Nutanix and Pure Storage today announced an alliance through which they are previewing a new type of IT infrastructure platform that will become generally available this summer.

Announced at the .Next conference hosted by Nutanix, the Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure platform is based on the Nutanix AHV hypervisor and Nutanix Flow virtual networking software that is integrated with Pure Storage FlashArray storage accessed via a NVMe/TCP network.

That approach, much like a hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) platform, provides the economic benefits of integrating compute and storage in a way that enables  resources to still scale independently of each other.

The Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure platform is designed to be deployed on any server that is compatible with the storage systems provided by Pure Storage, including Nutanix partners such as Cisco, Dell, Hewlett-Packard Enterprise (HPE) and Supermicro. Additionally, Cisco and Pure Storage are expanding their partnership to now include the Nutanix AHV hypervisor.

Lee Caswell, senior vice president for product and solutions marketing for Nutanix, said this is the primary reason three quarters of IT teams still employ a three-tier architecture, many of them are also now rapidly adopting HCI to more tightly couple compute, storage and networking infrastructure.

The alliance with Pure Storage will create a highly scalable NVMe-based platform that is especially well-suited for data-intensive workloads that require access to all-Flash storage, he noted.

Guy Currier, an industry analyst with The Futurum Group, said the alliance with Pure Storage provides a flash array building block for a larger effort to become a single provider of multiple types of IT platforms. Pure Storage brings the performance, power efficiency, capacity and reliability of flash arrays that Nutanix needs to fulfill that ambition, he added.

The reasons one organization versus another opts for HCI platform vary but, fundamentally, they have gained traction because they enable IT teams to leverage an integrated platform to streamline management in a way that helps reduce the number of distinct types of IT expertise that might be required. However, there are still many organizations running legacy three-tiers applications that require compute and storage resources to scale up completely independent of each other. Those organizations, for the most part, continue to rely on more traditional rack-based systems.

As a platform that strives to find a middle ground between HCI and three-tier systems, it remains to be seen to what degree IT organizations might embrace a different approach. There are, however, approximately 13,500 organizations that are Pure Storage customers that have made it clear they still value being able to scale storage independently, noted Caswell.

Regardless of the approach preferred, many IT organizations are already relying on a mix of different platforms to run different classes of applications. Rather than having to make that choice, Nutanix and Pure Storage are betting there will be enough demand to justify the return on investment being made in a new type of IT platform that promises to provide the best of what HCI platforms and three-tier systems offer today.