Publication Date
What’s Next at Nutanix .NEXT 2026
ITI experts attended the 12th annual Nutanix .NEXT conference in Chicago with over 5,000 other participants. Amongst the big themes this year were Agentic AI and Hybrid cloud (Nutanix Cloud Clusters or NC2). Here’s our expert takeaway on the matter.
Zero Data Migration: ESXi to AHV with External Storage
This is big news for organizations running VMware ESXi with external storage, Nutanix showcased zero data migration capabilities, meaning clients can convert from ESXi to AHV without moving their data! The storage stays where it is, and the hypervisor simply changes independent of the data.
This removes one of the largest objections ITI clients using Tier-3 infrastructure have when considering Broadcom alternatives like Nutanix AHV. Combined with ITI’s unique Canadian status of being the only partner with VMware to Nutanix Migration Services Authorization (MOVE), ITI demonstrates derisking hybrid migrations for Broadcom Alternatives.
EXT Storage Goodness for Tier-3 with Nutanix AHV
Building on the Dell PowerFlex and Everpure Storage partnerships announced last year, Nutanix’s external storage support increased with new partnerships.
Not storage related but of note, Cisco IP Telephony VMs are now supported on Nutanix AHV too!
Agentic AI Platform
A large theme at the conference was Nutanix positioning AI as a foundational pillar of their software stack, not just a feature. The Nutanix Agentic AI solution is a full-stack platform designed to help enterprises build, run, and protect agentic AI applications on Nutanix Cloud Platform. It integrates compute, storage, networking, and Kubernetes services with NVIDIA AI Enterprise.
Dual Landing Zones Concept
It was stated by Nutanix that the market has need for virtualization and containerization. As such, they highlighted, through a live demo, having containers and VMs coexist on the same clusters and cloud to improve investment protection for clients.
Our clients are adopting Hybrid infrastructures with increased cloud costs. License portability from on-prem to cloud and especially back is key.
AVD Hybrid: Microsoft + Nerdio + Nutanix
End-user experience got Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) news with announced hybrid integrated solutions with Microsoft, Nerdio, and Nutanix. Nerdio previewed its Manager’s desktop orchestration and management capabilities for the Nutanix Cloud Platform.
This integration enables organizations to run Azure Virtual Desktop in hybrid environments, managing desktop images on Nutanix AHV while leveraging Nerdio Manager and AVD to optimize their VDI environments. AVD Hybrid gives customers the choice to run Azure Virtual Desktop on premises with Nutanix AHV as the underlying virtualization engine combined with software defined storage.
Nutanix and ITI, a lasting partnership
As a 5-time consecutive Nutanix Partner of the Year recipient starting 2014, ITI pioneered Hyper-Converged Infrastructure (HCI) adoption in Canada and have been modernizing data centers for our clients with Nutanix since 2013. ITI maintains Nutanix partner certification of Cloud Champion and are the only certified Nutanix Service Gold Professional Delivery partner in Central & Eastern Canada.
With over 2,200 Nutanix nodes deployed across North America, we transform IT infrastructure into cloud ready platforms. We offer traditional and consumption-based on-premise and hosted IaaS solutions with Nutanix, augmented with ITI professional services and ITI managed services.
