Nutanix helps interiors specialist Sundart reposition for BIM future

INDUSTRY

• Construction services

BENEFITS

• Zero downtime since deployment, ensuring business resiliency
• Rudimentary maintenance time reduced from 1 hour to just 10 minutes daily
• Reduced datacenter footprint from eight units to three units, with corresponding savings in utilities spending

SOLUTIONS

Nutanix Cloud Platform

• Nutanix AOS storage
• Nutanix AHV hypervisor

APPLICATIONS

• Human resource management, accounting, printing system and other office internal applications

BUSINESS BENEFIT

Adopting Nutanix Cloud gave Sundart an intuitive interface and integrated solution for easy internal management. It delivered immediate ROI in terms of efficiency by reducing the time spent on rudimentary maintenance to just 10 minutes per day. It also raised the IT function out of the realm of manual chores, allowing more time for innovation to advance the business.

CHALLENGES

Before turning to Nutanix, Sundart, a leading fitting-out contractor operating in Hong Kong, Macau and Mainland China, had used IBM Blade servers for its operations for more than 10 years. These servers did not offer hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) technologies, and the virtual environment was minimal due to limited processing power and storage, making management cumbersome. Moreover, their legacy operating system was due to expire, and the old versions of the server were a security liability. Sundart needed a new system that would integrate its operations and allow it to operate smoothly and securely without interruptions.

SOLUTION

Sundart implemented Nutanix Cloud Platform including AOS storage, and the AHV hypervisor in October 2021, a move that traded the company’s legacy infrastructure for vastly improved storage and analysis functions. IT staff were able to adapt easily to the change in interface, which is straightforward and unifies applications for easy management.

Sundart has been able to migrate its management tools for functions such as accounting, human resources, printing, and filing to the Nutanix cloud environment with ease, and the learning curve has been minimal.

Critically, this initial streamlining exercise has served as a precursor to the adoption of Building Information Modeling (BIM) technology, which will further simplify manual processes and usher in a new level of collaboration with the various stakeholders involved in the construction and interior design processes.

CUSTOMER OUTCOMES

Increased resilience and efficiency

Sundart has seen zero downtime since deploying Nutanix’s solutions. “We have been able to conserve time that would previously have been spent on low-value activities as well as perform backups with no lag,” said Alpha Wong, Sundart’s IT Support Engineer. “As well as being able to perform day-to-day operations with greater ease, we can face the future with greater confidence knowing that we have the infrastructure to keep going as usual in the event of a crisis situation.”

Relief through automation

Where hardware and software checking used to be an arduous process taking up to the IT team, in the new environment a daily check requires just 10 minutes. An IT manager is able to check for warnings directly via the Nutanix dashboard rather than combing through the logs of hardware and software on different blades. The time savings have helped elevate the value of IT beyond routine maintenance to a more strategic function within the organization.

An additional gain is space: with Nutanix, Sundart cut down its datacenter footprint size by more than half, from 8U to 3U. The reduced scale has also brought substantial savings in power and cooling costs.

Agility and scalability

“Nutanix has also helped us reduce the amount of time needed for hardware sourcing and deployment and simplified the virtual machine (VM) building cycle,” said Wong. “If the hardware is ready, we are able to scale up the environment on the same day, which would have been unthinkable in our previous environment.”

NEXT STEPS

Sundart is currently transitioning to Hong Kong government-backed BIM technology as its primary mode of working, and will use Nutanix Frame as the foundation. Frame is an industry-leading hybrid and multicloud DaaS solution that delivers Windows desktops and applications to users anywhere, on any device, with just an HTML5 browser. The move signals a new phase for Sundart as it expects BIM to streamline workflow and logistics. BIM enhances measurement and precision in daily operations and in the ordering of construction materials, and makes it easier for the various practitioners in construction to work together across regions.