What is nutanix aos, more details about hyper-convergence infrastructure【2024】

Today’s enterprise IT teams are looking for new ways to deliver on-premise IT services, hoping to achieve the speed and efficiency of public cloud services such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure and Google Compute Engine.

Hyper-converged infrastructures take inspiration from the operating models of Internet giants, combining x86-based compute and storage resources with intelligent software to eliminate common pain points associated with traditional infrastructures.

Nutanix (Nutanix aos and Nutanix Prism)offers Web-Scale hyper-converged infrastructure that eliminates the need to purchase separate servers, storage devices and storage networks.

This enables organizations to start up and scale quickly and without disruption, so less time is wasted configuring infrastructure and more time is spent adding value to the business.

The relationship between hyper-convergence infrastructure and virtualization

Hyper-converged infrastructure combines x86-based compute and storage resources with intelligent software to create flexible building blocks to replace traditional infrastructures consisting of independent servers, storage networks, and storage arrays.

Hyper-convergence, known as “hyper-converged infrastructure”, is a software-defined IT infrastructure, and server virtualization is a necessary component of the overall hyper-converged infrastructure, and different hyper-converged vendors have different approaches to server virtualization.

Server virtualization is a necessary component of the overall hyper-converged infrastructure, and different hyper-converged vendors have different support strategies for server virtualization products.

Hyper-converged architectures use server virtualization to deploy storage and compute in a converged manner, and implement storage functionality with commercial servers and Ethernet combined with distributed storage software to streamline the architecture while dramatically improving performance, scalability and resource utilization while streamlining the architecture, reducing O&M difficulties and costs.

Virtualization refers to a resource management technology that abstracts and dynamically allocates computer hard resources (CPU, storage, network, etc.); what we often call “virtualization” (VM) is not just “virtualization technology” but a virtualization platform built on server virtualization software.

We often say “virtualization” (VM) does not only refer to “virtualization technology”, but also based on the server virtualization software virtualization platform, usually combined with a dedicated SAN network and centralized storage deployment, this architecture is called “traditional virtualization” (VM).

Traditional virtualization architectures typically have three tiers, deploying virtualization software on servers and using fiber optic switches and traditional centralized storage disk arrays to provide network and storage capacity.
In this architecture, virtual disks are managed by separate arrays and capacity cannot be shared.

However, he hyper-converged architecture has two important improvements.

First, traditional SAN networks and dedicated centralized storage arrays are removed, and storage is implemented through commercial servers and Ethernet in conjunction with storage software.

This is a software-defined storage based on a distributed architecture that supports elastic capacity expansion while unifying the management of storage resources.

Second, thanks to distributed storage, storage and virtualization software (computing) can be further integrated and deployed, simplifying the IT infrastructure layer from three to two.

This “distributed storage + virtualization integration deployment” is the essence of hyper-convergence, but also hyper-converged architecture and traditional virtualization architecture is the most important difference.

Hyper-convergence of the change is first of all distributed storage on the traditional storage of the people.

The other advantages (e.g., building on x86 servers, concurrency, and ease of scaling) are the result of this generation.

The unique converged deployment model of distributed storage and virtualization further simplifies the user’s IT architecture and reduces the cost of use and the difficulty of operation and maintenance, and these values have greatly accelerated user acceptance of the distributed storage model.

What is Nutanix Solutions?

Nutanix provides an all-in-one solution based on physical infrastructure at the hardware level (Nutanix hyperconverged servers) and virtual infrastructure at the software level (Nutanix AHV virtualization).

Nutanix AHV virtualization is an all-in-one solution that supports multiple virtualization platforms from the hardware-level converged compute, network, and storage layers to the software level.

Nutanix enables convergence across the entire data center stack, including compute, storage, storage networking and virtualization.

Replacing complex and expensive legacy infrastructure with simple 2U appliances helps organizations start small and scale up: one node at a time.

Each server, also known as a node, is equipped with Intel-core x86 hardware, as well as flash solid state drives (SSDs) and mechanical hard disks (HDDs).

Nutanix software running on each node distributes all operational functions across the cluster for superior performance and flexibility.

The Nutanix is a 2×86 server that supports one to eight nodes, so-called nodes, in a 2 chassis.

Each Nutanix server contains CPU, memory, networking, SSD or flash memory, and HDD storage capabilities.

The Nutanix storage controller is a virtual machine that runs on each server and converts local storage into shared storage.

All available storage in a complete cluster of Nutanix is provided as a single clerical system called the Nutanix distributed file system [LDFS].

In a Nutanix cluster, all virtual storage controllers are in constant communication with each other, and when a node failure is detected, the cluster takes immediate action to restore the node to the level of protection it had prior to the node failure.
Nutanix moves away from the traditional concepts of RAID groups and LUN and instead implements data protection at the file system level.

This default protection mechanism is called replication factor 2, it means that every block of data is written to at least one other node in the cluster.

