In addition to unifying the entire infrastructure, the Nutanix solution allows the Federation to increase capacity and productivity to enable expansion
Overview
The Federation of Industries of the State of Pernambuco (FIEPE) was founded in 1939 with the intention of promoting the development of local industry, contributing to business improvement, and improving regional and national socio-economic conditions. FIEPE’s IT team found themselves facing issues and limitations with their existing IT environment, and began seeking a new technology partner that would allow them the capacity and scalability needed to sustain growth projections. The team decided that Nutanix hyperconverged infrastructure would successfully solve their problems by unifying their environment. Since the partnership began, FIEPE has experienced a significant increase in processing performance, ease of environment management, high availability, better data security, and much more.
Key Results
| Better scalability |
Centralized data center management |
Substantial cost savings |
|---|---|---|
| Allowed room for expansion with a strategic map for growth showing that the goals would be unachievable without the Nutanix unified environment. |
Unified management dashboard increases processing performance, allowing the focus to remain on the quality of services provided by each sector. |
Reduced expenses through performance improvements in daily routines, savings of 35% in electric energy costs, and optimized time savings of 70% of the team. |
Nutanix was instrumental to our success and their team was with us from the design to the implementation of the project. We had a team that needed support with new technology and they enabled us. We faced challenges, but we found solutions and had 100% confidence in the project.
Challenge
Composed of 33 unions from different industrial segments across the northeastern Brazilian state, FIEPE offers services to its Pernambuco residents that include technical research, legal support, support for exports and intermediation of international agreements, training courses, and actions to encourage quality and competition.
The Federation is composed of four linked sectors: Pernambuco's Social Service for Industry (SESI), Pernambuco's National Service for Industrial Learning (SENAI), Pernambuco's Euvaldo Lodi Institute (IEL-PE), and the Center of Industries of the State of Pernambuco (CIEPE).
FIEPE’s IT team found themselves facing issues and limitations with their existing IT environment due to its multi-platform architecture, decentralized nature, and difficulties with integration. The team realized that the infrastructure did not have the capacity and scalability to sustain FIEPE's growth projections because its maintenance was complex and costly, it did not allow updates with satisfactory performance, and it did not meet security and backup requirements.
“Our previous environment required high operating costs, did not allow for expansion, scalability, or interoperability. In other words, it was a technological environment that did not keep up with the evolution of the business, and burdened our IT team with recurring maintenance,” explains Antonio Fernandes, IT Manager at FIEPE.
Solution
Antonio and his team wanted to modernize FIEPE’s IT environment, so they began searching for a technology partner that would offer hardware and software solutions needed to achieve that goal. They wanted a partner who would help them follow the path of standardization and unification of systems to represent the industries of the state of Pernambuco, while also supporting social, educational, and R&D projects.
Amid their search, Antonio and his team found Nutanix, and decided that their hyperconverged architecture would be able to successfully overcome the challenge of unifying their environments and provide capacity for growth and expansion.
When the partnership began, the implementation and migration of Nutanix infrastructure required a five-month period in which the Nutanix team worked alongside the integration company TechChannel and FIEPE's internal IT team.
“We created a 180-square-meter data center where we accommodated a self-sufficient power area and racks that supported all of the Nutanix nodes. About 300 servers, 200 databases, 130 networks, and more than 3,200 users were successfully migrated into it without stopping FIEPE's production—we changed the plane's turbines mid-flight,” says Antonio Fernandes.
Customer Outcome
In addition to centralizing data center management in a single platform, the implementation of Nutanix at FIEPE also allowed for a significant increase in processing performance, ease of environment management, high availability, and better data security in comparison to the previous technology. In turn, it increased the reliability and efficiency of FIEPE’s entire technological environment.
FIEPE also conducted a strategic mapping of growth with goals for new services, members, and enrollment. According to Antonio, it would not be possible to successfully execute this expansion plan without the Nutanix unified environment, making it indispensable to the organization.
With Nutanix hyperconverged infrastructure, FIEPE now has a friendly platform, with a single management dashboard, allowing them to focus entirely on the quality of services provided by each of its sectors.
FIEPE has also noticed that Nutanix has provided performance improvements in daily routines, savings of 35% in electric energy expenses, high-quality support and maintenance services, and optimized time savings of about 70% of their team.
Additionally, a new backup system was implemented with Nutanix that used to take hours and now takes only a few minutes.
The partnership between FIEPE, Nutanix, and TechChannel has allowed FIEPE’s IT department to more effectively serve their four sectors. The Nutanix platform runs critical systems such as ERP, CRM, school management, research, back-office, and more. Different departments of the organizations that make up FIEPE can now request servers from IT for new projects in a matter of minutes, which previously took days.
“TechChannel and Nutanix were instrumental to our success and their teams were with us from the design to the implementation of the project. We had a team that needed support with new technology and they enabled us. We faced challenges, but we found solutions and had 100% confidence in the project,” shares Antonio Fernandes.
Next Steps
Moving forward, FIEPE plans to expand the range of Nutanix services they utilize. They also expect to see savings of about $5,000 USD per month through the internalization of numerous processes that are currently hosted on a public cloud.
“FIEPE impacts all of Pernambuco's society by accelerating the evolution of industries and education, which is essential for the overall development of the state,” concludes Leonel Oliveira, Director at Nutanix Brazil. “Knowing that our HCI technology makes a difference for FIEPE’s business, employees, and end customers is very gratifying for the Nutanix team.”