Nutanix (NASDAQ: NTNX), a leader in hybrid multi-cloud computing, announced today that Metacom has successfully deployed Nutanix Enterprise Cloud as it embraces a new era of hyper-scalability to match the demands of its growing business. Drawing from the full Nutanix suite, the company has been able to seamlessly replace ageing infrastructure, gain complete visibility across client sites and geographies, and put itself in a position to scale up client requests in days.

Alex Russell, Regional Sales Manager at Nutanix.

As a managed service provider that also produces and deploys its own hardware (routers) to ensure the effective delivery of its SD-WAN, POS, multi-media, and Wi-Fi services, Metacom turned to Nutanix to meet its needs for robust, secure, and uninterrupted access to its network. Notably, the company currently services clients from diverse industries, with a growing footprint in the retail sector, where it delivers services to more than 7000 retail outlets in over 20 countries.

"The sheer rate at which we are onboarding new clients is great for business, but it strains our technology. The environment was just not fit for purpose, couldn't scale, and couldn't support the growth we were experiencing. In short, if we didn't make a move, our systems would fail us," says Casper Visser, Network Manager, Metacom.

When Metacom’s system upgrade window opened, it opted to investigate a hyper-converged platform that would afford it the scale it needed. The live, real-time hosted solutions it delivers include digital displays, audio and radio streaming, its full spectrum Wi-Fi services, VoIP, retail analytics, and its network performance solution Metacom Online. All of these systems can't suffer any downtime and need to be able to scale in hours if a client’s needs change.

Using the Nutanix Enterprise Cloud Platform, Metacom is leveraging the power of Prism Central and Prism Elements to deliver full oversight into and management of its hyper-converged virtualization environment. This includes visibility into its Nutanix Acropolis deployment. To move its 100+ systems in its existing environment onto the Nutanix platform, the company used Nutanix Move.

"We wanted a hyper-converged solution that could deliver hyper-scalability, and Nutanix’s blueprint is based on hyper-scalability, unlike other OEM vendors who must marry multiple components to achieve it. Ultimately, the level and speed of the scalability we can achieve with Nutanix is why we moved away from the virtualization OEM vendor we used."

"The immediate benefits we have seen are true resiliency and redundancy, including from a geographic point of view as we run a full stack in Johannesburg and Cape Town. With a four-node cluster running independently in both environments, we can easily move payloads between the two and back again,” adds Visser.

Metacom benefits from using Prism Elements and Prism Central because it has a granular view of its environment. From memory in a node down to a physical interface and the traffic traversing the environment. The system's ability to map VM usage and alert the team of when it will reach capacity allows it to plan its growth better, avoid bottoming out of capacity, and prepare for capacity upgrades to a cluster.

“Metacom has truly drawn the best out of the Enterprise Cloud Suite. They have created an environment that can scale as needed, have full visibility with tightly integrated management, and now have the resiliency and redundancy they wanted from a hyper-converged solution,” says Alex Russell, Regional Sales Manager, SADC at Nutanix.