Nutanix : I've Tested Nutanix Frame!

Background

In those days where we are connected from everywhere, we are all looking at having the same experience on any platforms. This is where VDI is coming from. Today, VDI is very common but users want more. Administrators as well, they want granularity and easiness.

Meet Nutanix Frame!

Frame is a recent Nutanix acquisition (August 2018) that provides DaaS (Desktop as a Service) in the cloud(s). So far, there is no links at all between Nutanix software and Frame this is a completely different offering (well, for now ....).

Frame is happening in a web browser screen and is dedicated to cloud. You can create desktop for specific needs (even high end workstations with strong graphical properties). All you need is a frame subscription and a cloud subscription (AWS or Azure for now). You have the ability to place the desktop you have created in a specific region to have the best user experience.

You can enroll to a free Frame test-drive that last only 2 hours. This is already good to understand how it works and how responsive it is. Nothing like the old VDI experience that you may have seen in the past ! The registration link is here.

Once registered, everything starts with a login screen :

Next, you have access to the default Launchpad :

These are applications that can be started directly in the browser. Same behavior as Office 365. Example with PowerPoint :

Each Launchpad can be customized in the administration console to create application specific environments (for office user, for designer, for web browsing, ...) or even a full desktop-like experience with file explorer, browser, office, .... Right now, Windows Server 2016 is available as a DaaS OS.

Launchpads can have rights and be presented to specific users in your organization. Once you have created many Launchpads and once your have apply rights to them, users with access to many Launchpads can see them when they log in. They are presented the same way Linux is presenting virtual desktops to the user : 

In this case, this is easy to have a working context and not search forever after your set of applications for a specific task.

When you chose the full desktop, you have a similar experience as VDI or even physical end point.

It is important to note the responsiveness of the entire Frame product, this is quick and very usable. Nothing compared to ordinary VDI products that I have tested before (Citrix, Horizon view, ...) and this is not on-prem ! Actually, this is hard to tell that your desktop is far away from you in the cloud.

Talking about distance, you have the ability to decide on what region you want to have your application. Best practice will tell you to place the infrastructure the closest to the end user of course, but you have the freedom to choose.

Frame is very promising and it will be great to have the product on-prem to cut on the cloud cost. Actually, there is a calculation to do between on-prem and in the cloud to get the break event.

EDIT: Nutanix announces at .NEXT 2019 in Anaheim that Frame is available on-prem right now ! This is a game changer and will definitely disrupt the DaaS market. The controller remain in the cloud, but the workloads and data are on-prem and can be migrated as you wish.

Remember, Nutanix came on the market for VDI with amazing performance with legacy VDI softwares. I would love to see Frame on prem, on Nutanix software. Performance should be amazing!

Stay tuned.