• Rajiv Ramaswami, CEO at Nutanix


• 24.08.2023 01:08 pm

JM Finn and Nutanix have history. At the start of the pandemic, JM Finn turned to Nutanix for help, deploying the Nutanix private cloud to power the company’s workloads, including its virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI). This played a vital role in keeping JM Finn employees safe and productive while working remotely. The relationship has since flourished, with JM Finn now migrating all legacy datacentres to the Nutanix Cloud Platform.

For Jon Cosson, Head of IT and Chief Information Security Officer at JM Finn, the growing bond between the two businesses has been transformational. Jon has seen the cost, performance and sustainability benefits first hand. Understandably, he wanted to know more about Nutanix’s business and the driving force behind its evolution into a hybrid multicloud leader.

Below Jon talks to Rajiv Ramaswami, President and CEO of Nutanix about business and technology challenges, sustainability, security, the future of infrastructure… and cricket.

Since you have taken the helm at Nutanix, what has been your greatest challenge?

We’ve hit several milestones since I joined Nutanix, all of which have had their own hurdles along the way. From becoming CEO during a global pandemic and not being able to meet customers and colleagues in person, to continuing our business transition to a subscription model, and now capitalising on the hybrid multicloud market opportunity. Through each milestone, we find new opportunities to grow and challenge ourselves, which drives our business forward as we continue to innovate and unlock value for our customers.

How does Nutanix differentiate itself from other Tech companies, what makes you unique?

Companies today are digitising everything they do and applications and data are their most important currencies. They are focused on how to manage, run and move applications and data efficiently and effectively across different clouds, both public and private. On top of that, the growth of applications is exploding. Companies want the choice and flexibility of multicloud, but it can be complex. A hybrid multicloud environment can help them achieve that flexibility while addressing the complexity of multicloud. Nutanix provides a simple, single cloud platform that can help organisations digitise their business and have their applications and data wherever they want – whether it’s in their own datacentre or in a public cloud of their choice. And, they can easily move those apps and data to wherever they want - simply and efficiently.

Many organisations are contemplating Infrastructure 2.0 and the significant investment this will require – How is Nutanix positioning itself, and how can you assist businesses as they plan the next 3 – 5 years ahead?

Over the past couple of years, many organisations have found that their IT infrastructures have diversified while their cloud management strategies have not kept pace. Our Enterprise Cloud Index report revealed that the majority of IT teams leverage more than one IT infrastructure. But managing applications and data across these environments is complex. Only 40% of IT decision-makers said that they have complete visibility into where their data resides, and 85% have issues managing cloud costs. Addressing these challenges requires simplification and unsurprisingly nearly everyone wants a single, unified platform to manage data and applications. 

Nutanix provides customers with simplicity through a unified infrastructure layer that enables IT to seamlessly run applications on a single underlying platform, whether it’s on-premises, in the cloud, or a hybrid multicloud environment. We remove the complexity of operating in a multicloud world, which will become even more critical as AI and edge computing drive unprecedented demands on infrastructure. And as costs continue to remain top of mind for IT leaders globally, the Nutanix Cloud Platform can help deliver significant total cost of ownership (TCO) benefits both compared to legacy architecture, as well as compared to certain public cloud deployments.

As the world emerges from a year of disruption and change in the energy market, thoughts have naturally turned to the kind of world we want to live in the future. How is Nutanix preparing to meet the challenges of Net Zero and how can you provide the technology and expertise to ensure organisations can meet their targets?

We recognise that sustainability is a journey and not a single act. Beyond our internal ESG initiatives, Nutanix software can help organisations meet power and carbon goals by optimising IT infrastructure through reduced footprint and over-provisioning, on-demand resource scaling and fast and easy workload movement between on-prem and cloud options.

For example, we worked with the Holcim Group, a global building materials manufacturer to reduce the carbon footprint of its IT infrastructure. By leveraging the Nutanix Cloud Platform, the Holcim Group was able to reduce power consumption with more efficient, virtualisable machines and the centralisation of services in the public cloud.

Another example is our work with insurance business FGILI in India. Through working with Nutanix, FGILI was not only able to reduce costs by 43% over five years compared with a three-tier infrastructure, the company was also able to reduce its datacentre emissions by 80% and reduce its data backup management by 100%. 

To further help our customers, we recently launched the Nutanix Carbon and Power Estimator, a tool that helps organizations understand how different factors can influence their environmental footprint. The estimator provides customers with a report that illustrates how infrastructure choices can impact environmental footprint with regard to power and emissions. Understanding what drives carbon and power consumption is an important first step for enterprises looking to advance on their sustainability journey.

In what ways does Nutanix ensure Data Security is at the heart of your technology? As a CISO, how can Nutanix as a trusted partner ensure I sleep well at night?

As data security shifts from a centralised concept to anywhere apps and data could live, including across clouds, cyber resilience allows organisations to not just protect or defend your data against constant threats, but confidently operate their business even as incidents may occur. At Nutanix, we encourage a “zero trust” philosophy paired with cyber resilience to help our customers prevent data loss and reduce the impact of cyber attacks. The Nutanix Cloud Platform provides unique, integrated network and security features like built-in encryption, application microsegmentation, and ransomware protection. Paired with platform-level visibility, the Nutanix Cloud Platform creates a robust foundation of cyber resilience that enables our customers to develop security postures across hybrid multicloud environments. 

What has been your greatest achievement at Nutanix and what are you planning to be your greatest future achievement?

Our customers are at the heart of everything that we do. Our evolution from an HCI pioneer to a hybrid multicloud leader has been a great accomplishment, because we’ve continued to meet our customers where they need us most. And in today’s IT landscape, customers need a partner that provides them with flexibility and choice to successfully navigate the complexity of multicloud. Our NPS score of 90, which we’ve maintained year after year, is a testament to the value that we bring customers and the commitment that we have to customer satisfaction.

In your view, what technology invented over the past 100 years has had the greatest impact on humankind?

The obvious answer is the internet but you would probably have to go back even further and say the personal computer. Without the personal computer there would be no smartphone. But then the mobile phone, mobile cellular networks (incidentally it was the 50 year anniversary of the first ever mobile phone call last April) have had such a global impact, especially in countries where there has been limited infrastructure for internet services. All amazing technological creations that have inspired and opened new doors, to new ideas and new capabilities.

You are a Cricket fan, if you could play in any team from past to present, which one and why?

That’s a difficult one because it would have been an amazing experience to have played with the likes of Kapil Dev, Sunil Gavaskar and that shock World Cup winning team of 1983 but the Indian national team during the late 90s and early 2000s was special. Sehwag, Tendulkar, Dravid, Kumble, Harbhajan Singh - this was a great team, full of skillful and determined players.