1. The Enterprise Cloud Company
Senior Systems Engineer
Nutanix, Sweden

2. B&O H7 Headphones
I need your business card (or address on a piece of paper)
All names go into a hat
Draw will take place in here immediately after lunch

3. Nutanix – The what, the how and the why?
The next 40 minutes.
3 Marketing Slides.
Nutanix – The what, the how and the why?
Nutanix Use Cases – Especially Citrix.

4. Nutanix: The Enterprise Cloud Company.
Make datacenter infrastructure invisible, allowing IT to focus on applications and services
3,750+ customers
Over 80 countries
6 continents
Founded in 2009
2000+ employees

5. The cloud era is well underway.
“I deployed my application in five minutes.”
Rapid Time to Market
“I use and pay for just what I need only when I need it.”
Fractional IT Consumption
Businesses want IT capabilities that will allow them to test new business models and roll out new services quickly
Cloud services, both public and private, offer enterprises a new consumption model for IT resources
Businesses are able to buy and use just the resources they need and only when needed.
They are able to spin up infrastructure and platform resources on demand with a single click to build, test and deploy applications. Building blocks such as databases, analytics platforms, and message queues are available to build new applications with zero wait time. This drastically cuts down on the time to build and roll out applications
With the cloud, IT admins don’t have to spend time deploying, managing and refreshing infrastructure hardware and software
The cloud offers new capabilities and features at a regular cadence
“No more time spent on low-level infrastructure management.”
One-Click Simplicity
“New capabilities are available on a regular basis.”
Continuous Innovation

6. So why not just use “The Cloud” for all workloads?
Elastic Workloads
25%
Predictable Workloads
Public Cloud
Use as needed
Unpredictable
75%
Public clouds are great for applications and workloads that have unpredictable or variable demands.
launches a new online/mobile app (e.g., new online shopping experience, checking scanning app from a bank),
the demand for the app or service is not well understood initially. In this case, public cloud allows businesses to ramp up resources for the app depending on demand.
However, as the demand for the app becomes more stable/predictable, it is more economical to deploy on prem. Another example is applications such as month-end payroll systems or online shopping portals that have highly variable/seasonal demands with peak demands that are several times the average. This is why when NASA kicked off the Mars Exploration Rover mission, the event telecast was done on the cloud because the demand was unpredictable and highly elastic (a one time event)
By not tying up idle infrastructure when not needed, businesses can save costs. But for more predictable or stable workloads, which is a majority of enterprise applications, public cloud services can be considerably more expensive than on-premises infrastructure
Businesses want to balance owning and renting, choosing between private and public infrastructure depending on application workload characteristics. There are situations where it makes sense to rent, and others where owning is better economically
If you’re going to a new city, e.g., Miami or New York and will be there for a week, you will look for a hotel or AirBnB. If you’re going to stay for 6 months, you’ll try to rent a place. But if you’re going to stay there for 3 years, it probably makes sense to buy a place and sell it later when you move
Private Cloud
Enterprise workloads
Understood
You need to balance between Owning and Renting for today’s Enterprise Workloads

7. The What, the How and the Why.

8. Nutanix. The What.
Virtualization Layer (ESXi, HyperV, XenServer or AHV)
Application Layer
Application Layer
Virtualization Layer (ESXi, HyperV, XenServer or AHV)
Storage Controllers
Scale-out Servers
Storage Network

9. Nutanix. The how.
Allows you to balance between owning and renting your enterprise workloads
Converged compute and storage.
Extreme scale-out.
Built-in virtualization and management.
Built on Web-Scale technologies.
Application Layer

