Nutanix unveils sovereign cloud push for secure AI

Nutanix has set out a new distributed sovereign cloud strategy and unveiled a series of updates to its Nutanix Cloud Platform that target data sovereignty, security and resilience in hybrid multicloud environments.

The company is pitching the changes at organisations that run infrastructure and applications across on-premise systems and multiple public clouds. Many of these organisations face a mix of local data residency rules and rising business continuity expectations.

Nutanix said the strategy addresses customers that want more control over where data and control planes sit, while retaining a single way to manage infrastructure across sites and providers. The company is positioning the move as part of a broader shift towards what it describes as distributed sovereign cloud architectures.

Jay Tuseth, Vice President and General Manager, Nutanix APJ, said customers across the region face an especially fragmented regulatory landscape.

"Across Asia-Pacific and Japan, organisations are navigating one of the most diverse and complex regulatory landscapes in the world, with country-specific sovereignty and data residency mandates accelerating the need for trusted solutions. Our latest Nutanix Cloud Platform enhancements are designed to help enterprises meet these requirements confidently while maintaining the agility and scalability needed to innovate across multiple jurisdictions. By enabling governance and control across distributed environments, we empower customers to advance their cloud strategies without compromise," said Tuseth.

The announcements include new security, governance and disaster recovery features across the Nutanix Cloud Platform. There are also updates to its Kubernetes, AI and data services products, and expanded support from public cloud and hardware partners.

The company said the platform now supports orchestrated lifecycle management for multiple so-called dark sites. These are environments that run without direct internet connectivity. It also now supports on-premise deployment options for governance and control planes.

Nutanix Central, which provides centralised management of distributed environments, can now run in customer-controlled data centres. Nutanix said its Data Lens product will also run in customer-controlled on-premise environments in a later release. Data Lens focuses on unstructured data security, governance and ransomware resilience.

Government focus

Nutanix is extending its work with public sector and government-aligned customers. The Nutanix Government Cloud Clusters offering on Amazon Web Services is now available for US federal agencies.

The company said the service keeps orchestration within an agency's own environment. It said there is no dependence on external software-as-a-service management or shared credentials. Nutanix clusters run fully inside the agency's Amazon Virtual Private Cloud.

The Nutanix Cloud Clusters product on Google Cloud is now generally available. Nutanix said it now covers 17 regions worldwide. New Microsoft Azure and AWS regions in the United States are also live. Nutanix said these regions give customers extra options for sovereignty-aligned and regionally compliant deployments.

In Europe, Nutanix Cloud Clusters is available on OVHcloud. OVHcloud positions itself as a secure and trusted European cloud provider.

Nutanix said its Azure and AWS Nutanix Cloud Clusters services have completed a new SOC 2 Type 2 audit and renewed several ISO certifications, including ISO 27001 and ISO 22301. It said Nutanix Cloud Clusters on Azure also received CSA Star Level 2 certification this year.

These audits and certifications provide external assessments of security, availability, confidentiality, privacy and business continuity controls.

Kubernetes and AI

The company is also targeting organisations that run sensitive workloads on Kubernetes and AI platforms. The Nutanix Kubernetes Platform will add an option based on a FIPS 140-3-validated and STIG-compliant Ubuntu Pro image. Nutanix said this image is under development.

Nutanix is extending virtual private cloud isolation, network load balancing and microsegmentation features to container workloads. These features already apply to virtual machine environments. The company said this gives customers a more consistent network security model across VMs and containers.

On the AI side, Nutanix Enterprise AI customers can now use government-ready branches of NVIDIA AI Enterprise software. They can deploy NVIDIA NIM microservices in containers that are STIG-hardened and FIPS-enabled.

Nutanix said additional AI security enhancements include stronger identity integration, fine-grained access controls for models, and expanded logging and monitoring. New NVIDIA NIM microservices for object detection and data parsing are also now qualified within Nutanix Enterprise AI.

Resilience and recovery

The updates also focus on resilience for distributed operations. Nutanix said new Nutanix Cloud Platform functions support application availability across sites and regions during outages.

Customers can apply tiered disaster recovery options that match protection levels to each workload. Nutanix said this supports higher fault tolerance and cyber recovery. It said the system can maintain continuity even if up to three sites or regions fail.

Multicloud snapshots are integrated into the tiered disaster recovery model. Nutanix said this adds another layer of protection against cyber incidents. Security policies remain in place during failover and live migrations, which reduces the risk of gaps when workloads move.

Nutanix Data Services for Kubernetes now extends tiered synchronous and asynchronous disaster recovery to containerised applications using block and file storage. Nutanix said this supports governance and compliance objectives for modern Kubernetes workloads, including AI-native applications.

Global management

The company is also promoting unified management across on-premise and cloud environments. The Nutanix Cloud Platform now includes Nutanix Infrastructure Manager, which automates deployments using validated and tested design patterns. Nutanix said this approach simplifies the set-up and maintenance of data centre environments.

A unified network control plane gives a single view of VLANs, virtual networks and microsegmentation policies. Administrators can see and control these across on-premise and public cloud networks from one place.

Nutanix said management of Kubernetes and AI environments will become more streamlined. Nutanix Kubernetes Platform clusters will automatically register with Nutanix Prism Central. This creates immediate infrastructure-level visibility for those clusters.

Nutanix Enterprise AI now includes a large language model metrics dashboard. This tracks request and token activity for AI workloads.

Customer and partner demand

Customers in regulated sectors are among the early adopters of the approach. LFB Group, a biopharmaceutical company, is using Nutanix Cloud Clusters on OVHcloud for European data sovereignty.

"As a biopharmaceutical company, data sovereignty and compliance are critical for LFB. Nutanix Cloud Clusters on OVHcloud give us the ability to modernise our infrastructure while ensuring our sensitive data remains in a trusted European cloud. This combination allows us to simplify operations, strengthen resilience, and continue delivering innovation in healthcare with full confidence in security and compliance," said Paul Bodet, CTO, LFB Group.

IT services firm Inetum also uses Nutanix Cloud Clusters on OVHcloud in its hybrid cloud projects.

"As a digital services and solutions provider, Inetum is committed to helping enterprises simplify and accelerate their journey to hybrid cloud. With Nutanix Cloud Clusters on OVHcloud, we can offer our customers a sovereign, cost-effective alternative backed by seamless operations across on-premises and cloud. This partnership strengthens our ability to deliver modernisation projects with greater speed, predictability, and confidence," said François Fleutiaux, CEO Euromed, Inetum.

Analyst firm IDC said demand for distributed sovereign cloud models is rising in line with regulation. Dave Pearson, Vice President, Infrastructure Systems, Platforms and Technologies Group, IDC, said organisations want designs that preserve local control while still using cloud services.

"Distributed sovereign cloud is becoming a priority for organisations that must meet regulatory obligations without disrupting operational consistency. Models that preserve local control while supporting cloud scalability are attractive to organisations undergoing application and infrastructure modernisation, and Nutanix's response to this appetite is to operationalise distributed and sovereignty-aligned architectures, looking to assist with compliance, privacy, and governance needs," said Pearson.

NVIDIA, Intel, Cisco and OVHcloud all framed the Nutanix move as aligning with their own offerings across AI, compute and sovereign infrastructure.

Enterprises are building AI strategies that demand security, sovereignty and deployment freedom, said John Fanelli, Vice President, Enterprise AI Software at NVIDIA.

"By combining Nutanix's distributed cloud platform with NVIDIA accelerated computing and government-ready NVIDIA AI Enterprise, customers can build and operate high-performance sovereign AI systems with greater control, resiliency, and efficiency - no matter where their data resides," said Fanelli.