Planned and delivered migration from traditional SAN and VMware infrastructure to Nutanix hyperconverged platform for an Education Department, leveraging software-defined infrastructure for simplified operations, linear scale-out economics, and improved security posture.
The Challenge
An Education Department was facing end-of-life on their existing SAN infrastructure coinciding with VMware licensing renewals. The traditional three-tier architecture of separate compute, storage, and networking had created operational complexity, unpredictable scaling costs, and security challenges with legacy network-based segmentation. Leadership saw an opportunity to modernise the platform architecture while addressing the immediate refresh requirement, with particular interest in software-defined approaches that could provide more predictable economics and stronger security controls.
Our Approach
We developed a migration strategy transitioning from SAN and VMware to Nutanix hyperconverged infrastructure. The software-defined storage and compute model provided linear scale-out economics - adding capacity by simply adding nodes rather than forklift upgrades to SAN controllers. The architecture incorporated microsegmentation capabilities enabling zero trust security patterns at the workload level, moving beyond traditional network-based perimeter controls. Workload assessment identified migration priorities and dependencies, with storage migration patterns designed for different workload types. The migration sequence was planned to build operational familiarity with the new platform and security model before tackling critical workloads.
Results
Successful migration from SAN/VMware to Nutanix hyperconverged platform
Linear scale-out model providing predictable capacity expansion costs
Software-defined microsegmentation enabling zero trust security patterns
Simplified infrastructure operations with consolidated management
Reduced operational complexity compared to traditional three-tier design
Migration completed with minimal disruption to school services
Further Reading
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