10. Nutanix. The why. Rich automation and analytics
All intelligence in software
Scale-out architecture
Purpose of the Slide:
Talk about where and how web-scale IT originated, and what some of the common are between different web-scale data centers. Web-scale data centers embody many of the principals of invisible infrastructure, and serve as the inspiration for Nutanix enterprise computing solutions.
Main Points:
Web companies like Google and Facebook started pushing the limits of existing infrastructure systems and processes in ways that traditional businesses did not. They needed infrastructure that could support their business requirements (rapid application development cycles, scale on demand, cost containment). They tried using existing infrastructure solutions, but quickly realized that legacy infra was a poor fit for their needs.
Over time, these companies developed an alternate approach to IT that enabled them to get past limitations in infrastructure. Some common traits of web-scale IT:
Infrastructure built from commodity server hardware pooled together using intelligent software. This allows customers to start small and scale one server at a time – true scale-out
The software in the system is distributed across all the nodes. You don’t have central metadata servers or name nodes. You don’t see controller bottlenecks
Embarrassingly parallel operations – everything in the system, including storage functions like deduplication and metadata management and system cleanup, is distributed across all nodes. There are no hotspots or bottlenecks, allowing for massive scale
Compute and storage sit very close to each other. Data does not have to go back and forth between storage and compute over a network. Data has gravity, so co-locating storage and compute eliminates network bottlenecks and system slowdown
Heavy automation eliminates the need for expensive, error-prone manual operations
Nutanix solutions are built using the same architectures and technologies as the most innovative cloud and internet companies, such as Facebook, Google and Amazon
These companies innovated an alternate approach to infrastructure, what we now call web-scale IT
Web-scale IT is based on a new set of principles:
Commodity x86 servers for compute and storage
All intelligence in software
Scale-out architecture
Self healing systems
Rich automation and analytics
Self healing systems
X86
Commodity x86 servers for compute and storage

11. High Density Virtualization with standard x86
Compute (per block)
Up to 4 independent compute nodes
Up to 144 cores (dual Intel Broadwell)
Up to 4 TB RAM
Up to 40 Gbit Ethernet (quad 10 Gbit)
Nodes
Storage (per block)
Hybrid or All Flash
Up to 8*6 TB HDD & 8*1.9 TB SSD Up to 24*3.8 TB SSDs (All Flash) Up to 4 virtualized storage controllers
Dual redundancy in hardware Fans Power supply Memory
Blocks
Multiple nodes create clusters

12. Nutanix Prism Nutanix Acropolis The Nutanix Solution Simple Scalable
Comprehensive management solution
Radically simplifies datacenter storage and virtualization operations
The Nutanix Solution
Operational Insights
Infrastructure Management
Remediation
Nutanix Prism
Simple
Scalable
Secure
Enterprise
Storage
Virtualization
Security
Infrastructure Resilience
Data
Protection
Nutanix Acropolis
Now, let’s talk about the actual products that Nutanix offers. There are two foundational products in the Nutanix solution -  Nutanix Acropolis, and Nutanix Prism. 
Acropolis is the data fabric that natively converges compute, storage and virtualization to run any application at any scale. 
Nutanix Acropolis combines feature-rich software-defined storage, compute and built-in virtualization into a turnkey hyperconverged infrastructure solution that can run any application at any scale. 
Acropolis provides a rich set of capabilities without the need for traditional SAN and NAS solutions. 
A robust system design allows for rapid fault detection, isolation and recovery to provide always-on operation. The system provides integrated, affordable data protection and continuous availability to meet the needs of a wide range of applications.
Powerful built-in virtualization radically simplifies the infrastructure stack and eliminates the need to deploy and manage a separate virtualization solution.
Security is deeply ingrained in the Nutanix culture and product development methodology from the top down. Security hardening and validation are incorporated into the software development lifecycle right from the start, and a rich set of features make the platform ready for the most security-conscious enterprise environments.
Prism is the control plane that simplifies datacenter operations by providing a single pane of glass to manage compute, storage and virtualization and offering rich automation and operational insights.
Nutanix Prism gives administrators a simple and elegant way to manage virtual environments. Prism uses powerful data analytics and heuristics to simplify and streamline common workflows within a datacenter, eliminating the need to have disparate management solutions.
With Prism, admins can centrally manage their entire infrastructure stack all the way from physical clusters and storage up to virtual machines.
Prism provides features that deliver rich insights about day-to-day operations of the datacenter. For example, customizable operations dashboards give at-a-glance summary of application and infrastructure state. Administrators can also make use of predictive analysis of capacity usage and trends based on application behavior.
Turnkey infrastructure platform
Converges compute, storage and virtualization
Runs any application, at any scale

