​Value of ViFX shines through as Sealord casts aside SAN to reel in Nutanix

Nutanix has drawn on the expertise of local technology firm ViFX to help global seafood enterprise, Sealord Group, implement Nutanix hyper-converged infrastructure to underpin supply chain and management applications on which the $500 million operation relies.

Sealord Group’s more than 1350 employees require a variety of factory production and product management systems to document and control the harvesting, packaging, weighing, labelling and distribution of seafood.

These systems depend on Sealord’s data centre to provide office, factory, dock and remote workers with reliable, real-time access to the most up-to-date information.

With its former storage area network (SAN) nearing the 10-year mark, Sealord selected Nutanix with assistance from Kiwi IT infrastructure and cloud consultancy, ViFX.

The Auckland-based company procured and implemented Nutanix’s web-scale technology based on Sealord’s requirements for reliability to maximise employee productivity regardless of location - whether in the office, at the dock or via mobile access.

“As the business continued to expand, our traditional SAN-based data centre environment was becoming a support issue,” says Dave Thompson, Group Manager of Information Technology, Sealord Group.

“With a growing storage bottleneck, we saw the opportunity to adopt hyper-convergence-based technology.

“The web-scale capability was a real driver, but what sealed the deal is just how simple it is to set up and manage. It took half a day to install, and it virtually manages itself.”

With three Nutanix nodes, the organisation’s data centre is also now entirely automated and monitored with Nutanix’s Prism one-click management interface, allowing Sealord’s technical engineers to focus on business value rather than just keeping the lights on.

When the company’s requirements increase, it will be able to scale by simply adding another node, which will integrate into the environment without downtime or a loss of productivity.

“Sealord is a large and dynamic operation that relies on the performance of its business applications to reach its myriad customers,” adds Wayne Neich, Managing Director Australia and New Zealand, Nutanix.

“With a web-scale infrastructure supporting its employees, Sealord has taken resources out of the management of its data centre, and reinvested them in the big fish: its product and customers.”