Delivering a Platform for Cloud Native Apps as a Service

Cloud Native applications are driving explosive growth in the IT sector. These modern applications are designed with cloud principles at their core, utilizing components such as microservices, containers, service meshes, WebAssembly, and declarative APIs, while also harnessing advanced tools for automation and software development. Cloud Native has become the default approach to develop and deploy new applications, which I covered in detail in this LinkedIn post.

Before we get into building a service for cloud native applications, we should address a common misconception surrounding Cloud Native Applications. There is a misunderstanding that these applications are exclusively tied to hyperscalers and public cloud. Cloud Native has significantly contributed to the growth of hyperscalers, but these applications are not only tied to public cloud. Implemented properly, Cloud Native applications possess the flexibility to operate across a variety of environments: public clouds and managed private clouds from service providers, on-premises infrastructure, and even edge locations.

Cloud Native applications frequently span multiple cloud environments when supported by an appropriate stack. This availability of services and constructs that facilitate multi-cloud strategies has empowered IT departments to adopt a more discerning, cloud-smart approach. Here are some of the components of a Cloud Native stack:

• Infrastructure -- Compute: Containers runtime, Kubernetes and if needed virtualization and serverless platform; Storage: Cloud native storage (persistent volumes) presented to containers, storage for virtualization and objects and files for user/app data; Networking: Cloud Native networking and SDN providing an overlay network for applications and tenants.

• Services -- API Gateways and Service Proxies, Service Mesh, Security and Compliance, Service Discovery, Database Services for Structured Data, Streaming and Messaging, Observability and Analysis, and more.

• DevOps and Automation tools: CI/CD, registry, Infrastructure as Code, GitOps, and other automation, marketplace/blueprint tools, application definition/build tools, and more.

Founded 10 years ago (2015) as a subsidiary of the Linux Foundation, Cloud Native Computing Foundation has help make Cloud Native ubiquitous. Through its activities, CNCF has also encouraged the creation of a new platform engineering function to bridge the IT infrastructure and operations and application and software development functions. I covered this in more detail in my “Thinking Cloud Native” post.

Nutanix Solution for Cloud Native Applications

In 2023, Nutanix welcomed the team from D2IQ (formerly known as Mesosphere) into the Nutanix family, bolstering its rich product and partner portfolio for Cloud Native applications. The relaunched Nutanix Kubernetes Platform (NKP) is the one management plane for Kubernetes everywhere, whether supporting containers on the Nutanix Cloud Platform, on bare metal servers, or on public cloud running a CNCF-certified Kubernetes runtime. NKP offers a range of functionality like observability, networking services, cost management, SSO, Role Based Access Control (RBAC), serverless, Kubernetes catalog, fleet management, and multitenancy. It streamlines the operations and lifecycle management from day 0 deployments to day 2 updates of a Cloud Native stack across multiple clouds. NKP can also run on top of the Nutanix Cloud Platform (NCP). This brings additional functionality, such as:

• Data Services for Kubernetes: Data protection and management to stateful container.

• Database Service: DBaaS and lifecycle management for PostgreSQL, MySQL, MariaDB, Oracle, SQL Server, MongoDB, and more.

• Unified Storage: Objects and File services.

Cloud Native applications and NKP represent a significant opportunity for Nutanix Elevate partners, especially our Elevate Service Providers (SP) and System Integrators (SI). Our partners can offer dedicated (private) or shared (public), hosted or managed Cloud Native stack to their clients, serving their applications needs, powered by the Nutanix.

Using NKP, a partner can build and operate a hybrid multicloud Cloud Native stack spanning their own hosted/managed private and shared clouds, hyperscalers like AWS, and their client’s infrastructure environment. Furthermore, the Nutanix solution enables SPs and SIs to offer one platform to supplement or replace a public cloud’s stack, often at a lower cost and better service levels.

Some of the main benefits for partners include:

• Expanded value and market differentiation by comprehensively servicing their clients’ Cloud Native applications needs, resulting in new customer wins and longer-term retention.

• Predictable revenue streams from subscription-style Cloud Native Stack service and by fostering long-term relationships.

• Improved competitiveness and relevance in a Cloud Smart world, especially against incumbents offering their proprietary competitive stack.

• Improve profitability with Nutanix's unique value -- multiple cloud support, gain operational savings, charge more for advanced functionality, onboard clients quickly, and shorten your time to revenue. 

Getting Started:

We understand starting a new service, especially for a new area can be daunting. The SP / SI and NKP teams at Nutanix have significant experience helping our partners launch new services. We would love to connect and walk through our service definition and productization methodology, which covers understanding the market, defining your service, capturing technology and organizational investments, and creating and executing your service plan.

Reach out to your Nutanix team and let us know how we can help!