Simplified platform lifts efficiency

Fujitsu Hong Kong is a leading ICT solutions and services provider in the region. Fujitsu UVance is an innovative solution that addresses customers’ business challenges and solves societal issues. Through Fujitsu Uvance, it is committed to connecting companies across industry boundaries and harnessing their strengths to generate positive change. It aims to build long-term partnerships with its customers, and sees trust as the cornerstone of a strong, sustainable relationship.

Operating any kind of business in Hong Kong involves a specific series of considerations and challenges. Real estate and office space typically command premium prices. Optimising the use of business property without compromising operations is a critical priority that, if managed effectively, can deliver very welcome financial benefits.

Fujitsu Hong Kong is like many other businesses in the region in that it meets this challenge through virtualisation. It has around 100 staff and currently runs over 90 virtual machines.

In 2021, Fujitsu Hong Kong found itself at a crossroads in the management of its internal IT infrastructure. Service costs from its previous virtualisation supplier were rising sharply, and regular maintenance and patching requirements meant downtime was a growing problem. The business assessed its options and decided to test the viability of switching provider.

Nutanix AHV is a secure virtualisation platform designed to power virtual machines and other cloud-native workloads in both on-premises and public cloud environments. It is one of the leading virtualisation tools across the globe, and as a close Fujitsu partner it is also a solution that Fujitsu teams have regularly deployed with great success in the local market.

“We already knew the capabilities of Nutanix, so it was logical to investigate whether it was a good fit for Fujitsu internally,” explains Eric Ng, Head of Managed Infrastructure Service at Fujitsu Hong Kong.

Fujitsu staff compared the fees charged by its previous provider with those of Nutanix and factored in key considerations such as the reductions in footprint and power consumption that Nutanix would of fer. There was a clear winner.

“We ran the numbers and concluded that Nutanix would be a project worth investing in,” says Ng. “The comparisons clearly showed that it was the most cost-effective option for our environment.”

The decision was made and Fujitsu Hong Kong moved away from its old three-tier infrastructure, which required IT staff to maintain servers, switches and storage, and deployed the leaner, more resource-efficient Nutanix alternative.

“For the internal IT manager, deploying Nutanix was a very smooth process,” Ng explains. “His personal experience of Nutanix had been limited until that point, but the service-level agreements and support from Nutanix were so good that his learning process was very quick.”

With the physical internal IT environment now cut to just three on-premises Fujitsu PRIMERGY servers, staff at Fujitsu Hong Kong were able to complete the deployment with minimal disruption to wider business operations. Having made the decision to change in October 2021, the new environment was up and running in early 2022.

The new, simplified Nutanix environment at Fujitsu Hong Kong has created a smooth, easily managed working environment with zero downtime and staff can now be productive all day, every day.

“The IT operation admin team now has a single pane of glass through which they can manage everything,” says Ng. “The portal and dashboard mean you only need one platform, instead of multiple separate platforms to manage machines, storage and so on. This is why it’s so much more efficient.”

The simplified infrastructure also delivers savings in terms of energy consumption and space usage, and deployment of internal IT staff. The reduced footprint has led to annual savings of over HKD100,000 for Fujitsu Hong Kong, while demand on its IT has been cut by around 20 days, freeing up staff to focus on higher-value initiatives.

“There are system security advantages too,” says Ng. “Spotting abnormal activity is much simpler, most patching is handled automatically, and we can be sure that our defence against threats such as ransomware is always up to date.”

For Ng and the rest of the staff at Fujitsu Hong Kong, the use of Nutanix internally is a clear vote of confidence in the platform. Perhaps more importantly, it is also a clear demonstration of its value to Fujitsu’s clients.

“There have been many successful use cases for Nutanix,” he concludes. “The fact is that we, as a solution partner and user, give a vote of confidence to the platform.”