University bounces back from damaged data center and thrives with new, cloud-first strategy

The customer wanted a cloud-first strategy – and they needed it quickly.

Challenge:

The university’s data center was supporting 20,000+ students and 4,500+ faculty and staff on a yearly basis until it was damaged in a powerful hailstorm that penetrated the building and destroyed equipment.

They knew they wanted to move to the cloud, but the biggest challenge was maintaining the data center while finding a cost-effective, seamless cloud solutions platform.

Solution:

SHI’s cloud solutions consultants knew they had to work quickly. They designed, architected, and implemented an VMware Cloud (VMC) on Amazon Web Services (AWS) environment, evacuating the damaged data center and migrating the university’s data to this solution.

The team implemented a five-host software-defined data center, connecting to on-premises via AWS Direct Connect, and used VMware HCX to move hot and cold migration workloads to VMC on AWS.

A VPN tunnel to a transit gateway allowed VMware Cloud to communicate with other AWS services running at additional Virtual Private Cloud attachments.

Outcome:

With their damaged data center retired, the customer reduced capex and increased opex in their new operational model.

Even the migration – which began because of a surprising act of nature – ended up running seamlessly. The customer was able to leverage their team’s existing VMware skillset to get it done.

Ultimately, the customer’s decision to take a bad situation and turn it into an opportunity to implement a cloud-first strategy transformed their environment.