Ministry’s new hybrid multicloud environment, based on NC2, enables effortless workload deployment and migration, and offers seamless and secure access across geographies with minimal oversight
The Ministry of higher Education was established on the 16th of October 1988 by decree number (164/88). Assertion of the Country to give the most attention to Higher Education to increase its effectiveness and expand its various educational aspects. The Ministry oversees plans and programs for the preparations and development of manpower through opportunities for higher education and specialization in various fields of studies in natural sciences and humanities. Graduating the appropriate number of specialists, technicians, and experts in the different branches of science and implementing and creating ways of scientific excellence and competition among students, scholars, and researchers by providing opportunities for outstanding students to continue their postgraduate studies in different scientific field.
Deploying Nutanix Cloud Clusters enabled the entity to effectively shift to a hybrid multicloud model thereby reducing TCO and complexity, while ensuring high-availability and seamless access to critical applications irrespective of location.
Key Results
| Reduced TCO and Complexity | Seamless Access | Enhanced Reliability |
|---|---|---|
| Eliminated need for dedicated hardware at branches, while enabling one-click infrastructure management | Access to mission-critical applications over the secure Kuwait Private Network is now possible even for international users | Enables real-time replication to Disaster Recovery site ensuring near-zero RTO and RPO |
Nutanix is the hybrid cloud pioneer and they helped us develop an effective technology vision and strategy for our business.
Challenges
As the government entity responsible for advancing the educational prospects and opportunities for Kuwaiti nationals, the Ministry of Higher Education has an expansive network of branches, including 12 in international territories. “Daily, thousands of Kuwaiti students across the world require access to our digital services,” explained Mohammad Alajmi, Head of Technical Development Section, Ministry of Higher Education - IT Dept, Kuwait.
Maintaining dedicated hardware at each branch presented significant capital and operational expenses, while leaving large visibility and control gaps. The mandate for utilizing the Private Network – a secure network accessible only within the country – meant there were limitations to the access provided to branch users. “The speed of replication to our disaster recovery site too was impacted by the geographic spread of our infrastructure,” Alajmi said. “To overcome this complexity, we turned to our trusted partner, Nutanix.”
Solution
Having successfully utilized Nutanix in its main data center and disaster recovery sites, the Ministry planned to simplify its branch infrastructure by deploying Nutanix hardware at these locations as well. But instead, Nutanix proposed an even more effective solution. “Nutanix is the hybrid cloud pioneer and they helped us develop an effective technology vision and strategy for our business. They demonstrated how we could shift to a hybrid multicloud model by using NC2 and connecting all branches to these cloud clusters,” said Alajmi.
With this cost-effective, future-proof plan in place, the Ministry confidently proceeded with deployment. “Being a software-only solution there were no racks, no stacks, and no cabling. From the intuitive portal, we had our cloud clusters set-up and running in under two hours,” said Alajmi. “Integrating these with our existing on-premise cluster was even simpler as it literally took just a few clicks.”
Customer Outcome
Nutanix Passes with Flying Colors
“Instead of having disparate infrastructure at every location, we have a truly unified environment that can be managed centrally with just one click. We can rapidly allocate or expand resources on the fly whenever, and wherever needed,” said Alajmi. “With this unified solution, we have end-to-end visibility and fine-grain control. And because we are not locked into a specific geographic location, we no longer face secure access or latency issues at our branches.”
Top-Class Backup
The performance boost has also translated to greater redundancy and higher availability. Previously, due to the inherence latency constraints, replication of data from the branches to the Ministry’s DR site lagged by an hour. “This left potential for significant amounts of data to be lost. Now however, with real-time replication enabled, we have complete peace of mind,” said Alajmi.
Unmatched Flexibility
The Ministry of Higher Education now runs all its mission-critical applications on Nutanix. This includes its website, certificates equalization system, and scholarship registration system. “Utilization of these applications varies significantly through the year and with Nutanix we can scale up or down effortlessly. During peak periods, we run 10 nodes, while during the off-season, we can scale down to just 3,” said Alajmi.
This flexibility is also evident in choice of deployment location. “With a simple click, we can migrate workloads from the cloud to on-prem and vice-versa. This experience simply cannot be compared to the complexity we previously faced when migrating workloads to the public cloud,” Alajmi said.
“Nutanix Cloud Clusters has become the go-to solution for any of our branch requirements, or for any application that needs to be hosted in the public cloud. For any organization looking to embrace the power of the hybrid multicloud, Nutanix should be the clear partner of choice,” Alajmi added.
Next Steps
“We are extremely impressed with Nutanix's vision. The performance security, scalability, and flexibility of their solution is perfectly complimented by their deep commitment to customer satisfaction, and their investment in developing a qualified and empowered partner ecosystem,” said Alajmi.
For these reasons, the Ministry of Higher Education is set to build on its partnership with Nutanix. “We are planning to expand the current install base with additional nodes, and to utilize more Nutanix solutions. One of these will be Nutanix Flow Network Security as it will enable us to isolate each branch and improve the security within the shared clusters,”Alajmi said. “We also want to add additional automation using Nutanix Cloud Manager to enable self-service for our branch admins.”