eBook

Building a Foundation
for Cloud-Native Success
A Platform Engineering Guide to Kubernetes
in Hybrid Multicloud Environments
Cloud-Native Computing Table of Contents
Cloud-Native Computing Drives Software Success.............................................................................................02

Drives Software Success The Building Blocks of a Cloud-Native Enterprise.................................................................................................................................03

Hyperconverged Infrastructure Simplifies Cloud-Native Infrastructure.............................................................................03
Challenges of Running Kubernetes In Hybrid Multicloud Environments........................04
IDC estimates that by 2026 developers will create 750 million new applications, more than during the past Legacy Infrastructure Can’t Handle the Resource Demands of Kubernetes...................................................................04
Organizations Struggle to Build and Optimize Hybrid Multicloud Kubernetes............................................................05
40 years combined.1 However, the accelerating pace of application development results in a long list of Managing Cloud-Native Application Data...................................................................................................................................................05
complications, including poor workload placement, excessive costs, performance degradation, increased The Kubernetes Ecosystem is Rapidly Evolving.......................................................................................................................................05
Kubernetes Solutions Need to Simplify Management......................................................................................................................05
security risks, compliance issues, and poor business service performance.2
Nutanix Solves Your Cloud-Native Challenges............................................................................................................07
Cloud-native technologies empower platform engineering teams to remedy this chaos by building and Case Study: Nymbus Takes Advantage of Nutanix-Red Hat Partnership...........................................................................07

running scalable applications faster and with higher quality across datacenters, public clouds and the Nutanix Cloud Platform is the Ideal Choice for Hybrid Multicloud Kubernetes....08
Runs Everywhere..............................................................................................................................................................................................................08
edge. Containers, Kubernetes, and the large and growing ecosystem of cloud-native technologies enable Scalable....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................08
enhanced business agility, greater efficiency, and faster time to market, yielding a competitive advantage Resilient....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................08
Integrated...............................................................................................................................................................................................................................08
to organizations that successfully master them. Easily Upgraded................................................................................................................................................................................................................08
Nutanix Unified Storage.............................................................................................................................................................................................09
Choosing the right infrastructure strategy to maximize the benefits of cloud-native technology and Nutanix Database Service.........................................................................................................................................................................................09
accelerate the delivery of modern software is essential for companies to thrive in the digital age. App-Aware Data Services...........................................................................................................................................................................................09
Simplify Kubernetes with Nutanix Cloud Platform..............................................................................................10
Ready to Try Nutanix?........................................................................................................................................................................................10

1
IDC, 750 Million New Logical Applications: More Background, doc #US48441921, December 2021
2
Gartner Predicts 2022: The Distributed Enterprise Drives Computing to the Edge, October 2021

Nutanix’s secure, resilient, and scalable cloud platform allows us to modernize our
manufacturing environment and move away from traditional compute and storage.
Anand Bahl
Chief Information Officer
Micron
 3

The Building Blocks of a Cloud-Native Enterprise Kubernetes can detect changes in a workload and scale out
Cloud-native technologies offer a competitive advantage the number of running container instances to adapt to demand. Advantages of Deploying HCI*
to organizations that adopt them. Here are the key building Built-in service discovery and load balancing enable you to manage

97%
blocks of a cloud-native enterprise. containerized services and improve application performance, with the
application workload distributed across multiple container instances to
Containers Allow Applications to be Built from Composable Pieces
improve performance and reliability. reduction in unplanned downtime
Containers are a lightweight, portable and self-contained method of
packaging application code with dependencies. Containers isolate
applications from the underlying infrastructure, making it easier to
Hyperconverged Infrastructure Simplifies
Cloud-Native Infrastructure
43%
run applications consistently across different operating systems
and cloud platforms. Containers, Kubernetes, and other elements of the cloud-native
ecosystem put new demands on infrastructure. Given the steep
Containers can be spun up and down quickly, allowing for dynamic learning curve associated with cloud-native technologies, infrastructure reduction in TCO
scaling of an application in response to changes in workload demands. modernization has become essential to success. Hyperconverged
They allow applications to be built as small, independent, and reusable infrastructure (HCI) is rapidly replacing traditional hard-to-manage

