Customer Overview
Porton Biopharma is a specialist pharmaceutical manufacturer producing niche oncology treatments. Operating in a highly regulated industry, the organisation relies on a resilient and secure IT environment capable of supporting critical business systems, long-term data retention requirements, and legacy applications that must remain accessible for compliance purposes.
The Challenge
As Porton Biopharma’s existing Dell VxRail hyperconverged infrastructure approached end of life, the organisation began reviewing its long-term IT strategy. The existing eight-node VMware Cloud Foundation environment would require significant investment within the next 12-18 months, prompting the team to evaluate alternative platforms that could deliver greater value and flexibility.
The organisation approached Nexstor to assess its future infrastructure requirements and explore options that would support growth over the next three to five years.
Key project objectives included:
- Achieving cost savings or, at minimum, a cost-neutral solution
- Securing five years of hardware warranty and software support
- Integrating seamlessly with existing network infrastructure
- Simplifying management and ongoing support
- Maintaining a highly resilient environment
Why Nexstor?
Having worked with Nexstor for several years, Porton Biopharma valued the company’s vendor-agnostic and customer-focused approach.
With growing concerns, particularly following industry changes and pricing uncertainty in the Hypervisor market, the organisation wanted independent guidance rather than being driven towards a single vendor solution.
Nexstor worked closely with the team to understand their technical requirements, business objectives and future growth plans before presenting multiple infrastructure options, including both VMware-based and alternative platforms.
“The Nexstor team have been excellent throughout the project and respond rapidly if we have any issues.”
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The Solution
Following a comprehensive discovery process, Nexstor introduced Porton Biopharma to Scale Computing’s HyperCore platform.
The selected solution included:
- A three-node Scale Computing HyperCore cluster
- Scale Computing’s KVM-based hypervisor platform
- A new Veeam-based backup appliance
- Migration of approximately 120 virtual machines
- Integration with existing networking infrastructure
The move represented a significant infrastructure consolidation, reducing the environment from an eight-node cluster to a three-node HyperCore cluster while still meeting performance, resilience and scalability requirements.
The project also had to accommodate a complex mix of workloads, including Windows servers, Linux Ubuntu systems and specialist vendor applications. In addition, the new platform needed to support virtualised legacy workstations running older operating systems to maintain access to historic data and applications required for regulatory compliance.
Implementation and Migration
Nexstor began the engagement by carrying out a detailed assessment of Porton Biopharma’s infrastructure, storage requirements and future growth plans.
After reviewing several options, the organisation chose Scale Computing due to its simplified management model, predictable costs and ability to meet technical requirements without unnecessary complexity.
To support the evaluation process, Nexstor arranged technical workshops with Scale Computing, allowing Porton Biopharma’s team to gain a deeper understanding of the platform and its capabilities.
The timing of the project also aligned with the release of Veeam’s agentless integration for Scale Computing, further strengthening confidence in the proposed solution.
Migration was completed using a combination of methods:
- Scale Computing’s Carbonite migration technology for live workload migration
- Veeam backup and restore processes for workloads requiring exact replication
- Direct VMDK imports where appropriate
The majority of virtual machines were migrated with minimal disruption to production services. For a small number of specialist vendor workloads that could not be migrated directly, replacement KVM-based virtual appliances were deployed and services transferred successfully.
Seamless Integration
The new HyperCore platform integrated smoothly with Porton Biopharma’s existing network environment.
As part of the project, the organisation moved away from software-based networking, simplifying the design and reducing unnecessary complexity. VLAN tagging is now managed directly within HyperCore, while Layer 3 routing is handled by the existing network infrastructure.
This approach created a streamlined architecture that aligned with the business’s goal of simplifying infrastructure management.
The Results
The new platform has delivered significant operational and financial benefits.
More than £200,000 in Savings
By replacing the existing infrastructure with Scale Computing HyperCore, Porton Biopharma expects to realise savings exceeding £200,000 over three years compared to continuing with its previous platform.
Simpler Management
The HyperCore interface provides a clean, intuitive management experience, reducing administrative overhead and making day-to-day management considerably easier.
Improved Backup Reliability
The move from the previous Dell IDPA and Avamar backup environment to Veeam has resulted in more reliable backups with significantly fewer failures.
Future-Ready Infrastructure
The KVM-based architecture provides compatibility with a growing ecosystem of software vendors and positions the organisation well for future growth.
Looking Ahead
With the new platform successfully deployed and the migration complete, Porton Biopharma now has a simplified, resilient and cost-effective infrastructure designed to support the organisation’s future needs.
Through a combination of strategic guidance, technical expertise and vendor-independent advice, Nexstor helped Porton Biopharma modernise its infrastructure, reduce operating costs and create a platform capable of supporting critical pharmaceutical operations for years to come.
