The Power of Proximity: How Nutanix gains Performance and Scalability with Data Locality

Have you ever wondered why certain applications load slowly while others respond quickly in end-user computing environments? The answer might be that the data is stored and obtained in relation to the VM.

Storing data in a remote fashion - away from the local hypervisor - introduces a requirement to obtain that data across the network infrastructure. Any delay in that network and problems start to arise.

These challenges are especially noticeable for Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) scenarios. Applications are sensitive to latency, delays and response times. And this can have a negative impact on the user experience. Storing data as close to the workload as possible, such as local disks on a hypervisor running the VM, can result in a vastly improved experience.

This blog explains how Nutanix is able to provide features that are common in shared enterprise storage solutions while delivering local storage experience.

Data Locality

Throughout my professional journey, many customers I've worked with had to decide between using local SSD/NVME storage to ensure optimal performance for their applications and the benefits of shared storage, including VM mobility, backup, replication, and storage efficiency capabilities.

With Nutanix, customers don't have to make that decision. They can enjoy both right out of the box. Nutanix delivers this capability by using the concept of data locality. It ensures that a VM running on a hypervisor accesses data as close as possible to the node running the hypervisor. Consequently, the data is presented as local.

To get an understanding of how data locality works, we can review the following diagram.