Cisco extends its Enterprise Agreement to include Nutanix Cloud Platform

Cisco has extended its Enterprise Agreement (EA) software licensing and services program to include Nutanix and its hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) package, the Nutanix Cloud Platform. The move is unique in that Cisco included third-party OEM technology in the EA, which typically involves only Cisco networking, software, security and other services, according to a blog post penned by Jeremy Foster, senior vice president and general manager of Cisco Compute. The move gives customers predictable pricing for the term of the agreement, with price protection and consistent commercial terms that reduce budgeting uncertainty, Foster stated. By bringing Nutanix into the Cisco EA, customers gain a more flexible buying model, including “the ability to start with what you need today and grow over time, expanding Nutanix usage within the EA framework without renegotiating contracts or restarting procurement,” Foster wrote. Another benefit is “true-forward flexibility, allowing customers to increase Nutanix usage during the year and only pay for that additional capacity going forward at the annual anniversary, aligning spend with actual adoption,” Foster wrote. Teams can adopt new capabilities, upgrade, and modernize the software stack over time, as part of their existing Cisco EA contract, Foster stated. “At a time when organizations are under pressure to do more with existing infrastructure, Cisco is enabling them to reuse existing hardware across solutions, protecting prior investments as environments evolve,” he wrote. Commercial rigidity is slowing down organizations, he added: “Traditional buying models assume static environments: fixed terms, fixed quantities, and fixed architectures. But modern infrastructure doesn’t behave that way. Workloads shift. Priorities change. Capacity needs evolve unevenly.” “Every forced renegotiation, every misaligned contract term, every artificial boundary between platforms introduces friction, and that friction shows up as delayed modernization, deferred innovation, or unnecessary risk,” Foster wrote. The Cisco EA/Nutanix tie-in also bolsters Nutanix’s position as a more practical and strategic offering to long-time virtualization competitor Broadcom/VMware. “Virtualization platforms sit at the center of enterprise infrastructure. They support existing workloads, enable modernization, and increasingly provide the foundation for AI experimentation and scale,” Foster wrote. “That central role means decisions around virtualization platforms tend to cascade across the entire environment—from compute and storage to networking and operations. When the buying model behind that platform is rigid, it can limit how quickly organizations adapt as their infrastructure strategy evolves.” Cisco and Nutanix have had a tight partnership for more than two years. In 2023, Cisco killed its Hyperflex platform and turned over that business to Nutanix with the idea that the vendors would work together to engineer collaborative technologies, services, support and sales. Since then, the vendors have developed a number of products, including Cisco Compute Hyperconverged with Nutanix, which combines Cisco’s SaaS-managed compute and networking gear with Nutanix’s Cloud Platform (which includes Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure, Nutanix Cloud Manager, Nutanix Unified Storage, and Nutanix Desktop Services). The vendors have also tightened integration between Intersight and Nutanix management systems, delivered support for the Nutanix AI-based GPT-in-a-Box package, and improved enterprise network integration with Cisco’s Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI). Technology service provider and systems integrator World Wide Technology had this to say about the Cisco and Nutanix partnership: “Some of the partnership differentiators between Cisco and Nutanix go far beyond surface-level integration. Cisco engineered native, first-party connections between Intersight and Nutanix Life-Cycle Manager (LCM), enabling true Day 0 support for one-click upgrades — unlike legacy HyperFlex deployments that often faced 60-day qualification delays,” WWT wrote in a 2025 blog post. “That same level of integration extends to support and deployment. Cisco and Nutanix offer e-bonded global support, where TAC teams on both sides share case notes, logs and diagnostics in real time. Cases are instantly routed to the appropriate team — hardware to Cisco, software to Nutanix — eliminating hand-offs, repeated troubleshooting or finger-pointing,” WWT wrote. “Deployment is just as streamlined: Thanks to deep Intersight integration, clusters can be brought online remotely without relying on Nutanix Foundation Central’s complex DHCP setup. Aside from physical racking and cabling, the entire process can be executed remotely — ideal for multi-site, global-scale rollouts.”