“There’s a lot of interest in Nutanix and PowerStore together as an option going forward,” said PTP CEO Ethan Simmons. “This continues to open up options for customers as they navigate through the VMware migration process.”
Dell Technologies’ just released PowerStore storage support for Nutanix Cloud platform 7.6 deployed and managed by Dell Private Cloud provides customers grappling with VMware by Broadcom price increases a more robust alternative, partners told CRN.
Ethan Simmons, CEO of Norwood, Mass.-based life sciences solution provider PTP, said the new PowerStore-Nutanix functionality makes Nutanix more appealing as an alternative to VMware by Broadcom in the wake of significant VMware price increases.
“As a VMware migration strategy we are seeing a lot of interest in Nutanix,” said Simmons (pictured above). “There’s a lot of interest in Nutanix and PowerStore together as an option going forward. This continues to open up options for customers as they navigate through the VMware migration process.”
Since Dell sold VMware to Broadcom for $69 billion in November 2023, customers have been hit by dramatic price increases, in some cases by as much as two to four times when renewing licensing.
Simmons said over three decades he has never seen a “pivot” the likes of which VMware by Broadcom has made with regard to its go-to-market strategy causing “so much stress” within their customer base.
“It is going to be amazing to see how things shake out and see what customers stay and what customers go,” he said, noting that the shift has caused a “lot of sleepless nights” for customers.
VMware by Broadcom declined to comment.
PowerStore, Dell’s flagship enterprise storage array which recently completed its eighth consecutive quarter of double-digit sales growth, has an installed base of 20,000 customers globally.
What’s more, Dell’s PowerStore Elite product, which features a six-to-one data reduction guarantee, just began shipping on July 22.
Dell has been providing PowerFlex scale-out storage support for the Nutanix Cloud Platform since last April.
Nutanix has been a big beneficiary of customers looking to stay on premise rather than moving to a hyperscaler cloud provider, partners told CRN.
Partners said the Nutanix-Dell partnership has been well received by customers especially in the wake of hardware constraints sparked by memory shortages.
Dell and Nutanix announced the new PowerStore functionality in a blog post by Dell Technologies Vice President Drew Schulke and Nutanix Vice President of Product Management Ketan Shah.
Dell said its private cloud offering “delivers automated deployment, NVMe all-flash performance, and independent scaling for Nutanix Cloud Platform on Dell PowerStore.”
Dell is in the midst of a massive VxRail VMware refresh campaign, providing sales incentives to get partners to swap out its Dell VxRail VMware offering to Dell private cloud.
Among the investments Dell has made in the VxRail upgrade program are a try-and-buy program, migration services, no-cost training and financial services aimed at helping partners close deals.
Nutanix, for its part, said PowerStore on Nutanix “delivers a flexible foundation that enables customers to evolve beyond legacy virtualization architecture without sacrificing enterprise capabilities.”
Bob Venero, founder and CEO of Future Tech Enterprise, Fort Lauderdale, Fla., a Dell Titanium and a Nutanix partner, said he expects the new PowerStore functionality to help scale Future Tech’s Nutanix business.
“This is a great add-on for Nutanix,” he said. “We expect it to benefit Future Tech and our customers. It’s very important from a Nutanix growth perspective that they are better aligned with Dell which has one of the largest storage footprints in the market. This makes it easier for customers to integrate Dell and Nutanix.”
For Dell, the PowerStore functionality with Nutanix shows that it is providing “flexibility” for multiple options within their VxRail installed base, said Venero, offering customers options like Nutanix, Microsoft and Red Hat.
“Dell is providing an agnostic approach within an ecosystem of partners like Nutanix,” said Venero. “When you add Nutanix to Dell, one plus one equals three. It’s a better equation. For the partner community it allows us to provide more options to our customers.”
That ability to provide customers with different options is key in a market being rattled by “product constraints and price increases,” said Venero.
“Dell is very smart right now in terms of how they are driving a strategy that allows customers to make decisions around what hypervisor they want to use,” he said. “Dell makes great storage products and now that great storage is enhanced with great applications that drives it into multiple markets rather than being siloed on a single offering.”
C.R. Howdyshell, CEO of Independence, Ohio-based Advizex, a Myriad360 company, said he sees the Dell PowerStore-Nutanix partnership as a “win-win” for both companies and customers.
“This is a win for Nutanix and Dell,” said Howdyshell. “Both are getting extended reach into different customers that they may not have had before. These are very complementary technologies. This provides customers with more options. The number one thing customers are asking for is different options. Customers don’t want limited options. PowerStore is one of Dell’s go-to storage products. The winner is customers who now have access to the best storage in the market.”
