.NEXT 2026: Nutanix and NetApp Form Strategic Alliance with New Integration for a Modern Cloud Platform

Nutanix, a player in hybrid multicloud computing, and NetApp, an intelligent data infrastructure company, announced a collaboration to integrate NetApp Intelligent Data Infrastructure built on NetApp enterprise storage systems with the Nutanix Cloud Platform (NCP) solution with the Nutanix AHV hypervisor later this year. Together, Nutanix and NetApp plan to offer customers greater choice to optimize their virtualization and data strategies across on-premises, cloud, and containerized environments. The new integration is designed to combine the data management capabilities of NetApp ONTAP, including an intelligent, flexible, secure data foundation, with the unified hybrid multicloud operations of NCP. 

“NetApp and Nutanix are enabling simple, secure and fast modernization of virtualized environments,” said Sandeep Singh, SVP and GM, enterprise storage, NetApp. “Whether seeking to transform their virtualization layer, data operations, or both, customers need Intelligent Data Infrastructure at the foundation. With our combined capabilities, NetApp and Nutanix will make it easy to run virtualized workloads at enterprise scale.”

Key Benefits

• Modernize Virtualization and Hypervisor Layer – The powerful combination of NCP with Intelligent Data Infrastructure built on NetApp technology will offer customers a new path to more easily modernize on-premises and cloud environments. The joint work is designed to allow customers to optimize storage while setting themselves up for future flexibility to support modern containerized workloads
• Fast Migration – NFS-based integration between NCP and NetApp ONTAP is designed to streamline VM migration to Nutanix, reducing complexity and accelerating time to value. Customers can look forward to faster data-in-place conversions of VMs measured in minutes with NetApp Shift toolkit and Nutanix Move, which will enable them to reach full operationality more quickly
• Simplified Operations – Intuitive management across NetApp ONTAP and NCP solution is expected to simplify the administration, troubleshooting, and operational overhead typical of enterprise virtualized environments. The joint solution plans to offload data management to ONTAP to allow independent scaling of compute and storage. Organizations running NCP will benefit from the security, performance, resiliency, and data mobility capabilities of NetApp ONTAP
• VM-Granular Operations – Leveraging the advanced capabilities of NetApp and Nutanix, customers will be able to manage their virtual environments on a VM-granular level, enabling them to manage performance, storage capacity, and recovery methods from a unified management view
• Built-in Cyber Resilience – Combining NetApp infrastructure with NCP is designed to enable enterprises to confidently protect workloads across the hybrid cloud. The joint solution will offer customers access to NetApp ONTAP Autonomous Ransomware Protection with AI (ARP/AI) and NetApp Ransomware Resilience service to detect threats and exfiltration attempts in real time

“In partnering with Nutanix, NetApp is furthering its lead as the premier provider of storage and data management for virtualization,” said Dallas Olson, CCO, NetApp. “Together with Nutanix, we’re giving enterprises the foundation they need to build Intelligent Data Infrastructure with the performance, resilience and scalability to grow with their virtualization needs.”

“Through our partnership with NetApp, customers will be able to simultaneously modernize their virtualization platform and tap into the power of Intelligent Data Infrastructure with NetApp,” said Tarkan Maner, president and CCO, Nutanix. “We’ve partnered together so that customers can modernize at their own pace.”

As the alliance progresses, Nutanix and NetApp plan to work together to accelerate AI innovation by integrating NetApp ONTAP into the Nutanix Agentic AI solution, a full software stack purpose-built to help customers adopt Agentic AI for business transformation.

Partner Commentary
“By extending our long-standing partnership with NetApp to include support for Nutanix Cloud Platform, we are evolving the FlexPod ecosystem to meet the demands of a hyper-distributed world. FlexPod has set the standard for converged infrastructure, and this integration will allow our joint customers to leverage Cisco’s high-performance networking and compute alongside NetApp storage and NCP, providing a unified, secure, and highly automated environment that simplifies the transition to modern, cloud-native operations,” said Jeremy Foster, SVP and GM, Cisco Compute.

“This partnership demonstrates that both vendors take the needs of enterprise customers seriously. As a result, almost any use case with the highest availability requirements are possible. This is exactly what we’ve been waiting for,” added Joachim Schmitz, Field CTO, System Vertrieb Alexander GmbH.

Availability
NCP with NetApp AFF all-flash A-series and select FAS hybrid-flash systems will be available later this year, along with Cisco collaboration on FlexPod with Nutanix.