Deluca boosts performance 25% with Lenovo TruScale rollout

Deluca has selected Lenovo TruScale Infrastructure as a Service for the deployment of a hyperconverged infrastructure solution to support its plans for significant business growth over the next five years.

Deluca, an integrated property group with more than three decades of experience in construction, development, and property management, undertook an overhaul of its IT systems as its existing on-premises infrastructure neared end-of-life. The company works across commercial, industrial, retail, residential, and other sectors, and has a strong emphasis on data-driven operations.

Andrew Delaney, Information Technology Manager at Deluca, described the increasing demand for smarter IT solutions within the business. "Our teams are working around the clock to get new projects off the ground. Our business process is heavily data driven, and we rely on specialist applications to support design, estimating, and feasibility studies, among others," he said.

With their previous data centre located in a flood-prone area and reaching the end of its operational life, Deluca resolved to update and relocate its core infrastructure. Delaney explained, "Our previous data centre was in a flood-prone area, so we decided to take the opportunity to refresh and relocate. The aim was to deploy scalable, high-performance hardware in a secure co-location site."

The company explored hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) as a strategic fit for its ambitions. Delaney said, "When we started exploring the capabilities of hyperconverged infrastructure [HCI], we realised that it would be an excellent fit for our scalability objectives. We decided to replace our three-tier architecture with a modern HCI solution."

Partnering with Truis, Deluca selected a solution built around Lenovo ThinkAgile HX1331 Certified Nodes with the Nutanix Cloud Platform, all delivered via Lenovo TruScale IaaS. This approach enabled the business to access upgraded performance capabilities without the need for a substantial capital outlay.

The new setup includes Lenovo Asset Recovery Services, Lenovo XClarity, Nutanix Cloud Platform, Nutanix Move, and Nutanix Prism, alongside the hardware platform. "Aside from being extremely cost-efficient, TruScale IaaS gives us the peace of mind that Lenovo is monitoring our solution 24/7," Delaney added. "We also greatly value the fact that Lenovo supports the entire lifecycle, as data sovereignty and security are very important for us. At the end of the five-year service agreement, we can migrate to brand-new hardware and securely dispose of the data on the previous hardware using Lenovo Asset Recovery Services."

The migration was carried out in a notably efficient manner, according to Delaney. "Deploying the Lenovo ThinkAgile HX1331 Certified Nodes was very straightforward," he said. "Using Nutanix Move, migrating our data was simple and seamless—and we were so confident in the new platform that we cut over to the new solution on a Monday evening. Everything went very smoothly, and the support we received from Lenovo throughout the process was outstanding." He also credited the close relationship with technology partners: "We count ourselves fortunate to have three exceptionally strong partners: Lenovo, Nutanix, and Truis. Whenever we have a question, we know the help we need is always close at hand."

Since the deployment, Deluca has reported a 25% improvement in application performance. Delaney confirmed, "Practically overnight, we boosted the performance of our key applications by 25%—and we've sized our environment to support three-fold business growth over the next five years."

Deluca also highlighted the efficiencies brought by Lenovo XClarity and Nutanix Prism, which are reducing system management workloads by 10%. "At the same time, our Lenovo XClarity and Nutanix Prism management tools are reducing our workload by 10%, which gives us time back to focus on supporting our end users."

The move to Lenovo TruScale IaaS has resulted in a 15% reduction in operational costs. "With Lenovo TruScale IaaS, we're achieving cost-savings of around 15% a year compared to a like-for-like capex solution deployed on premises. That's extremely valuable, because it allows us to redirect investment to areas such as cybersecurity," said Delaney.

Delaney also described how the infrastructure changes have benefitted Deluca's core business teams. "Our estimating, finance, and property development teams run at a higher level of efficiency because of the boost in application performance. Ultimately, our Lenovo and Nutanix solution will help us get projects to the build stage faster."

On the decision to work with Lenovo, Deluca cited the company's hardware reliability and strategic relationship with Nutanix. "Lenovo TruScale IaaS and Nutanix have fundamentally changed how we approach IT at Deluca, and I see the collaboration lasting for a very long time," Delaney commented.

He also noted the potential for future scalability: "Over the past 12 months, we've seen quantifiable improvements in application performance and business efficiency, and we can grow to three-times the number of employees we have today without adding any new hardware."