This is a guest blog post by Harsha Kotikela, Director of Marketing, Nutanix.

Nutanix, a leader in hybrid multi-cloud computing, and Citrix are extending their partnership to help you build a simple, secure, and performant infrastructure for a digital learning environment. From K-12 to research universities, running Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service on Nutanix Cloud Platform simplifies solutions, enhances security, and delivers excellent student and staff experience.

The benefits of building a Nutanix and Citrix technology stack at your institutions include:

Enhanced Security

As institutions and learning get digitized, security plays an important role to protect student and research data. Together, Nutanix and Citrix can help you prevent data theft and loss from ransomware and malware while adhering to regulatory, compliance, and data privacy requirements.

The Nutanix Cloud Platform is hardened by design, with advanced security features — including flexible encryption, and malware and ransomware protection — that complement and strengthen the granular security controls offered by Citrix secure access solutions. Nutanix prevents the spread of malware and ransomware and avoids data loss and theft through comprehensive access controls and data encryption.

Combined with a unified secure access solution from Citrix, institutions can accelerate digital transformation and modernize IT with a cloud-delivered security stack based on zero trust.  The Nutanix Cloud Platform has been verified as Citrix Ready which means it has undergone rigorous testing to provide seamless integration with Citrix. And Nutanix also simplifies datacenter infrastructure by integrating server and storage resources into a turnkey appliance that is deployed in just 60 minutes, ready to run Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops at scale.

Nutanix Flow uses microsegmentation to control access to and from user sessions and infrastructure services. Limiting group access to specific networks, applications, and data reduces the attack surface and curtails the spread of malware and ransomware. This helps deliver virtual applications and desktops as an inherently secure architecture that promotes end-to-end security from any device.

Simplify Operations

Education institutions, especially large public universities are spread across multiple locations with varying infrastructure needs, and BYOD practices that stretch IT resources to the limit. With Nutanix and Citrix you can provide consistent access to apps and data and have flexibility in supporting a varying number of students without increasing complexity. The same team that manages desktops and apps can also easily manage servers, storage, and virtualization.

Whether you’re operating in a private, public, or hybrid multi-cloud, the combination of Nutanix and Citrix allows centralized management to support more end-users without adding operational complexity.

Faster Deployments and a Consistent Experience

In many EUC deployments in education institutions, student experience is critical — considering that poor user experience leads to poor learning. And as we think about the future of education, there is significant uncertainty on how it will evolve, requiring maximum flexibility and fast adaptation from IT. With Nutanix and Citrix, you can transition to a completely remote environment in hours vs. days, adding thousands of desktops in a few hours. Standardized, secure environments scale quickly and deliver greater flexibility, increasing end-user satisfaction.

Nutanix and Citrix help IT staff with industry-validated solutions for consistent performance from hundreds to thousands of end users. Users benefit from a responsive system that meets their needs, while your IT team spends less time on management and more time on high-value projects.

What Do Customer Say?

Let me point out an example of how Coleg Gwent, one of the biggest further education colleges in Wales, deployed a combination of Citrix and Nutanix technologies while switching from local to virtual desktops. The challenge of putting together a solution that could handle a mix of 4,500 staff and student users across a variety of devices was solved easily by using the Nutanix Cloud Platform hosting Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops. This flexible learning project was a huge success at Coleg Gwent and continues to scale.

Here’s an opportunity learn about more such deployments we’ve made possible. Nutanix is delighted to showcase our solutions at EDUCAUSE 2021! Stop by Citrix Partner Pavilion booth #907 to learn more about our solutions.