356%
services that can be integrated to build complex applications. When three-tier environments with a centralized, easily managed system that
used with a container management platform like Kubernetes, can support the growing demand for automation—while allowing your
microservices architecture allows applications built on containers operations to extend from the datacenter to the cloud and beyond.
to be operated efficiently in hybrid multicloud environments. average five-year ROI, 12-month payback

Kubernetes Orchestrates Containerized Workloads

Kubernetes has become the de facto standard for container

63%
orchestration and cloud-native operations. It automates the
deployment, scaling and management of containerized workloads,
providing a framework that can be used on-premises, across
faster deployment
clouds and at the edge. This enables organizations to easily
deploy containerized workloads across multiple environments
with greater consistency. Kubernetes monitors and manages
application availability and resource utilization, ensuring that
applications remain in a healthy state. 53%
more efficient IT management

IDC White Paper, sponsored by Nutanix,

The Business Value of Nutanix Cloud Platform,
October 2022 (#US49715622)

*Among organizations using Nutanix Cloud Platform

 4

Challenges of Running Kubernetes

in Hybrid Multicloud Environments
Cloud-native computing holds out the promise of running any workload anywhere—on-premises,
in the cloud and at the edge. Yet many organizations struggle to achieve this goal. IT operators, used
to working in legacy IT environments, find configuring and managing storage, networking, monitoring,
and security—while also contending with Kubernetes lifecycle management tasks—challenging.
This becomes a recipe for disaster as you extend your digital footprint to multiple clouds.

The following section explores the infrastructure challenges associated with cloud-native
environments. The chapters that follow look at how the Nutanix Cloud Platform—with
its industry-leading HCI architecture—can better address your hybrid multicloud requirements.

Legacy Infrastructure Can’t Handle the Resource Demands of Kubernetes

Legacy three-tier infrastructure isn’t designed for the way Kubernetes and containerized applications
use compute, storage, and network resources. Kubernetes is a dynamic, distributed platform that
offers rapid scaling and resiliency. It continuously creates and destroys container instances to adapt
to changing demands.

Kubernetes necessitates a different approach. A Kubernetes cluster typically consists of a control plane
plus one or more worker nodes. Worker nodes are where “pods,” consisting of one or more containers, run.
Kubernetes can be configured to autoscale compute resources in response to workload by increasing
or decreasing the number of pods of a specific type. To accommodate all this activity may require
hundreds or thousands of times a day. Microservices need new network topologies with secure, trusted
interconnectivity. Organizations building cloud-native Kubernetes environments are often beset by
complexity. Productivity is impacted when infrastructure resources aren’t in lockstep with developer
and application needs.
 5

Organizations Struggle to Build and Optimize As more applications are refactored or implemented with containers Important Capabilities Include:
and microservices, configuring different types of storage becomes a • Deploy production-ready Kubernetes clusters with a few clicks
Hybrid Multicloud Kubernetes
roadblock. Platform teams need to figure out which storage services • Provide the cloud-native data services needed
The legacy infrastructure model is hard to extend to hybrid and
they need to make available to their Kubernetes clusters and how to by modern applications
multicloud operations. Kubernetes enables application portability,
make the same or similar services available in every environment.
making it possible to move applications across environments • Integrate and automate enterprise storage features
This can include file, block and object storage as well as database
including public, private and hybrid clouds—as well as ROBO like snapshots and clones
services, message brokers, caching services and more.
and edge locations—without modification.
• Scale without limit
However, this requires access to similar compute, storage and The Kubernetes Ecosystem is Rapidly Evolving • Integrate best-in-class open-source tools for cluster
networking resources in every environment. If your cloud-native With an average of three releases every year, Kubernetes—and the monitoring, logging and alerting
application was built to run on-premises, some work may be necessary cloud-native ecosystem around it—is evolving rapidly. This creates • Full stack support
for it to run in the cloud and vice versa—and the management many options for enterprises running cloud-native applications. But it
processes and tools in each environment may be completely different. Your goal should be to take the complexity out of deploying
can also create a lifecycle management nightmare as you struggle to
cloud-native workloads—in any environment—while automating
Optimizing your cloud-native operations across a hybrid multicloud keep up with the latest releases, security fixes, and other updates for
ongoing management to the greatest extent possible to ensure
environment requires having access to the same tooling and processes your hardware without impacting production applications.
your operations will scale with your expanding digital footprint.
everywhere. With few integrated solutions, deployment in a hybrid or
multicloud environment often requires far too much time and toil. Kubernetes Solutions Need to Simplify
Management
Managing Cloud-Native Application Data A final challenge for companies adopting Kubernetes is that expertise
The ephemeral nature of containers makes managing application data is in short supply. To succeed, you need enterprise-grade Kubernetes
more challenging. Kubernetes uses the container storage interface management that dramatically simplifies provisioning, day-to-day
(CSI) to define persistent volumes (PVs) that enable file and block operations, and lifecycle management for Kubernetes clusters.
storage to persist as container instances come and go.
 6

