The move to hyper-converged infrastructure (Part 1)

Anyone who has ever been involved in a data center relocation and migration project knows how much time and effort is needed to accomplish this comprehensive and complex task. Getting it done correctly requires a sophisticated strategy, thoughtful preparation, a detailed project schedule and highly knowledgeable IT team members. As with all IT projects, the risk lies in the details. In the case of a data center relocation and migration, the more complex the new environment (like hyper-converged storage), the more potential there is for challenges to arise. Understanding that reality is the first step in delivering a successful outcome.

Recently, Ontrack embarked on a complete data center relocation project for their U.K. data center, and delivered the project on time and under budget. Here’s the story!

The task and its challenges

In May 2015, Ontrack made the decision to move its U.K. data center – the largest production data center outside of the U.S. – with a timeline of one year to complete. As part of the relocation project, Ontrack gained the opportunity to truly evaluate hardware options and consider the benefits and efficiencies associated with the latest developments in storage technologies. Does it make sense to move away from a SAN-based, 3-tier system in favor of a web-scale hyper-converged solution? And if it does, can it be done within the one-year timeframe?

After careful evaluation, Ontrack determined that building out their new data center based on Nutanix web-scale hyper-converged infrastructure was the best choice for the business and for clients. The Nutanix Enterprise Cloud Platform solution offers flexibility around the incremental purchase of storage and computing, which allowed Ontrack to not only right-size the needed environment, but also scale computing and storage incrementally and predictably. As a result, Ontrack eliminated costs associated with over-provisioning.

In the second part of the article, we will showcase how Ontrack’s IT team tackled the data center relocation and migration project and delivered a successful outcome for the business.

Picture copyright: Ontrack