13. High Level Architecture
Nutanix Controller VM (runs on every node)
CVM VM
Hypervisor
Node 1
X86 VM
Hypervisor
Node 2
X86 VM
Hypervisor
Node 3
X86 VM
Hypervisor
Node x
X86
CVM
CVM
CVM
Let’s take a look at the Nutanix architecture. The Nutanix solution is deployed as a cluster of servers or nodes — starting with at least three. Each node has CPU, memory, flash storage and hard disk drives, and has a hypervisor pre-installed. You can change the hypervisor if you want to ESXi or Hyper-V
The nodes are connected to each other over a 10 Gig Ethernet switch - any standard switch will do. The Nutanix software runs in a user-mode VM called the controller VM on each node in this cluster. The Controller VMs or CVMs talk to each other and create a single storage pool using the storage drives on all the nodes in the cluster. This is called the Distributed Storage Fabric or DSF.
DSF distributes data and metadata across all the nodes in the cluster, and provides enterprise storage features such as deduplication, compression, cloning, tiering and resilience in a truly distributed way with no single points of failure or hotspots in the cluster. This scale-out architecture allows you to grow the cluster by adding nodes when needed without limits. You get linear predictable performance and capacity increases as the cluster grows.
The Nutanix solution delivers data locality to provide the best VM and cluster performance. All I/O requests from a VM are handled by the local controller VM on that node. When a VM writes data, one copy of the data is always written to the local node. That way, read requests can be handled immediately using data on the same node without going over the network. If the VM moves to a different node, then over time the data also migrates to the remote node to restore locality.
The Nutanix solution is 100% software-defined and doesn’t rely on custom hardware for any capabilities. Current Nutanix customers can get the benefits of software innovation by installing the latest software release with a single click
Remember to:
Talk about our web-scale engineering: When Nutanix set out to solve the problem of legacy infrastructure, we looked at how companies like Facebook, Google and Amazon solved the problem in their datacenters. These companies started pushing the limits of their infrastructure in ways that traditional businesses did not. They ran into the limitations of legacy infrastructure architectures. They hired systems engineers and PhDs to come up with a new approach to infrastructure and IT operations, what we now call web-scale IT that is built around a fundamentally different architecture. Nutanix brings the power of web-scale to enterprise infrastructure. The Nutanix solution is built from the ground up using the same web-scale technologies and architectures and is engineered to meet the needs of enterprise environments. So customers get the benefits of web-scale architectures without having to build their own web-scale infrastructure solutions to run enterprise applications.
Use the whiteboard if appropriate to talk about the system architecture. This is a good slide to talk about our technology and how hyperconverged systems are fundamentally different from vBlock style architectures
Distributed Storage Fabric – Single Pool, Hot & Cold Tiering
Distributed Storage Fabric – Single Pool, Hot & Cold Tiering
Compression
Deduplication
Locality
Tiering
Snapshots
Erasure Coding
Clones
Resilience

14. Anatomy of a Write I/O Performance and availability Node Node Node
Guest VM
Controller VM
Controller VM
Controller VM
Hypervisor
Hypervisor
Hypervisor
Storage
Storage
Storage
Performance and availability
Data is written locally
Replicated on other nodes for high availability
Replicas are spread across cluster for high performance

15. Anatomy of a Read I/O Performance and availability Node Node Node
Guest VM
Controller VM
Controller VM
Controller VM
Hypervisor
Hypervisor
Hypervisor
Storage
Storage
Storage
Performance and availability
Data is read locally
Remote access only if data is not locally present

16. vMotion/DRS or Live Migration
Node
Node
Node
Guest VM
Controller VM
Controller VM
Controller VM
Hypervisor
Hypervisor
Hypervisor
Storage
Storage
Storage
Seamless VM Migration
Metadata service can access data from anywhere
Locality improves over time

17. A few of the many features

18. Use Cases. Especially Citrix.

19. Why is Citrix on Nutanix a perfect match?

20. XenDesktop 5 (FMA) – Architecture Overview
NOTE: Greatly Simplified Communication
XenDesktop 5 (FMA) – Architecture Overview
Desktop Studio
Desktop Director
PowerShell
WCF
XenDesktop Controller
Machine Creation
Service
Host Service
AD Identity Service
Machine Identity Service
Broker Service
Configuration
Service
Virtual Desktop
Machine Creation
Services
Broker
Services
Infrastructure
Services
SQL Instance

