NetApp ties with Nutanix

NetApp and Nutanix said on April 7 they will link NetApp’s ONTAP storage software with the Nutanix Cloud Platform, giving Nutanix customers an external storage option later in 2026. (netapp.com) The announcement came at Nutanix’s.NEXT conference in Chicago. The companies said the integration will work with Nutanix’s Acropolis Hypervisor, the virtualization layer known as Acropolis Hypervisor, or AHV, and is aimed at on-premises, cloud, and containerized workloads. (nutanix.com) In plain terms, Nutanix sells the software that runs virtual machines, while NetApp sells the storage system that holds the data those machines use. The new setup lets customers pair Nutanix compute with NetApp storage instead of buying both pieces from the same stack. (netapp.com) NetApp said this is the first time ONTAP will serve as external storage for Nutanix environments. Nutanix said the product is designed to let customers scale compute and storage separately and keep using existing storage investments. (netapp.com) (nutanix.com) The timing lands in the middle of a broad virtualization reset after Broadcom closed its VMware acquisition in November 2023 and shifted VMware to subscription bundles. Since then, Nutanix has been pitching itself as a VMware alternative for companies reassessing costs and architecture. (broadcom.com) (crn.com) Nutanix used.NEXT 2026 to frame that pitch more directly. In its conference roundup, the company said support for NetApp ONTAP as an external storage option is expected in the second half of 2026 as part of broader efforts to help customers modernize virtual machines and containers. (nutanix.com) The companies are also extending the tie-up beyond virtual machines. NetApp said future work is planned around NetApp cloud storage services with Nutanix Cloud Platform and deeper ONTAP integration with Nutanix Kubernetes Platform, Nutanix’s software for managing containerized applications. (netapp.com) That marks a technical shift for NetApp as well. A NetApp knowledge-base article says ONTAP Select, a software-defined version of ONTAP, was not supported on Nutanix’s hypervisor because AHV lacked required code, while the new alliance instead connects NetApp enterprise storage systems to Nutanix from the outside. (kb.netapp.com) For customers, the immediate offer is not a full merger of the two product lines but a packaged way to buy virtualization from Nutanix and data services from NetApp. The next test is delivery: both companies say the integration is due later this year. (netapp.com)