March 18, 2025

Nutanix VP Tobi Knaup on Unified Kubernetes Management & AI Innovation - KubeCon EU 2025 Interview

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In this exclusive VMblog interview from KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe 2025 in London, hosts David Marshall and Brian Ducharme speak with Tobi Knaup, VP and General Manager of Cloud Native at Nutanix.

Tobi provides insights into Nutanix's journey from pioneering hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) to becoming a comprehensive platform for both virtual machines and Kubernetes workloads. He explains how Nutanix's cloud-native capabilities expanded following the acquisition of Mesosphere (later D2IQ), the company Tobi founded.

Interview Highlights:

  • The evolution of Nutanix from storage solutions to a unified platform for VMs and containers
  • How Nutanix Kubernetes Platform (NKP) provides a complete, production-ready Kubernetes solution built on 30+ integrated CNCF projects
  • Advanced Kubernetes fleet management capabilities for managing multiple clusters across different environments
  • Real-world case study: How Royal Caribbean uses Nutanix to power their shipboard applications with autonomous Kubernetes clusters
  • Nutanix's unique approach to enabling both VM and container workloads on a single data substrate
  • The introduction of Nutanix Enterprise AI (NAI) for bringing AI compute closer to enterprise data
  • Key industry trends for 2025, including the growing importance of platform engineering for centralized Kubernetes management

Customer Success Story:

Discover how Royal Caribbean Cruises deployed Nutanix's platform to power their passenger mobile app backend across their entire fleet. Each ship runs autonomous Kubernetes clusters that can be remotely managed over satellite links, enabling seamless passenger experiences even while at sea.

For more information about Nutanix's Kubernetes solutions or to try a test drive of their products, visit https://www.nutanix.com.

Brian Ducharme

Brian is an event reporter for VMBlog.com and an expert in virtualization/cloud techonlogies.  In his 15+ years of experience in the virtualization/cloud field he has interviewed hundreds of companies, users and executives.  Brian has been an active member of the NEVMUG (NEVTUG) since 2006 and attends both vmworld and Citrix Synergy every year.  Brian works full time as a Senior Software Engineer for Liquidware Labs.

Brian also spent 5 years as the managing editor of Virtual Strategy Magazine, an online magazine focused on the virtualization industry and has been with vmblog since 2011. He has a background in Computer Graphics, Marketing, Programming, Web Design, Mobile App Development, Linux Administration and is an active member of the NHJS group. 

 

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