NCP-MCI-5.15 learn - Nutanix Certified Professional Multicloud Infrastructure (v5.15) Updated: 2023

Hybrid and multicloud are terms we hear a lot about, but what do they mean for Australia’s IT and digital leaders tasked with developing new products with limited infrastructure resources?

To see how hybrid multicloud strategies can support your business better, Nutanix is inviting you to the Australian launch of Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) on Azure this month in Sydney.

Join us to learn how NC2, with its native Microsoft Azure integration, takes the complexity out of hybrid multicloud, and facilitates a new era in infrastructure working for the business.

Hybrid multicloud has never been more important to digital strategies and now is the time to take a fresh look at the promise of cloud computing.

Not all smooth sailing

For more than a decade, many Australian companies have been in a virtual race to put all their infrastructure and workloads into public clouds. However, some organisations have also hit roadblocks with the amount they could comfortably migrate for the expected cost and performance outcomes.

Cloud might not have been the best fit for some applications, which has led to cost blow outs, and going any further with the migration became too expensive. Expenses arose due to refactoring and rearchitecting of core applications involved, and the fact there is no one-size-fits-all in the cloud.

On the other hand, IT leaders know if their environment has too much legacy on-premises infrastructure, they risk losing access to advanced features being developed in the cloud.

As data grows exponentially and intensive applications with AI capabilities take hold, if you don’t apply a flexible framework to the cloud, costs can soar.

Being able to seamlessly choose the right cloud for the right workload is the way of the future.

From hybrid to multicloud: What is the reality?

Regarding hybrid multicloud, digital leaders understand the promise, but what is the reality?

Without the right technology and approach, hybrid multicloud is difficult to tackle. There is a point at which migrations slow down due to complexity, leading to operational issues and cost increases thanks to duplication of effort and resources.

To Excellerate the ROI and TCO for cloud, meaningful decommission needs to occur, which involves moving off services (on-premises or cloud) which no longer deliver value to the business.

Hybrid multicloud strategies are the way forward, but there remain many uncertainties about how to get there; what data and applications should sit where and for how long; and where organisations should focus their investments.

If you have multiple public clouds without a system in place to make your data interoperable between different clouds, you risk losing the benefits of workload portability. With dynamic placement of workloads, for on-prem and cloud, as part of your cloud strategy, you have a solid business case to move forward.

It is time for a more holistic approach to hybrid multicloud, and one that does not involve a wholesale transformation program.

See how NC2 on Azure is defining a multicloud future

Hybrid multicloud is a challenge, but there are now specialised solutions, like NC2 on Azure, which are designed for this modern architecture and take away the uncertainty of multicloud to deliver better value sooner.

NC2 on Azure gives Australian organisations a smooth on-ramp to Azure with consistent management of apps and data across their hybrid multicloud environment.

It is a hyperconverged infrastructure, and unified management, spanning private and public cloud environments to accelerate hybrid multicloud. You can deploy and manage workloads in your own Azure account and keep the operating model simple and consistent between Azure and on-premises.

“With NC2 on Azure, organisations can sew freedom of choice into their cloud investments, while maximising cost efficiencies on existing Azure licenses for deployment,” Michael Car, head of hybrid multicloud Asia Pacific and Japan at Nutanix said. 

Please join Michael and the Nutanix and Microsoft teams for lunch to learn more about NC2 on Azure. At the event attendees will gain exclusive insights into the Nutanix and Microsoft alliance; how to optimise current investments and achieve cost efficiencies; and unlock the potential of Nutanix resources in Azure.

Delegates will also get best practice advice to meaningful decommission, where reducing on-premises spend helps achieve cloud’s TCO and ROI promise; dynamic workload placement between edge, private data centre, and public cloud without transformation; and mass workload migration without transformation or IP changes.

Organisations need to shift from seeing cloud as a destination, and rather a tool to securely reach economic nirvana. Start applying cloud benefits to workloads previously thought unsuitable for cloud native services with NC2 on Azure.

