Nutanix Kubernetes Platform (NKP) has gained considerable momentum with existing and new customers, and rightly so. It makes managing Kubernetes clusters a breeze. Nutanix can manage K8s on various endpoints through NKP, whether it’s AWS EKS, Azure AKS, Google GKS, to name a few. But a great option is to use K8s with NKP on top of Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2)!
NC2 bridges the gap between on-prem and public cloud with unified operations, performance, and security using the same operational experience and tools. This article explained some of the benefits of running NKP on top of NC2. Running NKP on top of NC2 is a strong architectural choice for a variety of reasons:
| Category | Benefit |
|---|---|
| Hybrid Cloud Flexibility | NC2 enables seamless extension of on-prem NKP clusters to public clouds (AWS/Azure/Google/OVH Cloud), supporting hybrid and multi-cloud strategies. It provides the freedom to scale and run K8s clusters wherever needed, using the same platform for VMs and Cloud Native workloads. |
| Operational Consistency | NKP on NC2 maintains consistent tooling, governance, and automation across environments. |
| Cost Optimization | NC2 allows dynamic scaling of NKP clusters based on demand, reducing overprovisioning and cloud waste. |
| Security & Compliance | NKP benefits from NC2’s built-in security features, such as microsegmentation (with Flow), encryption, and role-based access. |
| Simplified Management | Prism Central provides unified management for NKP clusters across NC2 and on-prem, reducing operational overhead. |
| Performance & Resilience | NC2 offers high-performance infrastructure with built-in HA and DR capabilities for NKP workloads. |
| Rapid Deployment | NKP on NC2 can be deployed quickly using Nutanix automation tools, reducing time-to-value. |
| Cloud-Native Enablement | NKP supports modern app development with Kubernetes, while NC2 provides the infrastructure agility to support it. |
Data sovereignty and cost control are on top of mind when talking to customers. Let me elaborate more on how these drivers reflect with NKP on top of NC2. There are 2 main drivers for customers to choose to run their K8s workloads on NKP using NC2
1. Data Portability
It is important to ‘be in charge’ of the underlying storage infrastructure used for (persistent) data volumes serving the K8s workload clusters. Many of today’s discussions center on data sovereignty. Part of that discussion typically involves ensuring that customers can move workloads to any infrastructure backend. Meaning, if they sit on top of a public cloud, it is beneficial to adopt an architecture that allows customers to move workloads between private and public clouds without refactoring or re-platforming. Nutanix provides this ability, a true cloud abstraction model. Customers can move their workloads from an on-prem infrastructure to a public cloud infrastructure, or between public cloud vendors, or vice versa. Running NKP on NC2 allows for full control, flexibility, and portability. And moreover, it provides customers with choice and potential exit strategies.
2. Cost Efficiency
Another major aspect of why NKP, in addition to NC2, is such a solid use case is its sizing efficiency. Typical K8s clusters in public clouds still consist of public cloud virtual machines (VMs). Those VMs typically come in fixed sizes, so-called ‘t-shirt’ sizes. This potentially narrows down the efficiency of sizing those VMs for K8s clusters. With NC2, we take the same approach as on-prem Nutanix clusters. We pool all compute and storage resources so customers can right-size to their workloads, such as the VMs supporting K8s clusters in this case. Understand how many compute and storage resources are required. Focus on some headroom but not ‘oversize’. In short, we can achieve more with less. Less resources required equals less cloud spend. This is particularly applicable for customers already running NC2 for VM workloads and seeking to run cloud-native workloads on the same platform. One platform to rule them all!
How to set up NKP to use NC2
Setting up NKP on NC2 is very straightforward and easy. This is mainly because when a Nutanix Cloud Cluster (NC2) is instantiated on top of a hyperscaler cloud (AWS, Azure, Google, or OVH Cloud), it becomes ‘just another’ Nutanix cluster, allowing for NKP to hook directly into Prism Central as an infrastructure provider to create K8s clusters on.
