Delivering lower costs, simpler management, same high availability

Engagement overview

When a hospitality business running critical guest services needed to replace its traditional virtualisation licensing model, they faced a challenge: lower cost pressure without weakening the environment they relied on.

NK2IT and RackCorp replaced the virtualisation layer with an on-premises and hybrid cloud solution that kept the availability model intact, simplified management, and gave the client better cost control.

The challenge

The client was running a traditional on-premises virtualisation environment with:

Physical servers

Shared HPE MSA storage

High availability configured between servers

The platform delivered the resilience the business needed, but the VMware’s move to per-core licensing pushed renewal costs up sharply.

Managing the environment remained specialist-heavy. High availability, shared storage, NIC teaming, and failover required advanced virtualisation skills and regular hands-on effort. Maintenance, upgrades, and troubleshooting required ongoing manual intervention.

The client wanted a platform that was easier to manage, more sustainable commercially, and better aligned with future hybrid infrastructure needs.

Why NK2IT and RackCorp

The solution offered the client a more cost-controlled alternative, worked with the existing on-premises infrastructure, and introduced centralised management through the NK2IT and RackCorp cloud portal.

The new virtualisation environment let the client retain the architecture with shared storage and high availability. NK2IT and RackCorp provided complete support throughout onboarding.

What was delivered

NK2IT and RackCorp implemented:

Access to the NK2IT and RackCorp cloud portal

Guided operating system installation on the local servers High availability configuration

Integration of the HPE MSA shared storage

NIC teaming across four NICs for performance and redundancy Integration of the servers into the portal

Training for the client team

The project kept the core design of the environment in place while removing the virtualisation layer that had become costly and cumbersome.

Business outcomes

The new environment reduced day-to-day complexity

Portal-based management made it easier to deploy, monitor, and manage workloads

Better workload distribution improved resource utilisation across the infrastructure

High availability remained in place

Network resilience improved through NIC teaming

The internal team became less dependent on specialist administration for routine operations