Nutanix Solves Your

Cloud-Native Challenges
Kubernetes and cloud-native technologies offer a path to faster, more efficient application deployment,
Nutanix Cloud
Nutanix Platform:
Cloud Platform:One
One Platform
Platform forfor Hybrid
Hybrid Multicloud
Multicloud
overcoming the limitations of traditional development. A hyperconverged platform provides the foundation
for a robust cloud-native enterprise. Many organizations have chosen Nutanix HCI and Nutanix Cloud
Enterprise Apps Modern Apps Analytics AI/ML Databases Desktops
Platform for their cloud-native journey because it offers significant operational benefits.
Nutanix Central
One Platform. Nutanix delivers a single unified Runs Everywhere. Nutanix gives organizations the
platform that minimizes complexity and maximizes freedom to choose the best operating environments Federated Management Cloud Management Data Governance
efficiency, enabling you to run apps and data for the job. Nutanix Cloud Platform extends our APIs | LCM | IAM Intelligent Operations | Self-Service | Cost | Security Operations Security | Privacy | Compliance

anywhere. Nutanix HCI supports traditional proven HCI architecture to run in your datacenter,
enterprise applications running in VMs and cloud- at the edge, in AWS and Azure clouds, and at some
Files, Objects Data Services for K8s Database Service Platform Services
native applications—at the same time. And Nutanix of the world’s leading service providers. Run your Project Beacon

gives you the flexibility to deploy and operate the applications your way—on your preferred
Kubernetes platform of your choice, including technology stack—without compromising on Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure
industry-leading OpenShift from our strategic performance or adding excessive costs. Nutanix Nutanix Public Clouds
Virtual Compute, Storage, Networking; Disaster Recovery; Security
Cloud Clusters (Native)
partner Red Hat, EKS Anywhere from Amazon Web turns cloud complexity into multicloud simplicity. AI-Enabled Edge Private Cloud MSPs
Services, and our own offering, the Nutanix
The Services You Need. Nutanix Cloud Platform
Kubernetes Engine (NKE). Application and data portability
integrates many of the services you need for cloud-
native success, providing a complete infrastructure
solution to support Kubernetes and your cloud-
native apps. Critical capabilities include integrated
data protection and DR, advanced network security,
data-at-rest encryption, database services, and
block, file, and object storage services.
 7

