As VMware hyperconverged infrastructure continues to innovate and support more intensive workloads, we’re seeing increasing numbers of organizations move their most critical applications onto vSAN. COLORLAK is experiencing the benefits of HCI firsthand.
With innovation and sustainability central to their mission, COLORLAK – the largest Czech paint producer and distributor – set their sights on VMware hyperconverged infrastructure to power their datacenter modernization efforts, support a mission-critical information system and meet business goals.
COLORLAK relied on VMware to replace their legacy infrastructure with a best-in-class solution that would provide smooth management and performance without compromise. The infrastructure they had in place was built on a foundation of siloed, outdated components with complicated management workflows, limited functionality and operational risk. Any downtime created by this legacy system directly endangered production and COLORLAK’s standing as a market leader.
“Our QAD central enterprise information system is mission-critical and needs to be constantly available,” explains Radek Lapčík, IT systems manager, COLORLAK Group. “It is essential for both our production facility and distribution companies to ensure the uninterrupted operation of our systems. We believe that the adoption of a hyperconverged infrastructure from VMware helps us achieve our business goals.”
To provide uninterrupted support for their mission-critical workloads, leadership sought infrastructure that guaranteed: higher performance; high availability not only in the event of a system failure, but also a natural disaster; intuitive, agile management functionality; and favorable TCO. Implementing hyperconverged infrastructure powered by VMware vSAN, vSphere and vSphere Life Cycle Manager delivered on all these goals while also future-proofing their data center for the digital era.
“We perceive VMware as a technology innovator whose solutions foster your success now and going forward. That’s why it was our choice. It meets all our current requirements, and we can add other solutions later. We assume that VMware will be able to keep pace with new technologies and that we will implement them,” says Lapčík.
Ensuring high availability disaster recovery and business continuity, COLORLAK strategically chose separate data centers hosted in two locations, linked by a 25GB optical cable, on the production facility premises. They also leverage vSphere Lifecycle Manager with HPE iLO Amplifier for consistency in patches, driver versions and firmware across the vSAN cluster.
vSAN has proven to be an agile, high-performing solution while alleviating storage admin pain points at COLORLAK. Analysis of the HCI platform’s performance showed a substantial improvement in disk subsystem throughput and I/O wait, and has enabled the team to reallocate employee bandwidth to other IT projects.
“vSAN was integrated into our familiar vSphere environment, so it is easy for us to manage the HCI solution from a single point. Thanks to the improved effectiveness, our IT teams can devote more time to supporting processes and new projects,” explains Lapčík.
In addition to providing favorable TCO, a key success parameter for COLORLAK, the new HCI solution – which is power-efficient by nature – is positively contributing to the company’s commitment to reduce its carbon footprint.
To learn more about how hyperconverged infrastructure powered by VMware vSAN can also help your organization future-proof the data center, exceed business goals and advance ESG efforts visit VMware.com.
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