Nutanix announced today the availability of Nutanix Platform Expert (NPX) certification. This certification program is the most rigorous in the industry, requiring extensive architectural capabilities validated through written exams, an extensive web-scale solution design, hands-on lab and design exercises, and a live peer review. And, an NPX needs to be an expert in not just one, but in (at least) two hypervisor platforms.

The Importance of Multi-Hypervisor Expertise

Nutanix is the Switzerland of the datacenter – we are hypervisor agnostic. Our customers can run any of the major hypervisors, or even all three together in the same environment. In the not-too-distant future, they’ll be able to move workloads back and forth between hypervisors. This is why Nutanix has experts throughout the company not only in VMware, but also in both Hyper-V and in KVM.

The hypervisor is the new sheet metal of the datacenter. While VMware dominates the virtualization landscape today, Hyper-V and KVM continue to make big strides. Customers increasingly demand multiple hypervisors for use cases such as big data, OpenStack and test/dev. This trend will accelerate as hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) becomes more widely adopted as the primary vehicle for hosting virtual machines.

Channel partners will play a major role in helping their customers transition from three-tier infrastructures to HCI. They need to be able to help them determine what hypervisors are the most appropriate for different applications or use cases, and then design and deploy a successful multi-hypervisor environment. The NPX certification signifies the very best multi-hypervisor architects in the world.

Beyond the Hypervisor

NPX requires more than multi-hypervisor expertise. There is an intense focus on skills required to migrate businesses from 3-tier to HCI as well as the ability to incorporate new technologies and operational model,s such as containers and DevOps, into Nutanix solutions. This is a very specialized set of skills, and the NPX program is first to market with a methodology that includes them in an enterprise architect certification.

The NPX Certification

The NPX program was developed by a team of fourteen Nutanix experts with many decades of solution design and delivery expertise between them. The goal of the program is to produce and certify the best Enterprise Architects in the world, so the bar is set very, very high in terms of skills required to achieve the credential. And that’s as it should be. The point of NPX is to serve the customer by ensuring a consistently excellent, customer-focused solution design and delivery. The NPX will enter the room at the X-level with the weight of the entire NPX community behind her. Holding NPX gives architects the privilege to address decision-makers directly and to be listened to as a peer.

Next Steps

The good news is that although NPX certification is a Herculean task, candidates will hardly be on their own. The program provides mentoring from some of the world’s best enterprise architects and a series of preparatory workshops to assist candidates on the journey to the pinnacle of IT certification.

And, for another industry first, and a big one, all of this is free for qualified candidates!

All you need to do to get started is register your interest via the nu.school NPX Program Homepage. Registering will allow you to download the NPX Design Review Preparation Guide and NPX Program Application. Once you’ve registered and reviewed the program requirements you can join the NPX community and start developing your certification plan. You can also contact Mark Brunstad, the NPX Program Manager, directly via npx@nutanix.com.