Case Study: Nymbus Takes Advantage of Nutanix-Red Hat Partnership

Customers regularly come to Nymbus
Nymbus has developed a full suite of banking technology applications As a growing enterprise in the financial services market, Nymbus has with ideas. Our container infrastructure
to modernize and optimize existing banks. Initially, Nymbus did not to be able to prove that its solutions meet strict industry security and from Red Hat and Nutanix helps us build
own its digital banking platform. This limited its flexibility to develop compliance requirements. The company offers compliance support
niche solutions to meet their needs and
specialized features for clients and maintain its growing portfolio of as-a-service for many of its client banks.
help them reach strategic goals faster. We
customizations. “When we decided to bring the core platform for
our solutions in-house, we decided to take a modular containerized
Operating on a standardized, certified technology stack with can then roll out these new capabilities to
expert support from Nutanix and Red Hat helps Nymbus address all our customers, so everyone can benefit.
approach to give us the desired flexibility and simplify management
regulatory compliance and keep its infrastructure updated with the
by maintaining customization as configurations,” says Larry Larry McClanahan
latest patches and bug fixes. “We have built our in-house platform
McClanahan, chief product officer at Nymbus. Chief Product Officer
on trusted enterprise technology from vendors with strong brand
Nymbus
After extensive market research, Nymbus selected Red Hat OpenShift recognition,” says Gibb. “Working with Red Hat and Nutanix makes our
running on Nutanix Cloud Platform as the foundation of its in-house customers more comfortable and confident that we can protect their
approach. “Red Hat OpenShift is the standard Kubernetes platform systems and data—and help them protect their customers as well.”
for enterprises. Everyone understands it, and it’s well supported,”
says Matt Gibb, vice president of alliances at Nymbus. “Nutanix
is the industry leader in HCI and hybrid cloud management. Nutanix
Cloud Platform is very extensible, providing comprehensive hybrid
cloud management.”

With a container-based platform running on Nutanix Cloud Platform,

Nymbus can quickly design and implement solutions to serve new
market niches and differentiate itself in the competitive digital banking
solutions industry. “Customers regularly come to Nymbus with ideas,”
added McClanahan. “Our container infrastructure from Red Hat and
Nutanix helps us build custom, niche solutions to meet their needs and
help them reach strategic goals faster.”
 8

Nutanix Cloud Platform is the Ideal Choice

for Hybrid Multicloud Kubernetes
Nutanix Cloud Platform is a secure, resilient, and self-healing platform that simplifies planning and deploying hybrid multicloud infrastructure to
support all your workloads and use cases. Our proven HCI solution offers a robust, scalable, high-performance infrastructure for deploying and
managing cloud-native workloads and Kubernetes alongside traditional applications.

Runs Everywhere Integrated

Nutanix Cloud Platform runs any workload anywhere with By giving organizations the capabilities they need out of the box,
a unified platform that offers unparalleled support for virtual Nutanix simplifies the cloud-native stack and reduces tedious,
machines and containers. Whether you prefer to run your workloads time-consuming administrative tasks. Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM)
on-premises, in a public cloud, at a service provider datacenter, or at enables you to build and manage multicloud deployments more
the edge, Nutanix Cloud Platform has you covered, with consistent simply and quickly by automating routine operational tasks. With
management processes and security across all environments. security and cost governance, NCM can help you increase the efficiency
and security of your fast-growing cloud-native application environment,
Scalable while driving financial accountability and aiding regulatory compliance.
Nutanix HCI combines compute, storage, and networking resources
across a cluster of servers into a single resource pool that is managed as Easily Upgraded
a unit, providing a highly available platform that can scale out or up to With frequent Kubernetes releases and patches, lifecycle management
support modern microservices applications, high-performance is a major headache for teams running Kubernetes, especially
databases, and traditional mission-critical applications. if it is on bare metal. Nutanix Lifecycle Manager (LCM) takes
the pain out of planning and executing Kubernetes infrastructure
Resilient upgrades—even in the busiest and most complex environments.
Self-healing infrastructure provides a highly available and resilient
platform to ensure business continuity and minimize downtime. This is
critical for cloud-native and edge computing environments, where
traditional maintenance and repair practices may not be practical.
Nutanix self-healing capabilities ensure that failures are automatically
remediated, reducing the burden on IT staff and minimizing business
disruptions due to unplanned and planned downtime.
 9

