is, you'll be interested in this story. If not, you're probably not working in the converged storage-compute world.

But I'm always up for spreading and sharing information, so I've added in a par and a link to a very long and detailed story about Nutanix.

C.

[P. Lee]

Re: "Secret software sauce"

>Is it too much to ask that the first paragraph of an article include some hint what a product does?

I think its margarine. I'm sure I saw some at the supermarket.

[Dave 126]

Re: "Secret software sauce"

Sometimes when reading a Reg article I can't make head or tail of, I don't know if it is because it is about a field I'm ignorant of, or if it is because I'm being slow - or both.

[Anonymous Coward]

Desperate Move

From a desperate company, whose products nobody is interested in..

Their 'secret sauce' is really Thousand Island Dressing. It's no secret.

-AB.

[Tsunamijuan]

Re: Desperate Move

ooh they must be rich or something, being able to splurge for real thousand island. Here we accidentally drop some ketchup on mayonnaise and call it thousand island.

[Steve Kerr]

Re: Desperate Move

Actually, their boxes aren't that bad, we started using their products last year.

Bit fiddly to set up but they seem to be working really well, we've not had any issues with them.

Only downside is that they're still owned by a bunch of venture capitalists who are going to want their money back sooner or later, probably sooner

[Dave Hilling]

Re: Desperate Move

which means vmware or someone else will probably buy them soon.

[Trevor_Pott]

Re: Desperate Move

Hi, ahb, which department do you work in at VMware?

[DG555]

Re: Desperate Move

1200+ customers & $300m ($200m last August) run-rate says otherwise. No desperation here, AB :)

[ampnh603]

Re: Desperate Move

HA! Either VMware, EMC or Simplivity Hater... You clearly have never used any of their products. Beyond simple to use and setup.

[Trevor_Pott]

Re: Desperate Move

I can guarantee you that he doesn't work for SimplIVity. Kempel would have his ass roasting over a slow fire if he were. SimpliVity under no circumstances puts up with it's employees firing off that short of shite about a competitor.

[Cloud 9]

Re: Desperate Move

Umm .. no. A very smart move by a company that have dropped disruptive innovation in to the laps of incumbents like a fiery hot coal. That funny smell? It's yesterday's hardware vendors having their nuts roasted.

[Scott 26]

Last year (or the year before - 2013/14 was a bit of a blur) they headhunted a bunch of VDXs, some of who worked directly for VMware... if the secret sauce was good enough to entice them away then they must be doing something right/exciting

[Trevor_Pott]

It's good. The hard part of dealing with the hyperconverged market is that there are a lot of good players in it. Nutanix has a niche and they fill it well. They have a small empire going, and for a damned good reason.

LIkewise, I find SimpliVity, Maxta, Scale, Yottabyte and others to also have great products with loyal customers and niches they too can meet better than anyone else. Once you move past religious affiliation with vendors - which is a huge problem in our industry - it's not hard to see that there are a lot of really bright people making a lot of really cool stuff.

And good on 'em, eh? The storage market needed a swift kick in the ass.

[Anonymous Coward]

What I meant was, in the long term, Nutanix's real competition will be Ceph on white boxes (i.e. Open Compute Project). I don't hold out much hope for Nutanix. They will be incredibly lucky if they get bought out. See also: http://www.opencompute.org/assets/OCP-Summit-V-Slides/Mainstage/OCP-Seagate-Fenn.pdf

Cheers,

AB.

P.S. I don't work for any of the firms you mention.

[Trevor_Pott]

" Nutanix's real competition will be Ceph on white boxes"

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

*sob*

Oh $deity. I needed that. Thank you. Thank you. It's been a hell of a week, and I really, really needed that.

[CloudWash]

Nutanix is trying to say - Hyperconvergence is just a packaging - "Hardware ISO". They are now ready with a "Software ISO" too !

There secret sauce is Hyper-Scale - which puts them in front of Ceph. The question really is - how much of support will the software require -when used on commodity hardware and hypervisor.

[Terafirma-NZ]

I for one am sick of the Web-Scale mantra.

It's just a VSA like any other companies VSA call me a skeptic but throwing some marketing on top changes nothing.

Integrate it into the kernel and then you can call it converged.

Last of all don't say web-scale is hypervisor agnostic but not storage agnostic it has to be both.

Web-scale is a method of infrastructure design not a product. I bet I can get far more VM's per rack on our PureStorage and blades than they can get and cheaper as the secret sauce sure costs plenty.

Then there is that interface... VMware give up go home buy theirs yours sucks (you even have company policy stating all interfaces must suck) nothing in IT has ever been as good as Nutanix.

[Trevor_Pott]

That VMware marketing...I see you like it more than marketing from others. Carry on.