A New Dawn for End-User Computing: Why the Nutanix and Omnissa Partnership is a Game-Changer, Powered by NC2 The End-User Computing (EUC) landscape is
The End-User Computing (EUC) landscape is undergoing a significant transformation, and the new partnership between Nutanix and Omnissa (formerly VMware EUC) stands out as a pivotal development. This collaboration, announced at .Next, promises to deliver much-needed flexibility, operational simplicity, and a robust path to hybrid multicloud for virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) and application delivery. A key enabler in this powerful combination is Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2), which extends the simplicity and agility of the Nutanix platform to public clouds.
For years, organizations have navigated the complexities of delivering seamless and secure access to applications and desktops for their workforce. The recent changes in the VMware ecosystem, following its acquisition by Broadcom, have left many customers seeking alternative solutions that offer greater choice and cost-effectiveness. Simultaneously, the demand for hybrid work models continues to accelerate, pushing businesses to find VDI solutions that can effortlessly span on-premises data centers and public cloud environments.
This is where the Nutanix and Omnissa alliance steps in, offering a compelling proposition.
Greater Choice and Flexibility with Omnissa Horizon on Nutanix AHV
At the heart of this partnership is the integration of Omnissa Horizon, a leading desktop and application virtualization solution, with the Nutanix AHV hypervisor. This means that customers can now deploy Omnissa Horizon on Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI), providing a powerful alternative to traditional infrastructure and hypervisor stacks.
This is a significant win for customers who may be evaluating their current EUC strategy. It offers them the freedom to choose a hypervisor best suited to their needs, potentially mitigating concerns around vendor lock-in and licensing complexities. For organizations already invested in the Nutanix ecosystem, this provides a seamless path to adopt or expand their Horizon deployments.
Key Benefits of the Nutanix-Omnissa Collaboration:
Operational Simplicity: Nutanix is renowned for its hyperconverged infrastructure that simplifies datacenter management. By running Omnissa Horizon on NCI with AHV, IT teams can manage their VDI deployments, including virtualization, networking, security, and automation, through a single, unified control plane – Nutanix Prism Central. This, combined with Horizon's robust application delivery capabilities, including Omnissa App Volumes, significantly streamlines VDI operations, reducing time and cost.
Enhanced Performance and Resiliency: Nutanix's web-scale architecture is designed for high availability and robust performance, ensuring a consistent and reliable experience for end-users, even at scale.
Cost-Effectiveness: The ability to run Horizon on Nutanix AHV can lead to potential cost savings by eliminating the need for separate hypervisor licenses often associated with other virtualization platforms.
A True Hybrid Multicloud Experience: This is where the power of Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) comes into sharp focus.
How Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) Supercharges the Partnership
Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) is a game-changing technology that allows organizations to extend their Nutanix environment to public clouds like AWS, Microsoft Azure, and (in preview) Google Cloud. NC2 enables customers to run their Nutanix software stack, including AHV, directly on bare-metal instances in the public cloud, managed as a single, seamless cloud.
Here’s how NC2 amplifies the benefits of the Nutanix-Omnissa partnership for EUC:
Seamless Workload Mobility: NC2 allows organizations to move their VDI workloads (Omnissa Horizon desktops and apps) between their on-premises Nutanix clusters and public cloud environments with ease, without the need for re-architecting applications or desktops. This "lift and shift" capability is invaluable for migrating, expanding, or bursting VDI capacity.
Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity: NC2 provides a straightforward and efficient solution for disaster recovery. Organizations can replicate their on-premises Horizon deployments to a Nutanix cluster running in the public cloud via NC2, ensuring business continuity in the event of an outage. On-demand cloud resources mean you only pay for what you need during a DR event.
On-Demand Elasticity for VDI: Seasonal peaks, new projects, or mergers and acquisitions can create sudden demands for VDI resources. NC2 allows businesses to quickly scale their Horizon environments up or down by leveraging public cloud capacity, optimizing costs and ensuring that users always have the resources they need.
Consistent Management Across Clouds: With NC2, the same Nutanix management tools and operational practices used on-premises extend to the public cloud. This means IT teams don't need to learn new skillsets or manage disparate infrastructure silos, simplifying hybrid cloud VDI operations significantly.
Geo-Expansion and Global Reach: For organizations with a global workforce, NC2 facilitates the deployment of Horizon VDI in public cloud regions closer to their users, improving performance and user experience.
A Partnership for the Future of Work
The collaboration between Nutanix and Omnissa, supercharged by Nutanix Cloud Clusters, addresses key challenges faced by organizations in the evolving EUC landscape. It offers a compelling combination of choice, simplicity, performance, and true hybrid multicloud flexibility.
As businesses continue to embrace hybrid work and seek more agile and cost-effective IT solutions, this partnership provides a clear path forward. It empowers organizations to modernize their end-user computing infrastructure, deliver exceptional user experiences, and confidently navigate their cloud journey. The message is clear: the future of VDI is flexible, hybrid, and customer-centric, and Nutanix and Omnissa are at the forefront of this evolution.