Nutanix Unified Storage App-Aware Data Services

Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) lets you consolidate all file, block As the adoption of cloud-native applications continues to grow, Infrastructure administrators and architects struggle to provision and
and object data on a single platform—and scale capacity without there is a pressing need to provide application-aware data services manage applications as scale and complexity increase. Kubernetes
disruption as needs grow. NUS provides easy access to structured for Kubernetes. Currently tools only address the container layer, storage drivers today provision and manage at the container level
and unstructured data and is built for high performance and necessitating multiple third-party tools to solve for the application with little to no awareness of the application.
seamless scalability—on-premises, in the cloud and at the edge. and namespace layers.
With NDK, you can easily manage Day 2 operations for the entire
Fully-Integrated, Persistent Storage Nutanix Data Services for Kubernetes (NDK) simplifies and unifies application, regardless of location. NDK provides data protection,
Nutanix Container Storage Interface (CSI) driver allows any cloud-native the process of provisioning and operating applications by extending recovery, migration, cloning and copy data management for modern
application to take advantage of Nutanix Volumes Block Storage enterprise data services to containerized apps. For developers, NDK applications on Kubernetes. Its application-aware solution reduces
and Nutanix Files Storage to provide scalable PVs to support diverse speeds time to value and reduces operational risk by introducing a recovery time objective (RTO) and recovery point objective (RPO) from
application needs. Nutanix Objects Storage provides S3-compatible cloud operating model. days to minutes while lessening the need for Kubernetes expertise.
object storage with great scalability and a level of performance that
For business owners, NDK increases cost efficiency and simplifies the Read the NDK product brief to find out more.
exceeds most other object stores.
delivery of resilient infrastructure. NDK will work with most Kubernetes
offerings, including Red Hat OpenShift. NDK extends Nutanix and Red
Nutanix Database Service
Hat joint engineering and provides a seamless support experience.
Nutanix Database Service (NDB) simplifies database lifecycle
management across on-premises and public clouds and makes it easy
for platform teams to incorporate popular open-source and
commercial databases as part of their cloud-native applications. In
minutes with just a few commands, developers can easily spin up and
manage Microsoft SQL Server, PostgreSQL, MySQL, and MongoDB
databases, running on Nutanix Cloud Platform to support container-
based applications directly from Kubernetes environments.

Using this approach, operators and DBAs maintain strict control

over database configurations—including determining operating
systems, database versions, and security parameters—to ensure
that all databases deployed conform to the organization’s
security and compliance standards.

Project Beacon is a multi-year effort by Nutanix to deliver a portfolio of datacentric platform-as-a-service (PaaS)-level services available natively anywhere—including on Nutanix and on hyperscaler infrastructure.
 10

Simplify Kubernetes with Nutanix Cloud Platform

Nutanix Cloud Platform addresses the challenges of cloud-native At most companies, VMs and containers will continue to coexist for
computing with an integrated platform that provides choice, flexibility, a long time. Nutanix Cloud Platform offers a single environment that
ease of use, and security. Nutanix makes it simple to develop and run all provides exceptional support for both paradigms, with the freedom
your applications—legacy apps running in VMs and containerized to choose your preferred Kubernetes distribution. Nutanix Kubernetes
apps—on-premises, in public clouds and at the edge—reducing the Engine (NKE), our native Kubernetes solution, simplifies provisioning,
complexity of infrastructure management so your teams can focus on operations and lifecycle management. Because Nutanix software runs
developing and operating great applications. on supported hardware from leading vendors on public clouds and at
leading service providers, you’re never locked in.

Our Mission: One Platform for Any Kubernetes Solution

1
Not a K8s distribution
 11

Ready to Try Nutanix?

Kubernetes and cloud-native technologies can be challenging to configure and use in ways that drive business benefits. To
simplify management across the entire lifecycle, you need an infrastructure built for Kubernetes. Unlike managed Kubernetes
solutions, Nutanix Cloud Platform enables IT operations to deliver and manage an end-to-end, production-ready enterprise
Kubernetes environment anywhere in your hybrid multicloud.

Increase Your Productivity with Nutanix Cloud Platform—the Ideal Infrastructure for Kubernetes.

Take a Test Drive >

[email protected] | www.nutanix.com | @nutanix

©2023 Nutanix, Inc. All rights reserved. Nutanix, the Nutanix logo and all product and service names mentioned herein are registered trademarks or trademarks of Nutanix, Inc.
in the United States and other countries. All other brand names mentioned herein are for identification purposes only and may be the trademarks of their respective holder(s).
ModernApplicationsCloudNative-eBook-FY24Q2-MDA-11/30/2023