Government organization simplifies IT and reduces energy consumption with Hyperconverged Infrastructure
Overview
The Belgian agency ‘Regie der Gebouwen’ is the federal landlord responsible for the management and maintenance of all government buildings. Historically they lagged behind other departments in terms of their IT, until they turned to Nutanix and decided to switch to a software-defined data center, allowing them to manage server, storage and network with a single operating system.
The solution enabled them to simplify their IT landscape by moving from 200 to just 6 machines. The system’s automation and intuitive management allow them to do more with fewer specialized IT profiles. For government agencies, it is particularly difficult to attract and retain IT talent. In addition, the new hyperconverged infrastructure consumes less energy than a traditional data center while ensuring security and continuity.
Key Results
| Simplified IT management | Increased sustainability | Continuity and security |
|---|---|---|
| Fewer specialized IT profiles required as the entire IT infrastructure is managed from a single operating system | Less hardware and energy consumption compared to a traditional data center | Availability of critical applications guaranteed through self-healing capabilities and spare capacity |
Nutanix helped the government agency deliver optimal results with the available budget. Or as they put it: where they originally had to buy bread, their new infrastructure allows them to bake the bread themselves. Within the family of Belgian government services, ‘Regie der Gebouwen’ has evolved from a laggard to an innovative pioneer.
Challenge
The Belgian agency ‘Regie der Gebouwen’ is the federal landlord responsible for managing government buildings, ranging from ministry headquarters to prisons and even the Royal Palace. To keep the data and applications clear and accessible, they needed innovative technology. Especially since the department lagged behind other government agencies when it came to modern infrastructure.
Moreover, they were looking for a flexible solution that would allow them to do more work with fewer hands. After all, the shortage of available and skilled IT staff in the labor market is an even bigger challenge for government agencies. And because of the unpredictability of IT needs, the public building organization also wanted a strong scalable architecture that allows them to add more virtual machines and expand the cluster with extra hardware when needed.
Solution
Nutanix proposed a software-defined data center that combines server, storage and network management from a single platform (HCI). Compute resources (virtual machines) are managed with a hypervisor and software-defined storage and networking to allow for a single point of management for orchestration via one control panel. The implementation and installation went smoothly thanks to the intuitiveness of the Nutanix technology and the talented IT team at the government agency. As Mike De Ridder, Territory Account Manager at Nutanix, describes it: “While the transition can be perceived as a plunge into the deep, we provide the swimming straps that allow customers to learn to swim.”
The new hyperconverged infrastructure consists of two data centers with a 3-node metro cluster, providing ultimate resilience. If one node fails, the system can rely on self-healing capabilities that move the affected node’s data to the remaining nodes. And whereas a traditional system uses spare disks, the Nutanix solution is based on spare capacity. As a result, critical applications can be restored within minutes instead of hours or days.
The solution is much more than a storage box. Whereas other hyperconverged infrastructure solutions often still require separate management of servers and storage, Nutanix offers a higher level of automation. It completely transforms the way of working and makes IT teams significantly more efficient. In addition, the solution is vendor-agnostic, providing the customer with the freedom to work with different technologies and the ability to easily move from the core to the edge, to the cloud.
Customer Outcome
Nutanix Cloud Platform provides the government agency with an extremely modern solution, even compared to many corporate organizations. It gives them a solid foundation to grow and innovate without spending enormous budgets on upfront investments and licenses. The solution’s automation features reduce the complexity of the IT landscape and allow the small IT team to work more efficiently. Moreover, the entire platform is available remotely, which means staff can check and monitor the status of systems from virtually anywhere.
Another advantage for the Regie der Gebouwen is the fact that the cloud platform allows them to work towards a sustainable future where the energy consumption of the Nutanix solution is a lot lower compared to the old setup. Lower energy consumption not only reduces the CO2 footprint but also brings down energy costs. This is especially important considering that the sustainability and carbon neutrality of government buildings is one of their key responsibilities.
Finally, the modern infrastructure provides the security and continuity they need to keep their services up & running and their data secure. The combination of failover clusters and the system’s self-healing capabilities ensure the highest availability of critical data and applications.
Next steps
The implementation of the project is complete, which means the government department can start building on its new modern infrastructure. Whenever the agency’s needs change, the IT team can quickly add new machines and technology. For example, when they decide to move workloads to a cloud environment, they are ready for whatever the future holds. Of course, Nutanix remains available to provide advice and support.
Other government departments may also benefit from the Nutanix solution. After all, the Nutanix Cloud Platform is a secure, resilient, and self-healing platform for building your hybrid multicloud infrastructure. It supports all kinds of workloads and use cases across public and private clouds, multiple hypervisors and containers, with varied compute, storage, and network requirements.