Nutanix is targeting flash-powered virtualized environments with the latest version of its converged infrastructure platform. Nutanix OS (NOS) 3.5 features improved management capabilties and a comprehensive deduplication solution that optimizes capacity across memory, flash and disk.

The new release introduces Nutanix Prism, an administration framework that includes a graphical interface for viewing infrastructure and virtual machine data. The HTML5-based dashboard spans compute, storage and network, and utilizes built-in analytics to provide event correlation and simplify troubleshooting. Prism is complemented by a REST-based API that enables corporate developers to integrate the platform with legacy and cloud-based management systems.

The second major feature of NOS 3.5 is the Elastic Deduplication Engine, a piece of software that analyzes I/O access patterns to maximize performance across the storage stack. According to Nutanix, the tool can increase effective flash and memory capacity tenfold for resource-intensive workloads such as VDI.

“Nutanix’s update touches on two very important technology trends: the expansion of flash across architectures and the reality of multi-hypervisor environments,” commented Wikibon Senior Analyst Stu Miniman. “The Elastic Deduplication Engine, advanced GUI and Hyper-V support that Nutanix announced will allow the company to address a growing spectrum of use cases. Nutanix has been growing at a rapid rate the new solutions should help it continue its momentum.”

Earlier this month, a company called PernixData unveiled the industry’s first server side flash hypervisor. PernixData FVP deploys in a matter of minutes, supports clustering, and packs full read and write acceleration. Miniman commented the hypervisor makes server side flash more usable by transforming it into a shared resource that can be accessed by multiple servers. He believes that PernixData’s software is “really going to accelerate performance” in flash environments.