INDUSTRY
Retail
BENEFITS
- 400% computational performance increase
- Around 70% storage increase in comparison to traditional architecture previously used
- Data and environment migration with no end-user downtime
- Quicker updates with “OneClick Upgrade” feature
- Lower operating costs
- High availability (99.8% uptime)
- Integration with other Virtualization Vendors (VMware) and public Cloud integration (Azure)
SOLUTION
APPLICATIONS
- Office productivity applications
- SAP
- Citrix
BUSINESS BENEFITS
With Nutanix by their side, Aliansce Sonae Shopping Centers has been able to efficiently manage the demands of their 39 shopping mall locations, successfully navigate a large company merger, deliver exceptional service for their customers, and plan confidently for future expansion.
CHALLENGE
Aliansce Sonae Shopping Centers is Brazil’s largest retail property management company. Created from the successful merger of Aliansce and Sonae Sierra, the business now has 39 shopping centers under its management across all regions of Brazil, totaling 1.4 million square meters of leasable space.
Aliansce Sonae Shopping Centers acts as owner and manager of these shopping malls, actively participating in all phases of the business—from planning and development to marketing and administration.
Prior to the merger, Aliansce was searching for a technology solution capable of managing their locations and data simply and effectively, as well as helping them to deliver unparalleled service to their clients and end-users.
SOLUTION
Before implementing Nutanix, Aliansce was using the legacy infrastructure. It used to take a month to plan and execute upgrades to make sure every component was compatible with the others.
Now, they have a complete Private Cloud with Nutanix in a 100% virtualized infrastructure running workloads including SAP, BI, Office, Citrix, and Public Wi-Fi connection.
The migration process was simple. “Nutanix allowed us to plug into an existing legacy environment and do all the data and environment migration with no end-user downtime,” said Marllos Reis, IT Infrastructure and Service Manager at Aliansce Sonae Shopping Centers.
Reis and his team are also enjoying the benefits of quicker updating. “In the legacy environment, planning used to last at least a month. After migrating to the Nutanix environment it lasts only 3 days, using the simple “OneClick Upgrade” feature,” Reis explained.
In June 2019, Aliansce merged with Sonae Sierra to become Aliansce Sonae Shopping Centers. Because Sonae was also a Nutanix customer, the process of merging has been easier. “We are merging two companies with the same technology, without any impact or loss, without the obstacles we usually face when we have to use different technologies,” said Reis.
CUSTOMER OUTCOMES
Unified Connectivity
The Aliansce Sonae team are seeing the benefits of having all of their applications and data managed in one place. “We manage 39 shopping malls across Brazil that are effectively connected by the Nutanix platform. This technology unifies and enables us to meet demand from north to south, from east to west of the country,” explained Reis.
Enhanced Performance
Reis and his team are able to work quicker and more efficiently, thanks to their Nutanix solution. They’ve seen a 400% computational performance increase and around 70% storage increase in comparison to the traditional architecture they previously used. Plus, they’ve been able to eliminate bottlenecks in different components.
Lower Operating Costs
“On our first hardware upgrade, the cost of migrating from a traditional to a converged structure was very high,” explained Reis. “With Nutanix now, things should run very smoothly when upgrading hardware. It is just a matter of adding the new appliances and removing the old ones. We will have a good return of investment in the future; labor cost will be lower for the team as a whole.”
Improved Customer Experience
Easy access to information is essential for Aliansce Sonae’s customers.
“Imagine you are at home and you need a piece of information. Or let’s say you are traveling, and you need to access some corporate information. With Nutanix, we have the ability to deliver all that to our users within our environment,” Reis explained.
Nutanix’s high availability (99.8% uptime) allows Aliansce Sonae’s clients to transact without any IT issues, which in turn allows them to guarantee IT is invisible for consumers visiting their shopping malls.
“For the end-user, I think the experience has improved significantly. We always say that our job is to improve people’s experience with technology, by providing a solution. Nutanix is one of the integral tools we use to achieve this,” said Reis.
More Time For Innovation
The Aliansce Sonae team are finding that their Nutanix solution helps them control day-to-day management in a much easier way, resulting in less problems for the team to solve. “You have to spend less time doing technical administrative work,” Reis explained. “Plus, we have drastically decreased the time wasted on solving management issues, so now we have more time to be involved with the business. Our technicians can focus their attention on the experience, on improvements, on finding solutions to problems that users come across. We are now able to focus on growing.”
Smoother Company Merger
The merger of Aliansce and Sonae Sierra has meant not only bringing together two companies and two technologies, but also two teams of people. Reis found that this has been a simple, straightforward process with Nutanix. “We have both companies in the Nutanix environment. The merger between the two companies and the connection between data centers is running much more smoothly,” Reis said. “We did everything with no downtime and now we are merging two large companies in a very simple way.”
Partners In Technology
Reis believes that with Nutanix, it’s not simply a business partnership. “The Nutanix team is building a model with us to meet current demand, as well as future demands, upcoming projects, and new technologies,” Reis explained. “They are not just a vendor that comes, sells, and leaves. They keep supporting us during and after the technology implementation process.”
NEXT STEPS
With built-in workload scalability agility that aligns with the company's business plan, the team at Aliansce Sonae can now confidently look to the future. “Thinking ahead, since Nutanix has integration with all public clouds and is aligned with worldwide public cloud solutions, we’re able to seamlessly integrate with global technology,” said Reis. “So we can navigate between private and public cloud worlds in a native way. I believe we have multicloud integration—so if we ever need to grow, we can.”
“Nutanix makes our journey much easier. It’s a technology connected with the future—so we don't have to worry about becoming obsolete. It's very cool”, concludes Marllos.