Nutanix and Pure Storage announced the general availability of their previously announced integrated solution combining Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure with Pure Storage FlashArray. The partnership addresses growing market pressure around VMware licensing costs and vendor consolidation following Broadcom’s acquisition.

The solution provides VM-level storage services by mapping each Nutanix vDisk to a dedicated FlashArray volume, enabling granular snapshots, QoS policies, and data protection at the virtual disk level.

Technical Details

The Nutanix-Pure Storage integration creates a disaggregated infrastructure architecture where compute and storage resources operate independently while maintaining tight operational integration. The technical implementation centers on direct volume mapping and unified management through the Nutanix control plane.

Core Elements

The solution’s technical foundation rests on several key architectural elements:

• Per-VM Storage Granularity: Each Nutanix vDisk maps to a dedicated FlashArray volume, enabling array-level services at virtual disk granularity rather than datastore-level operations. This allows administrators to apply specific snapshots, QoS policies, and protection schedules to individual virtual disks without affecting neighboring VMs sharing the same infrastructure.
• Prism Integration: Pure Storage integrates directly into the Nutanix Prism control plane, providing unified management for both compute and storage operations, allowing Day 0 through Day 2 operations from a single interface.
• Evergreen Architecture: Pure Storage’s Evergreen architecture enables non-disruptive upgrades and zero-downtime operations. The platform’s modular design allows hardware refreshes without data migration or service interruption.

Storage Platform

Pure Storage FlashArray brings specific technical capabilities to the integrated solution:

• Data Efficiency Technologies: The platform implements always-on global compression and deduplication across all data. Pure Storage claims this approach delivers industry-leading data efficiency requiring significantly less physical hardware than competitive solutions.
• NVMe Architecture: FlashArray’s modular NVMe design provides the underlying storage fabric, with sub-millisecond latency across all workloads.
• Capacity Scaling: The platform scales using DirectFlash Modules to multiple petabytes of effective capacity, allowing higher effective capacity with fewer physical devices compared to alternatives.
• Availability/Reliability: Pure Storage states FlashArray delivers six-nines (99.9999%) availability even during in-place upgrades.

Pure also provides several data protection mechanisms:

• Current Capabilities: The integration currently supports asynchronous replication between FlashArray systems for disaster recovery scenarios. The VM-level snapshot capability integrated into Prism allows administrators to create point-in-time copies aligned with virtual machine boundaries.
• Roadmap Features: Pure Storage indicates future support for ActiveDR and ActiveCluster capabilities for enhanced business continuity.

Nutanix Platform Components

The Nutanix side of the solution contributes several technical elements:

• AHV Hypervisor: Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure includes the AHV hypervisor as a built-in component, eliminating third-party virtualization licensing costs.
• Networking and Security: Nutanix Flow provides policy-driven micro-segmentation and virtual networking capabilities, offering granular control over east-west traffic between VMs.
• Hybrid Cloud Extensions: Nutanix Cloud Clusters extend the platform into public cloud environments.

Analysis

The Nutanix-Pure Storage partnership (and Nutanix’s overall effort to support external storage) is a direct response to market turbulence created by Broadcom’s VMware acquisition and subsequent licensing changes. The solution provides a technically credible alternative for organizations seeking to exit or reduce VMware dependencies while maintaining enterprise-grade virtualization capabilities.

The architecture can provide legitimate advantages in specific scenarios. Organizations with high-performance storage requirements, large-scale VM deployments, or existing Pure Storage investments may find compelling value in the granular storage services and unified management interface. The per-VM volume mapping enables more precise control over storage policies than traditional datastore-based approaches, improving operational flexibility for environments with diverse workload requirements.

The partnership enters a crowded market where multiple vendors are pursuing VMware refugees with competing value propositions. Enterprises evaluating this solution should conduct thorough cost modeling including multi-year TCO projections, validate specific performance and availability claims through proof-of-concept testing with their actual workloads, and assess whether their IT teams possess the skills and operational processes needed to manage disaggregated infrastructure effectively.

For technology decision-makers facing immediate pressure to address VMware licensing costs, the Nutanix-Pure Storage solution merits serious consideration as part of a broader vendor evaluation. The combination of proven enterprise storage technology from Pure Storage and Nutanix’s established virtualization platform creates a partnership with genuine technical credibility, offering organizations a viable path to modernize their infrastructure while potentially reducing vendor lock-in and gaining more granular control over their storage services for business-critical workloads.

Competitive Outlook & Advice to IT Buyers

This isn’t Nutanix’s first integration with external storage (though Pure will emphasize that it’s Nutanix’s first integration with a dedicated external storage device), but rather follows its integration with Dell PowerFlex.

The joint Pure Storage/Nutanix solution competes against this Dell/Nutanix solution, and also against VMware-based solutions.

Let’s look at how Pure and Nutanix stack up…

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