The Nutanix AOS 5.8 release back in July 2018 unleashed many new security enhancements with a focus on encryption and identity management. We are excited to let you know that AOS 5.9 is here and available for you to download from the portal. AOS 5.9 has a lot of enhancements in areas of security, DR, availability, etc. We are only highlighting a few features in this blog. For a full list of enhancements, please refer to release notes.

The Nutanix AOS 5.8 release back in July 2018 unleashed many new security enhancements with a focus on encryption and identity management. We are excited to let you know that AOS 5.9 is here and available for you to download from the portal. AOS 5.9 has a lot of enhancements in areas of security, DR, availability, etc. We are only highlighting a few features in this blog. For a full list of enhancements, please refer to release notes.

Software Encryption For All

Nutanix introduced software encryption in AOS 5.5. A later release included a more cost-effective encryption option for those customers only requiring a native key management service for encrypting data on their Nutanix devices. In the initial releases, software-based encryption could not be enabled for existing data. With AOS 5.9, we expand the feature to support encryption of any existing data – VM, File, Block, Object etc. Encryption of existing data is done as a one-time background process that does not impact normal VM operations – one click to enhanced data security for everyone!

Configurable Availability Domains

The old adage of “land and expand” is especially true with Nutanix customers. Once they deploy Nutanix for a particular use case, they tend to quickly expand their Nutanix footprints over time as they realize the exceptional savings and other benefits. The continued expansion of clusters necessitates a higher level of fault tolerance. Our solution is a logical grouping of servers on a cluster where each server group physically belongs to its own specific rack. With AOS 5.9, rack failures can be tolerated in addition to block, node, or disk failures. This feature supports heterogeneous nodes in a cluster within a rack – both making the customers’ environment more efficient and increasing their data availability.

NearSync Enhancements

NearSync was introduced in AOS 5.5 and has benefited since from many enhancements. AOS 5.9 introduces a few new notable enhancements including support for Async Replication and NearSync interoperability from the same protection domain to different clusters. Sites requiring near-zero RPO (or not meeting Metro Availability RTT requirements) can use NearSync for their near-zero RPO as well as Async Replication from the same protection domain for a second copy.

Azure Support in Calm

Calm now deploys VMs directly to Azure and orchestrates these VMs with others running on-prem or in other clouds. With this addition, Calm supports all the major public clouds – AWS, Azure, and GCP – as well as on-prem private clouds running ESXi – with or without Nutanix – and of course AHV. Applications can be spread across clouds as needed giving you a single pane of glass to deploy, manage, and operate your multi-cloud applications.

AOS 5.9 is a testament to the Nutanix DNA which calls for continual innovation and enhancement, as well as feature prioritization, based upon our customer feedback. The latest iteration of NearSync reflects this feedback and now provides our customers with increased availability for their data centers using rack awareness. Please remember that your feedback is crucial to us for developing features that are efficient, simple, and innovative.

If you are new to Nutanix, please send us a note at info@nutanix.com. We can’t wait to introduce you to Nutanix Enterprise Cloud Platform.

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