Nutanix Data Architecture and Safety

In this presentation at AI Field Day 7, Manoj Naik from Nutanix outlined the underlying architecture of Nutanix’s unified data platform, which is designed to support next-generation AI workloads with high performance, security, and scalability. He began by analyzing traditional enterprise storage architectures—shared everything and shared nothing—and explained their inherent trade-offs. To overcome these limitations, Nutanix introduced a “shared flexible” architecture, combining the global accessibility of shared everything with the linear scalability of shared nothing. This allows for disaggregated yet cohesive compute and storage capabilities within a single cluster, enabling organizations to scale their infrastructure flexibly and efficiently.

Naik emphasized that the Nutanix platform is built around a data-first architecture, capable of handling the entire AI lifecycle from edge to core to cloud. It supports diverse protocols (NFS, SMB, S3) and applies smart data placement strategies through fine-grained metadata, intelligent caching, and protocol enhancements like SMB referrals and NFS v4. As data flows through the AI lifecycle, Nutanix ensures consistent operations and flexible mobility via replication, cloud integration, and unified control through Prism Central. The ability to scale both capacity and performance seamlessly—from single-node clusters to multi-petabyte, multi-cluster environments—positions Nutanix as a robust storage solution for AI pipelines and large-scale data lake infrastructures.

To validate its performance claims, Nutanix participated in ML Commons’ MLPerf Storage benchmarks, which simulate real-world AI workloads. Improved architectural paths, such as end-to-end RDMA, fast-path data transfers, and utilization of advanced features like SR-IOV, have allowed Nutanix to double performance while using half the hardware. Alongside performance, the platform includes comprehensive data protection features like snapshots, synchronous Metro replication, asynchronous DR, object locking, and integration with cloud object storage. This ensures both data resilience and compliance across deployment environments. Nutanix’s continued investment in performance optimization and robust data governance makes it well-suited for the demands of modern AI infrastructure.