F5 and Nutanix: Powering Business Mobility Together

Welcome to the second post in my series about the emerging partnership between F5 and one of the leaders in the hyper-converged infrastructure market, Nutanix. Last month, I discussed how this collaboration helps you enjoy all the benefits of web-scale architecture while continuing to provide the robust application services your users demand. In a technical companion post, we went into further detail on how to install BIG-IP virtual editions on Nutanix using the VMware ESXi hypervisor.

Today, I’m going to take a deeper dive into the benefits of combining F5 and Nutanix to support business mobility. First off, let me qualify what I mean by that term. It all started with Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI). Over time, key functionalities such as mobile device management, anytime access to applications from any device, and secure content collaboration have been added to the mix.

One of the most popular solutions for business mobility comes from VMware, a global leader in virtualization and cloud infrastructure: VMware Horizon (with View), as well as AirWatch. F5 and VMware have partnered for nearly a decade to deliver more control and better security, while improving the user experience.

So where does Nutanix fit in? As a single, turnkey hyper-converged appliance, Nutanix comes ready to run Horizon, making it easy to deploy virtual desktops in less than 60 minutes straight out of the box. And Nutanix and Horizon work in concert to allow you to support your users with anywhere, anytime, any-device access to their desktops and applications.

Nutanix and VMware

The Nutanix platform’s unique architecture allows you to scale seamlessly and modularly—from hundreds to tens of thousands of individual user desktops or remote desktop sessions—with no impact on performance. This lets you start small and expand with ease, always taking advantage of the latest advances in CPU, memory, and flash. Plus, it’s easy to manage all your virtual machines from the built-in Prism management and operations platform. Basically, when you run Horizon on Nutanix, you can reduce CapEx (due to reduced infrastructure purchases), while lowering OpEx, because of the solution’s small footprint and ease of use.

F5 SDAS: Optimizing Your Virtualized Environment

Adding F5 Software Defined Application Services (SDAS) to the mix really takes this solution to the next level. F5 and VMware have worked closely together to help you achieve the best possible performance, ease of use, and security for your mobility deployments. The BIG-IP system combines granular access control with robust application security, which allows enterprises using the Nutanix platform to deliver an enhanced user experience while still maintaining control over security policies.

For example, BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) consolidates application access and security functions, keeping your corporate assets safe while increasing employee satisfaction and productivity. You gain greater access control and server efficiency while delivering high performance, high availability, and a simple, more productive user workspace. And, by the way, APM can also function as a replacement for the AirWatch Mobile Access Gateway (MAG), providing you with a single, highly scalable, secure gateway solution that supports all your business mobility needs.

As a bonus, F5’s customized iApps deployment packaging technology allows you to fully deploy applications in as little as two hours. To see how easy it is to install and configure VMware Horizon 6 (with View) on Nutanix using an iApp, take a look at this post by my colleague Paul Pindell.

F5 and Nutanix: Bringing it All Together

By combining F5 and Nutanix technology, you can easily implement a user-centric, software-defined, fully scalable solution for delivering virtualized applications and desktops with VMware Horizon and AirWatch. Deploying F5 SDAS in support of Horizon on Nutanix infrastructure hits all the right notes: efficiency, performance, security, manageability, and scalability. What’s not to like?

Also, keep in mind that while this post has focused on Horizon, Nutanix and F5 also work seamlessly with many of the other leading business mobility applications, including Citrix XenDesktop and Citrix XenApp. Stay tuned for more updates on how F5 collaborates with Nutanix and our other integrated systems partners to offer you a better solution for all your application services needs.
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