Overview
Revolutionizing energy networks for superior user engagement
Our client is a leading European energy company that develops oil, gas, wind and solar energy projects. It is primarily a petroleum company with a significant focus on offshore operations and exploration services. Its network infrastructure comprises NSX-V instances running across two data centers for an overlay requirement. To improve its end-user experience, they sought a strategic partner to help them embark on a successful network transformation journey.
The Challenge
Holistic data center transformation and zero-downtime migration strategy
- Our client was looking for a robust network infrastructure and to move from legacy to modernized data centers (DCs).
- Apart from DC migration, they wanted to minimize application downtime during the migration, while retaining the existing architecture.
- Additionally, they have a very strict requirement for hardware compatibility with NSX-T data center, vSphere stack compatibility with NSX-T, firewall constructs and NSX-T rules compatibility.
The Objective
Innovative infrastructure overhaul
- Modernize network infrastructure from legacy to NSX-T data centers.
- Minimize application downtime during migration.
- Ensure hardware compatibility with NSX-T and Sphere stack.
- Migrate from NSX-V to NSX-T due to end-of-life concerns.
- Enhance network visibility and troubleshooting capabilities.
- Enable support for multiple hypervisors and diverse workloads.
- Strengthen security with distributed IPS/IDS capabilities.
The Solution
Enhanced infrastructure: HCLTech’s NSX-V to NSX-T migration journey
- HCLTech helped our client with a migration plan for its existing NSX-V, which was at its end of life (EOD)/end of support (EOS).
- To enable seamless DC modernization, HCLTech implemented an NSX-T data center. A test environment was created to simulate the migration process before the actual migration.
- Using NSX migration coordinator with the in-place migration methodology, we successfully migrated NSX-V to NSX-T infra. During this phase, approximately 900 VMs and 4,000 firewall rules were migrated.
- HCLTech also replaced Network Interface Cards (NIC) to support GENEVE protocol for NSX-T.
- Lastly, we upgraded the vSphere stack to support the latest NSX-T architectures and modified NSX groups and rules in NSX-V to support the migration process to NSX-T.
The Impact
Elevated network visibility and expanded workload compatibility
- Achieved an enhanced view of network topology for better visibility and troubleshooting.
- Ensured support for multiple hypervisors for future use, as and when required.
- Provided support for different types of workloads, such as containers, bare metal and public cloud workloads, that were absent in the earlier environment.
- Enhanced security capabilities with distributed IPS/IDS to be used in the future.
