A modernized, more cost-effective, and agile infrastructure to support the digital transformation of higher education institutions.
To support the rapid growth of its six European campuses, ESCP Business School has overhauled its IT infrastructure with Nutanix. By adopting a modern, cost-effective hyperconverged platform, the business school has gained agility, performance, and peace of mind. The result? Simplified operations, zero downtime, and a sustainable technology foundation for the future of higher education.
Founded in 1819 and spread across six European campuses, ESCP Business School needed to modernize its aging infrastructure based on VMware and HP ProLiant servers, over 80% of which were nearing end-of-support. The teams faced time‑consuming maintenance operations and the risk of service disruption, in an environment where educational continuity could not tolerate any interruptions.
With a lean IT team of eight employees and one manager—comprising versatile professionals capable of working on both networks and systems—the school needed an intuitive solution that could reduce reliance on rare expertise while ensuring high availability.
The goal was clear: streamline operations, reduce maintenance overhead, lower the energy footprint, and preserve data sovereignty, while guaranteeing 24/7 service availability. Given the different academic calendars across countries, resilience was essential; downtime, even temporary, was not an option.
"We wanted a solution that was simple and robust, and that would allow us to maintain control over our data while remaining agile enough to support the growth of our campuses," explains Alexis Ouari, Systems and Network Engineer at ESCP Business School.
After comparing several approaches — including Cisco HyperFlex and an in-house solution — the team chose the Nutanix hyperconverged platform for its simplicity, flexibility, and hardware-agnostic nature. The project, launched in 2019, was completed in 2021 after a rigorous evaluation and tender process. Rollout was carried out gradually in Paris, London, Madrid, then Berlin and Turin, without disrupting classes or impacting users.
Thanks to Prism and Nutanix Move, migration was completed in just a few days per site. Today, the school operates 24 nodes distributed across eight clusters, with synchronous replication between the Paris data centers to ensure high availability.
The Nutanix Technical Account Manager (TAM) team provided continuous support, best-practice recommendations, and compliance monitoring. The assigned TAM played a key role in training the staff, prioritizing updates, and advising on new product features, while ensuring strong reassurance and consistent post-deployment support. The institution also highlights the responsiveness and availability of the Nutanix teams, who are viewed as true partners.
“Nutanix helped us unify our environments while giving us greater peace of mind. It’s a true paradigm shift: we’ve gone from passive management to having complete control over our infrastructure,” says Thomas Dréano, Systems and Network Administrator.
"Beyond the technology itself, we found in Nutanix a partner who truly listens, understands our constraints, and supports our evolution over time," adds Ouari.
Since the system went live, ESCP has seen remarkable stability and a clear improvement in operational efficiency. The time spent on maintaining operational conditions has been reduced by nearly two-thirds, and application performance has improved significantly, particularly for the ERP system and file transfers. Consolidating four machines into three nodes per campus has significantly reduced energy consumption and server room footprint, thereby contributing to the school’s CSR efforts.
The benefits extend beyond the IT team. Faculty, researchers, and administrative staff now enjoy a faster, more reliable, and more secure infrastructure — a key asset for the smooth running of daily educational and academic activities.
The migration of the ERP system, a critical system previously hosted by the Chamber of Commerce, demonstrates the solution’s reliability. Completed without any data loss or service interruption, it delivered an estimated 50–70% performance gain, along with a noticeable improvement in the user experience.
The IT team was also impressed by the reliability of the support and the ease of administration, which allowed them to refocus their efforts on higher‑value projects. The Nutanix platform has emerged as a stable, scalable, and cost‑effective foundation, ensuring the continuity of the school’s educational and administrative activities.
“The greatest benefit is peace of mind. Not having to worry about that morning call because a service has gone down is a real luxury,” says Dréano.
"With Nutanix, we have regained visibility and confidence. For the first time, we know our system can scale without constraints, at the pace of our needs," explains Ouari. "Nutanix also plays an educational role: the Community Edition allowed me to test the solution during my studies and hone my skills even before deploying it in production."
The IT team at ESCP Business School sees its partnership with Nutanix as an opportunity for long-term transformation. Upcoming projects aim to consolidate this solid foundation and build on the gains already achieved.
Among the priorities is the adoption of Nutanix Files, designed to simplify data management and sharing across campuses while optimizing storage. The school is also exploring a hybrid disaster recovery plan, built on Nutanix’s cloud capabilities, to strengthen service continuity in the event of a major incident. Finally, the IT department aims to leverage the platform to accelerate the modernization of its application environments and support research and innovation projects, particularly in the field of data science. Nutanix remains at the heart of this strategy, serving as a scalable foundation upon which the school is building its digital future.
“One of the major advantages of Nutanix is that we can scale up step by step. We know the platform will be able to accommodate our future needs without having to start from scratch,” concludes Ouari.
“With Nutanix, we now have a solid, scalable foundation that supports our long‑term digital strategy. It’s a relationship built on trust, performance and simplicity,” adds Dréano.
Full name: ESCP Business School
Founded in: 1819
Campus: Paris, London, Madrid, Berlin, Turin, Warsaw
Students: 11,000+
Current infrastructure: 24 nodes, 8 clusters, 173 VMs
Resilience: local and remote, synchronous replication Paris-Paris
IT team: 8 engineers and 1 manager, versatile profiles
Nutanix Products: Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure, AHV Virtualization, Prism, Move, Nutanix Professional Services - Technical Account Manager (TAM)
Future projects: Nutanix Files, hybrid DR plan, containerization, AI