If one node fails, the data is made available elsewhere in the cluster, since all available nodes (CPU, memory, SSDs, South EDDs) are used to recover data, rebuilding takes very little time.

Also between 20 devices, the cluster supports unlimited scaling, if I need compute resources, I just need to add a node and then add the node to the cluster.

Adding a node to the cluster is a completely dynamic process, with no need for downtime and can be completed after 2 clicks.

How Nutanix Software is Deployed

The Nutanix cluster is a 100% software-defined cluster.

Each node in the cluster runs a Hypervisor (VMware ESXi, Microsoft Hyper-V, or Nutanix Acropolis Hypervisor).

The Nutanix software running as a virtual machine, called a controller virtual machine (CVM), runs on each node in the cluster.

This approach makes the Nutanix system independent of the Hypervisor, the CVM includes Prism management functionality and Acropolis data plane functionality.

What is nutanix aos?

Nutanix software includes two components: Acropolis (Nutanix Acropoli 0S, nutanix aos)and Prism.

nutanix aos is a distributed data plane that provides enterprise storage and virtualization services to help applications flow seamlessly between Hypervisors and cloud providers, in the future.

Prism is a distributed management plane that uses advanced data analytics and discovery technologies to simplify and optimize common workflows, eliminating the need for separate management solutions for servers, storage networks, storage and virtualization.

Nutanix Acropoli 0S includes three main components

Nutanix Acropolis OS is an option for building hyperconverged systems.

Nutanix AOS differs from other hyperconverged products in two key ways.

Nutanix AOS works with a variety of hypervisors, including VMware ESXi, Microsoft Hyper-V, or AHV.

It is not based on proprietary hardware, and organizations can deploy AOS on standard off-the-shelf server hardware from a variety of vendors.

Nutanix AOS does not rely on shared storage.

Each node within a hyper-converged cluster has its own storage, and nutanix aos combines the storage within each node into a logical pool.

When an administrator deploys an application, the Nutanix software configures it to use the closest storage, that is, storage close to the hypervisor running the application.

Distributed Storage Fabric (DSF)

An application-specific enterprise storage service that eliminates the need for separate solutions from vendors such as NetApp, EMC and HP.

Comprehensive performance acceleration, data compression, data protection and other capabilities.

Full support for VMware® vSphere, Microsoft® Hyper-V and Nutanix Acropolis Hypervisor.

The high-availability architecture supports two types of architectures, including cross-node 3-duplicate mirror replication and Erasure Coding.

It supports a minimum of 3-node slave configuration, and the maximum size of the slave is unlimited.

If the availability requirement is lowered, 1 or 2-node configurations are also available.

Advanced data service features include tiered storage for I/0 acceleration, snapshots, clones, and remote replication for data protection applications, and compression and compression to help reduce storage space.

Acropolis Hypervisor (AHV)

Nutanix Aos Locally Built Virtualization Solution.

AHV is based on the proven Linux KVM Hypervisor, hardened to meet the most stringent enterprise security requirements.

Supports two mainstream Hypervisor platforms, vSphere and Hyper-V, and includes Nutanix’s own Cent0s KVM-based Hypervisor platform.
KVM-based, self-developed AHV, a proprietary Hypervisor.

Nutanix aos also Integrated management through Prism.

Application Mobility Framework (AMF)

Penetrates the Hypervisor layer and provides virtualized storage devices or containers between the Hypervisor, cloud environment, or Nutanix nodes.

Provides intelligent virtual machine (VM) deployment, migration, Hypervisor transformation and cross-Hypervisor high availability for maximum flexibility.

Dynamic migration and conversion services of virtual storage devices or containers to support load adjustment and disaster recovery applications.

Distributed Storage Framework (DSF)

Acropolis Distributed Storage Fabric is designed to simplify storage and data management for virtual environments.

DSF centralizes flash and hard disk storage from Nutanix clusters, exporting it to the virtualization layer for sharing with iSCSI, NFS, and SMB, eliminating the need for SAN and NAS solutions.

Nutanix Prism

Prism is a web-based control panel that provides a key-based management and interface for running Nutanix environments, including virtual machine management, node management, storage management, upgrade software, and other functions.

Prism consists of Prism Central and Prism Element, Prism Central is a unified interface for multi-node cluster management.

Prism Element is the only interface for local management of a single node, Prism Central can manage everything, Prism Element can only manage itself.

Conclusion

Nutanix Acropolis(nutanix aos) is the industry’s leading one-stop infrastructure platform for enterprise-class storage, compute and virtualization for any application.

Acropolis gives IT professionals the uncompromising flexibility to run applications anywhere and the freedom to choose the best virtualization technology for their organization, whether it’s traditional virtualization software, emerging virtualization software or containers.

For the first time in history, infrastructure decisions can be based solely on the performance, economics, scalability and elasticity needs of applications, while allowing workloads to migrate seamlessly without disruption.

That’s what this article about nutanix aos is all about, and I hope it helps you so you can have a better understanding of hyperconverged technologies.