21. Machine Creation Services
Hypervisor
Admin selects “Golden Master Image”, this is copied as Full Clone and becomes the “Golden Master VM Image” (QD Base Disk) 1 2 3 4
Admin Provisions ‘x’ VM’s
MCS creates an ID Disk and a Difference Disk and attaches them to each VM
Storage ID
Quick Deploy uses Machine Creation Services to create pooled or assigned desktops. A copy is made of the designated master vm (removes snapshots) and then creates thin clones with a difference disk for each instance. Also an identity disk is created for each and AD accounts.
See the section on Machine Creation Services for more details. ID ID ID
MCS Powers up the VM, obtains Identity from the ID Disk
DIFF
DIFF
DIFF
DIFF
OS Reads come from the Base
Golden Master VM Image (BASE)
Golden Master Image
OS Writes go to the Diff Disk

22. Benefits Nutanix Controller VM (runs on every node)
CVM VM
Hypervisor
Node 1
X86 VM
Hypervisor
Node 2
X86 VM
Hypervisor
Node 3
X86 VM
Hypervisor
Node x
X86
CVM
CVM
CVM
Let’s take a look at the Nutanix architecture. The Nutanix solution is deployed as a cluster of servers or nodes — starting with at least three. Each node has CPU, memory, flash storage and hard disk drives, and has a hypervisor pre-installed. You can change the hypervisor if you want to ESXi or Hyper-V
The nodes are connected to each other over a 10 Gig Ethernet switch - any standard switch will do. The Nutanix software runs in a user-mode VM called the controller VM on each node in this cluster. The Controller VMs or CVMs talk to each other and create a single storage pool using the storage drives on all the nodes in the cluster. This is called the Distributed Storage Fabric or DSF.
DSF distributes data and metadata across all the nodes in the cluster, and provides enterprise storage features such as deduplication, compression, cloning, tiering and resilience in a truly distributed way with no single points of failure or hotspots in the cluster. This scale-out architecture allows you to grow the cluster by adding nodes when needed without limits. You get linear predictable performance and capacity increases as the cluster grows.
The Nutanix solution delivers data locality to provide the best VM and cluster performance. All I/O requests from a VM are handled by the local controller VM on that node. When a VM writes data, one copy of the data is always written to the local node. That way, read requests can be handled immediately using data on the same node without going over the network. If the VM moves to a different node, then over time the data also migrates to the remote node to restore locality.
The Nutanix solution is 100% software-defined and doesn’t rely on custom hardware for any capabilities. Current Nutanix customers can get the benefits of software innovation by installing the latest software release with a single click
Remember to:
Talk about our web-scale engineering: When Nutanix set out to solve the problem of legacy infrastructure, we looked at how companies like Facebook, Google and Amazon solved the problem in their datacenters. These companies started pushing the limits of their infrastructure in ways that traditional businesses did not. They ran into the limitations of legacy infrastructure architectures. They hired systems engineers and PhDs to come up with a new approach to infrastructure and IT operations, what we now call web-scale IT that is built around a fundamentally different architecture. Nutanix brings the power of web-scale to enterprise infrastructure. The Nutanix solution is built from the ground up using the same web-scale technologies and architectures and is engineered to meet the needs of enterprise environments. So customers get the benefits of web-scale architectures without having to build their own web-scale infrastructure solutions to run enterprise applications.
Use the whiteboard if appropriate to talk about the system architecture. This is a good slide to talk about our technology and how hyperconverged systems are fundamentally different from vBlock style architectures
Distributed Storage Fabric – Single Pool, Hot & Cold Tiering
No multiple image copies = Faster deployment.
No Multiple datastores = Easier Management.
No I/O hotspots = Increased Performance

23. Wrap up, Summary & Demo

24. The what, the how and the why? Use Cases – Especially Citrix.
Summary.
Marketing Story.
The what, the how and the why?
Use Cases – Especially Citrix.