EVENT DETAILS

Date: November 23, 2023 | Thursday

Time: 12:30 PM–2:30 PM AEDT

Venue: Quay Restaurant

Upper Level Overseas Passenger Terminal

The Rocks

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I spoke with Lee Caswell, SVP of Product and Solutions Marketing at Nutanix, about how AI can enable new levels of application portability in a distributed computing environment.

Below are some of the key quotes from the interview:

Scroll down for a video and a podcast version of the interview.

On Large Language Models and the Cloud:

“What we’re finding is there’s actually relatively few companies that can afford to build what we call large language models. Those are naturally suited for the public cloud, right? 180 billion parameters for example, and hordes of data scientists.

“Not every company can afford that, but those large language models are now being made available to enterprises across the world. And now those enterprises want to go and do two things. They want to basically customize them, introduce their own domain expertise so it’s specific to their industry. So that’s a tuning model. They also want to make sure their data is protected and that their data is now a core asset. And so that model all of a sudden looks like, ‘Hey, I’m going to go and customize that data probably in a data center some place.’

“And then finally I want to go and run what we call inferencing. So there’s a training model and then your inferencing is actually running on the model. And so we’re probably going to run that now closer to where the data is being ingested. So it could be a retail store, for example, where you’re using generative AI to manage theft and shrink, or it could be a manufacturing facility where you’d be looking at how you would do maintenance procedures. So we see this as a natural distributed data problem and a real value for a common cloud platform across those different endpoints.”

Nutanix, the Cloud and AI:

“So the way Nutanix works, our cloud platform software aggregates standard servers together, servers you can add GPUs to, those are all qualified today from all of our major hardware partners and then our software then takes artificial intelligence as the next application.

“Turns out the way our software has been used in the past, virtual desktops was a big landing spot. Then people brought in databases and performing databases, then they brought analytics like Splunk for example, and now the latest application is AI. And so by adding GPUs and helping size and configure what your application would look like, we’re helping customers get started saying AI is the next application you’d run on the Nutanix cloud platform.”

The Future is Multi-cloud: 

“I think everyone is wrestling with predictability and how to forecast the future. It’s an unpredictable world right now, right? Economic changes all over. You’ve got global geopolitical events and you started thinking about skill shortage as well.

“And so customers are looking for how to apply their scarce skills in new creative areas and stop doing things that are actually less value. And so what I see is, going forward, everyone acknowledges this is going to be a multi-cloud world. You’re going to have resources across different clouds. The on-prem data center is not going away and the edge is growing where 50% of data is forecasted to be at the edge.

“So where does it go? I think what happens is you start thinking, how can I get this portability platform in place and tap into the power of servers? So a server-based architecture gives you the flexibility to have the degrees of freedom. [This allows you to have options] over time without locking you into deciding today.”

Listen to the podcast:

Also available on Apple Podcasts

Watch the video:

Credit: Supplied

Datacom has enabled specialist insurance provider, Berkley Insurance Australia (BIA) to transform its IT infrastructure using Nutanix Cloud. 

The project helped BIA step up its infrastructure that supports about 135 underwriters, claims managers, and workforce, while allowing its skilled technical staff to focus on service delivery and cyber security.

BIA and Datacom have maintained a long relationship throughout the years. BIA is a specialist insurance provider, servicing local brokers and their clients, ranging from development of quick quotes, risk submissions, binding policies, and claims support.

“Our relationship with Datacom spans many years. We’ve built a lot of trust over time – the team there understands our desire to constantly refresh and use technology for better user experience and to drive our business forward,” Berkeley Asia Pacific Services IT infrastructure manager Jamie Rojas said. 

The insurer identified the emerging risk of its previous infrastructure, which powered its core underwriting and claims system, not matching future business requirements. Datacom recommended Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure for its management capabilities and resilience while also improving performance.