FlashStack with Nutanix - Part 3: WE'RE LIVE!

That's right folks! FlashStack with Nutanix is live! There's so much to break down even after the previous two posts (Part 1 / Part 2). You might say "But I saw posts about this being live last month!" And ya - technically, perhaps, that is somewhat kinda maybe edging on accurate(ish). However, Cisco and Pure Storage needed to release their software to actually make this work ... without said software, there was really no solution.

But it's all available now, so WE'RE LIVE!!!

First let me say this - having been on the partner side for the majority of the last decade (I'm getting old) and whatever I was doing before that, I've definitely gained a huge appreciation for all the work that goes into a major product launch like this. From engineering, marketing, operations, go-to-market, etc. - it's really quite amazing and something most people are never exposed to. Then these efforts and challenges are amplified when you think about trying to make all of it line up across three independent companies.

Huge shout out, congratulations, and Thank You! to all who have contributed in any fashion to make this solution a reality. I anticipate the hard work to actually start now, which is both equally scary and exciting!

Alright - Let's do this.

A Clarification To Begin With

When the NCI Compute program was announced at the Nutanix .NEXT conference earlier in 2025, Cisco took the opportunity to split the program in two (2) separate but related workstreams:

• HCI + Compute Only (CO): The ability to scale an HCI cluster with Compute Only nodes.
• FlashStack with Nutanix / Compute Only + Pure Storage: Scale compute and storage independently or together but utilizing Nutanix AHV as the main hypervisor

While the requirements for the two solutions are similar, this (these) posts are strictly focusing on FlashStack with Nutanix. Please do not assume that anything said here applies to the HCI + CO program. I'll dig into that later (boy, I have a lot of words to write).

The High-Level Technical Stuff

Let's talk about the high level technical requirements to make this solution work.

The Software

As you saw last week from all the fun posts, Nutanix announced General Availability of their software. In order to make FlashStack with Nutanix function, the following software and versions are required (may require a login for the links):

• AOS 7.5 - Release Notes
• AHV 11 - Release Notes
• Foundation Central (FC) 1.10 - Release Notes
  • A couple of things about this part:
    • There are now 2 form factors to FC - The one we've known for a while now that gets installed as part of a Prism Central instance and Foundation Central Appliance (Guide). The Foundation Central Appliance is brand new and is probably deserving of it's own post. The short of it is that the FCA allows people to deploy Nutanix clusters via FC running on a laptop.
    • There is a lot more that is related to the release of FC 1.10 for Cisco including Multi-vNIC and Firmware functions.
    • There are now also 2 tracks to FC and it is important that you use FC 1.10 as anything else will not work with UCS. As of right now, for anything Cisco UCS related, do not download and install FC 2.0 (whether through Prism Central or as the standalone VM).
• Cisco Intersight SaaS - Documentation
  • This isn't really a piece of software that you have to download, which is one of the benefits of using the SaaS version of Intersight - the code was pushed out on December 11th and Cisco is ready to go.
  • It is worth noting that with the initial launch, Cisco is only supporting the SaaS version with the Connected and Private Virtual Appliance (CVA/PVA) support coming later.
  • Fun Fact - The link above shows you what's been released. You'll see there are other Cisco + Nutanix related items. There's also a tab on that page called "Upcoming" ... it's exactly what it sounds like.
• Purity 6.10.3 - Release Notes
  • This was our missing link from the time Nutanix announced GA to basically the end of 2025. Good news: it's now out and ready to download and install. This software was key for the API calls between Nutanix and Pure Storage.

The Hardware

We got the software - now it needs to run on top of something. Let's start with the Cisco Servers.

• C-Series Rackmount Servers
  • C220 & C240 M6
  • C220 & C240 M7
• X-Series Modular Servers
  • X210c M7
• B-Series Blade Servers
  • B200 M5
  • B200 M6

That's right! That is not a typo. Cisco and Nutanix worked together to release support for Cisco's older generation of B200 servers. More on this in yet another post. Also not a typo - you don't see M8 servers up there ... soon.

• Fabric Interconnects and Networking
  • The FlashStack with Nutanix solution currently requires the Cisco servers to be deployed with Intersight Managed Mode, which requires Fabric Interconnects (FIs).
  • The 6400 and the 6500 series of FIs are supported with all hardware platforms listed above.
  • The 6600 FI, which was somewhat recently released by Cisco, is supported with everything above except the B-Series blades. Please be mindful of this before deploying.
  • It is highly recommended to architect this with a 25Gbps network all the way through, however, 10Gbps is supported. This is especially helpful for customers looking to reuse their B-Series blades.

Last but not least for hardware, the Pure Storage arrays:

• FlashArray//X - it's fast
• FlashArray//XL - it's probably faster because of the extra L /s

There's a pretty basic compatibility matrix here provided by Nutanix that sort of highlights some of this stuff. What may be most important is that the controller needs to be R3 and above.

Deployment of FlashStack with Nutanix

For the love of technology - I beg you: Follow the Cisco Field Install Guides to have the best experience and least amount of trouble. There's really nothing else to say. Follow anything else at your own demise.

It's About Damn Time

We're two-plus years post acquisition of VMware. Some customers have been stuck in no man's land without a path that was able to address all their challenges and concerns. As mentioned above, it took a lot of work from a lot of people to make this solution a reality with many bumps, potholes, lawyers, jousts, sword fights, blood, sweat, and tears (plus whatever I've already forgotten) along the way but the solution is finally released and available for customer deployment and consumption!

Now let's burn the world down (you know which) to make room for a better one:

(queue the dramatic music).