IndianOil Modernizes R&D Infrastructure, Cuts TCO by 60-70%
With Nutanix’s AI-ready platform, IndianOil accelerates clean energy innovation by 20%, reduces energy consumption by 30% and advances its net zero goals.
India’s flagship energy company, Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IndianOil), sought to modernize the infrastructure supporting its research and development (R&D) division to strengthen data security and provide more resources to innovate. By adopting the Nutanix Cloud Platform solution, along with its Nutanix Flow Network Security solution, the company’s R&D teams report that they have gained 20% in operational efficiency, accelerated innovation, and significantly reduced total cost of ownership (TCO) by 60-70%. Their IT staff productivity has also seen a huge surge of more than 50%.
Key Benefits
Unlocks innovation
Increased R&D projects efficiency by 20% with AI-ready infrastructure
Reduces TCO
Lowered total cost of ownership by 60–70% with consolidated, highly automated IT platform
Boosts Productivity
Reduced daily IT workloads by over 50%—freeing up personnel to focus on other strategic priorities
With Nutanix, our R&D team can innovate freely with agile, on-demand IT. We’re moving faster, staying secure, and making real progress towards our net-zero goals. As of today, we’ve slashed energy use by 30% and costs by 70%.
Challenges
IndianOil operates more than 40,000 fuel stations and serves 30 million customers daily. At the heart of its business operations lies the company’s Research & Development (R&D) division, which leads the charge in advancing clean energy innovations and refining technologies. As India’s national oil company, IndianOil has pledged to achieve net-zero emissions across Scope 1 and Scope 2 by 2046—aligning with the country’s broader commitment to reach net zero by 2070, as announced at the COP-26 Summit.
The legacy three-tier infrastructure supporting R&D operations was constraining innovation. Physical server core limits and a lack of GPU compatibility restricted the ability to run advanced simulations and AI workloads. Provisioning new capacity took days, delaying critical research projects. Plus, fragmentation across compute, storage and networking made IT administration time-consuming, and energy consumption was high. “We wanted to remove the barriers that IT was putting on R&D and better support the team in achieving the breakthroughs in energy production our country is seeking,” says N.K. Malik, general manager, information systems, IndianOil R&D.
Solutions
IndianOil evaluated solutions from VMware and Nutanix, conducting a detailed proof of concept. Nutanix was chosen for its simplified architecture, future-ready scalability, and reduced total cost of ownership (TCO).
Working with Nutanix partner F1 Infotech, IndianOil migrated 28 servers, two storage systems, and 100 TB of data to a Nutanix platform, running Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure, with the native Nutanix AHV hypervisor and the Nutanix Prism management plane. IndianOil deployed 14 Nutanix nodes across primary and disaster recovery (DR) sites with virtual machine (VM) mirroring for seamless failover. It also implemented the Nutanix Flow Network Security solution to provide microsegmentation and strengthen data protection.
“F1 Infotech supported the platform design, ensuring it could handle our workloads—including AI developments—for the next 5–7 years,” says Mr Malik. “Thanks to our collaboration, we completed the project in under four months—it was the smoothest project I’ve been involved with during my long IT career.”
Customer Outcomes
Increasing the speed of innovation by 20%
With Nutanix, IndianOil R&D is driving innovation and helping the company achieve a sustainable energy future. The R&D team is now using an AI-based research assistant to analyze report data, review patents and check the previous findings of scientists to avoid work duplication. “Everyone is feeling the improvement,” says Mr Malik. “R&D is working at least 20% more efficiently thanks to Nutanix supporting AI workloads.”
IndianOil R&D is also more agile, launching projects on the fly, with no delays from hardware provisioning. “It’s effectively IT on-demand for our R&D teams with Nutanix,” says Mr Malik. “We can spin up a new environment in just over one hour—when it used to take a couple of days at least—and then we can scale the environment as needs evolve.”
Lowering TCO by 60–70%
The IndianOil IT team reports that the switch from a three-tier infrastructure to Nutanix significantly reduced the TCO for running the team’s IT. IndianOil converged compute, storage and networking into a single Nutanix platform, automating patching and provisioning, and enabling one-click upgrades through a single-pane-of-glass. “Take into consideration everything from consolidation to management efficiency and cooling, and I can say we’ve cut TCO by 60–70%,” states Mr Malik.
Increasing operational efficiency by over 50%
Instead of constantly fighting issues with the legacy infrastructure, the IT team can dedicate more time to deploying new services, such as the AI application for report and patent data.
IndianOil’s data protection is managed using Nutanix Flow Network Security. “At a daily level, we’ve reduced infrastructure management time by more than half using Nutanix,” comments Mr Malik.
Reducing energy consumption by 30%
Using Nutanix, IndianOil is primed to move towards achieving its goal of net zero by 2046. With its smart resource usage, smaller physical footprint compared to the legacy infrastructure and automated power management, the Nutanix solution is a clear break from the past. “Energy usage was at the front of our minds when we were exploring replacements for our legacy infrastructure,” recounts Mr Malik. “The fact that Nutanix lowered our energy consumption by at least 30% was a great result.”
Next Steps
Looking ahead, IndianOil is completing full data center mirroring for business continuity and DR. With its GPU-ready Nutanix platform, the company is preparing to scale AI and generative AI workloads and deploy Nutanix-powered virtual desktops to secure sensitive intellectual property. “With Nutanix as our strategic partner, we are confident our infrastructure can support our innovation roadmap for the next 5–7 years,” concludes Malik.
Learn more at www.nutanix.com
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F1 Infotech is a leading IT solution provider in India that helps clients maximize their performance by leveraging best talents having technical expertise & domain wide experience, innovative management philosophy and comprehensive portfolio of services. It is a diversified group focusing on IT infrastructure, security and healthcare.
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12/2025