Nutanix Outperforms Traditional Servers and SAN in VDI

Case Study - Law Firms
Nutanix Outperforms Traditional Servers
and SAN in VDI Deployment at Law Firm
Company Background
Founded in 1882, Leitner, Williams, Dooley & Napolitan is a legal defense firm
with offices across the southeastern United States. Its members have hundreds of
years of combined experience in litigation and mediation.
Microsoft Upgrade Prompts VDI
Leitner originally considered VDI as an alternative to a PC hardware refresh.
A planned software upgrade to Microsoft Windows 7 and Office 2010 would
have required new, more robust PC hardware for the firm’s users. They faced a
choice between maintaining a traditional desktop environment and rolling out
new PCs, or adopting VDI and running virtual desktops on a centralized server.
VDI would simplify administration by allowing them to standardize desktops and
push updates to all clients in one place, instead of dealing with the complexity of
customized physical desktops in a geographically-distributed organization.
After testing a VMware View pilot for nearly a year and concluding that it could
deliver a satisfactory user desktop experience, Leitner decided to move forward
and needed a server and storage infrastructure with fast performance and high
availability. Since the firm has been a customer of HP and EMC, they naturally
considered traditional clustered servers and SAN storage. Leitner’s reseller
United Data Technologies (UDT) also wanted to quote the Nutanix SAN-Free,
converged compute and storage platform as an alternative. William Tomlinson,
IT Director at Leitner, saw immediately why UDT was enthusiastic about it. “I love
the concept and the profile of Nutanix – that’s what drew me in,” he said.
Business Needs
Server and storage infrastructure
with fast performance and
high availability to support VDI
deployment on VMware View.
Solution
Nutanix Virtual Computing Platform
Benefits
• Performed desktop refresh/
recompose faster than traditional
server with SAN
• Compact 2U size better fit into
data center’s limited rack space
• Outstanding “holistic” support
Mark Winterton, Business Development Manager for UDT, added, “As Leitner
grows, we try to find the best of breed technology for them that’s going to
take them many years down the road. The Nutanix technology solves a lot of
performance issues that a VDI creates. What was very enticing as well was the
scalability of the product as the customer VDI deployment grew.”
“
“
Overall, Nutanix has certainly simplified our solution and,
combined with great support and friendly help, we want to
continue to be a Nutanix customer for the long term.
- William Tomlinson, IT Director,
Leitner, Williams, Dooley & Napolitan, PLLC
www.nutanix.com
Case Study - Law Firms
Nutanix Outperforms Traditional Infrastructure
Leitner tested Nutanix versus the traditional server and SAN storage and chose
Nutanix because of its superior performance and compact footprint. The Nutanix
Virtual Computing Platform performed desktop refreshes and recomposes
in VMware View faster than traditional server and storage, which minimized
the performance impact of regular administrative tasks. “It’s a night and
day difference,” said Tomlinson. The Nutanix appliance’s compact 2U size is
significantly smaller and fits into the limited rack space in the firm’s data center.
In addition, the built-in VMware hypervisor, live migration and automatic node
failover provide high availability. The GUI is intuitive, and provides ability to see
performance statistics for individual VMs.
The Nutanix platform now hosts virtual desktops, supporting a broad application
portfolio, including Microsoft Office 2010, accounting system, content
management system, Firefox web browser, Windows 7-Zip, VLC media player
and Adobe Reader and PDF Creator.
Leitner is particularly impressed with Nutanix support. Whenever there are any
issues, the support team takes a holistic approach to problem solving and helps
optimize the network and VMware View application as well as the Nutanix
platform. To one such incident, Tomlinson remarked, “Many of the changes
made did not involve the Nutanix appliance, yet the support team applied a
‘holistic’ approach to the problems, and helped expose our weaknesses – and
as importantly – solve them. I’ve always said your support is outstanding and the
best I have ever dealt with.”
“I’ve always said Nutanix’s support is
outstanding and the best I have ever
dealt with.”
- William Tomlinson, IT Director,
Leitner, Williams, Dooley & Napolitan, PLLC
“The Nutanix technology solves a
lot of performance issues that a VDI
creates. What was very enticing as well
was the scalability of the product as
the customer VDI deployment grew.”
- Mark Winterton, Business Development
Manager, United Data Technologies
(Reseller)
Winterton echoed this sentiment: “A lot of times the manufacturer only
understands what their product does, but doesn’t understand the impact it is
going to create on other applications and departments. However, the team
from Nutanix knew a lot more outside of their own Nutanix box. So they were
able to make sure that this was truly going to be a good fit for us. We were very
impressed with this as well. Support before the sales, during the sales and after
the sales has been magnificent.”
Nutanix for the Long Term
With a Nutanix system in place supporting virtual desktop users, Tomlinson
indicated they plan to add more systems in the future as requirements grow.
“Overall, Nutanix has certainly simplified our solution and, combined with great
support and friendly help, we want to continue to be a Nutanix customer for the
long term,” he said.
About Leitner, Williams, Dooley & Napolitan
Leitner, Williams, Dooley & Napolitan is a law firm of nearly 100 attorneys with offices in Chattanooga,
Knoxville, Nashville and Memphis, TN, Atlanta, GA, and Oxford, MS. The firm represents clients ranging
from Fortune 500 corporations to small businesses and individuals. Its top priority is to protect clients from
the costs and risks of litigation. The firm’s members are committed to the mastery of the law as well as
knowledge of the businesses and industries in which their clients work, believing both are essential for
providing excellent legal representation.
Tel 855.NUTANIX | (855.688.2649)
Fax 408.916.4039
Email [email protected]
@nutanix
About Nutanix
Nutanix brings forth an exciting new SAN-Free virtualized datacenter platform, converging two tiers of
infrastructure down to one. Through the use of innovative server-attached PCIe Flash and high capacity
SATA drives, Nutanix’ innovative distributed storage and compute cluster localizes the data-path for higher
performance and reduced complexity. Inspired by SAN-Free distributed systems employed by Google,
Amazon, Facebook, and Twitter, Nutanix is first to market with an enterprise-friendly, easy to deploy storage
and compute cluster that dynamically grows to meet business demands. For more information please visit www.
nutanix.com.
www.nutanix.com