Run Business-Critical Applications Anywhere, with Simplicity and Control

A business-critical application is any software system whose continuous operation is absolutely essential for an enterprise's core functions, revenue generation, or regulatory compliance. The importance stems from the direct, severe impact its failure or poor performance would have on the company, potentially leading to significant financial losses, reputational damage, operational shutdowns, or legal penalties. These applications are foundational to an organization's ability to operate daily, interact with customers, manage finances, or produce goods/services. They often handle sensitive data, require high availability, and demand robust security, making their stability and performance paramount for business continuity and success.

Examples include ERP (e.g., SAP), CRM (e.g., Salesforce) and financial platforms. Business-critical applications drive critical enterprise functions such as supply chain, customer engagement and transaction processing, and therefore require infrastructure that can provide scalability, high performance, robust security, and 99.99% or higher uptime due to the high cost of downtime.

Agentic AI will increasingly be used to automate decisions – Gartner predicts 15% of work decisions will be AI-driven by 2028.

HCI and cloud native solutions can simplify the management of business-critical applications. Nutanix can optimize your business-critical applications for performance and resilience while simplifying management and enabling the adoption of cloud native and AI technology as part of your business-critical application framework.

Enterprises ensure high availability and performance for business-critical applications through a combination of resilient architecture, robust infrastructure and proactive monitoring. This involves designing applications with redundancy (e.g., active-active configurations, failover clusters), distributing them across multiple availability zones or regions, and implementing load balancing. On the infrastructure side, using highly reliable hardware, redundant power supplies, and network connectivity is crucial. Proactive measures include continuous performance monitoring, automated scaling, regular capacity planning, and comprehensive disaster recovery plans with frequent testing. Leveraging cloud environments (hybrid/multicloud) also provides built-in scalability and resilience features, enhancing uptime and responsiveness.

NCP includes all the functionality necessary to enable enterprises to ensure high-availability and performance for business-critical applications.

Security is vital for business-critical applications to protect sensitive data and ensure compliance, preventing costly breaches. In 2024, the cost of a breach averaged $4.88 million. Because these apps handle financial transactions, customer data and proprietary information, they have become prime cyberattack targets. A breach can disrupt operations, erode trust and trigger regulatory penalties under laws like GDPR or HIPAA. 

Modern solutions embed DevSecOps practices, integrating security testing early in development, while zero-trust models verify every user and device. Encryption and multifactor authentication safeguard data in transit and at rest. 

Nutanix enhances security for business-critical applications with micro-segmentation, isolating workloads to limit attack spread. For example, a bank might use these tools to secure its trading platform. With cybercrime costs projected to hit $6 trillion in 2025, robust security ensures continuity and trust, making it non-negotiable for business-critical systems.

NCP features built-in security features including encryption and micro-segmentation and the base platform is hardened by design. Additional Nutanix capabilities, such as Flow Network Security, further strengthen security posture, and Nutanix offers integration with leading security vendors including Palo Alto Networks, Juniper Networks and Check Point Software.

Cloud strategies profoundly impact business-critical application deployment by offering flexibility, scalability, and varying levels of control. Public cloud excels for agility, global reach, and variable workloads, providing access to cutting-edge services. Private cloud offers enhanced control, security, and compliance for highly sensitive applications, often residing on-premises. A hybrid cloud combines these, allowing organizations to place workloads based on their unique requirements, keeping critical data private while leveraging public cloud for elasticity. Multicloud further diversifies this by using multiple public cloud providers, enhancing resilience and avoiding vendor lock-in. The choice depends on data sensitivity, performance needs, compliance, and cost optimization.

With the ability to support business-critical application deployments across datacenter, edge and cloud on a single plane, NCP is the ideal choice for enterprises seeking to modernize infrastructure and embrace a hybrid multicloud strategy for business-critical applications.

AI and automation play a transformative role in managing and optimizing business-critical applications by enhancing efficiency, resilience and predictive capabilities. AI-powered tools can proactively monitor application performance, identify anomalies, and predict potential issues before they impact users, enabling preventative action. Automation streamlines routine tasks like patching, scaling and provisioning resources, reducing manual errors and freeing up IT staff. Furthermore, AI can analyze vast amounts of operational data to optimize resource allocation, fine-tune application performance and even automate incident response, significantly improving uptime, reducing operational costs and ensuring that critical systems consistently meet demanding business needs.

Agentic AI, emerging in 2025, autonomously plans and executes tasks. Gartner predicts 15% of work decisions will be AI-driven by 2028. In CRM, generative AI can analyze ticket histories for personalized service, while in ERP it can predict supply chain disruptions. AI-driven analytics identify trends in real-time, boosting decision-making for financial apps. 

AI can process data at the edge, vital for retail or manufacturing. For example, a bank might use AI to detect fraud in transactions instantly. However, robust security is needed to protect AI models and data. As enterprises adopt AI, it cuts costs, enhances user experience, and drives competitiveness, making it a game-changer for business-critical systems in 2025 and beyond.

Nutanix makes it easier for enterprises that are seeking to incorporate AI into business-critical applications by providing full-stack solutions that provide robust inferencing and eliminate the complexity of deploying and managing AI models and data.