Infrastructure Renewal
Replace aging compute and storage infrastructure with a modern, scalable and highly available enterprise platform.
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DATA CENTER / ARCHITECTURE / MODERNIZATION
Major Insurance
Major Insurance
Company
Data Center Modernization & Kubernetes Platform
End-to-end modernization of the primary data center infrastructure — from presales and architecture through implementation, VMware platform deployment and migration of production workloads.
01 / OVERVIEW
A complete refresh of a business-critical data center platform.
The project covered the consolidation and technological modernization of the primary data center of a major insurance company in Serbia. The existing infrastructure was replaced with a new compute, storage, SAN, Ethernet and virtualization platform, followed by migration of production virtual machines to the new environment.
Because the platform supports business-critical services, the project required careful architecture planning, staged implementation and a controlled migration strategy designed to preserve service reliability throughout the transition.
The final platform combined modern Fujitsu compute, HPE all-flash storage, high-speed Ethernet and Fibre Channel networking with VMware vSphere 8 and a dedicated Tanzu-oriented cluster.
02 / THE CHALLENGE
Modernize the platform without compromising production continuity.
The project was not a simple hardware replacement. It required a new infrastructure architecture, integration with the existing environment, staged migration and validation of production workloads.
Platform Transformation
Introduce VMware vSphere 8, new cluster architecture and a dedicated platform for Tanzu Kubernetes workloads.
Controlled Migration
Move existing production virtual machines to the new environment through a carefully staged migration process with validation at each step.
03 / ARCHITECTURE
Compute, storage and networking designed as one platform.
Compute
Sixteen Fujitsu PRIMERGY RX2530 M7 servers covering VMware, Oracle KVM and dedicated physical workloads.
VMware
Twelve VMware ESXi 8 hosts managed by vCenter 8 and organized into separate production and Tanzu clusters.
Storage
HPE Primera A670 all-flash storage with encrypted SSD media, high availability and enterprise data services.
SAN
Redundant 32Gb Fibre Channel connectivity between compute and shared storage infrastructure.
Ethernet
High-speed Juniper data center switching with 25Gb server connectivity and resilient uplink architecture.
Tanzu
A dedicated four-host VMware cluster prepared for Tanzu Kubernetes workloads and modern application platforms.
Availability
VMware HA, shared storage and redundant networking designed to maintain service availability during component failures.
Monitoring
Centralized monitoring through Zabbix for servers, VMware, networking and infrastructure health.
04 / PLATFORM AT A GLANCE
Enterprise scale, built for the next generation of workloads.
16New physical servers
12VMware ESXi hosts
2VMware clusters
215VMs in migration scope
25GbServer Ethernet connectivity
32GbFibre Channel connectivity
05 / MIGRATION
A staged transition from the legacy platform to the new data center.
Migration was treated as a separate architectural workstream rather than as the final step of installation. The new storage was integrated with both existing and new hosts so that workloads could be moved between environments in controlled phases.
The migration strategy combined storage migration, VM registration on the new vSphere environment and application-level validation. This approach provided a controlled path from the legacy VMware platform and HPE 3PAR storage to the new vSphere 8 and HPE Primera environment.
Each workload was validated after migration before proceeding with the next group, reducing operational risk during the transition of business-critical services.
06 / MY INVOLVEMENT
Project leadership from presales to production.
I led the project from the initial presales phase through solution architecture, technology selection, detailed design and final implementation.
My role was to connect the customer requirements with the complete infrastructure architecture — compute, storage, SAN, Ethernet networking, VMware virtualization and migration strategy — and to keep those elements aligned throughout the delivery process.
During implementation, I coordinated the technical workstreams and the project team, followed the transition from design into the production environment and remained involved through migration and final validation.
01Presales Leadership
02Solution Architecture
03Technology Selection
04Project Leadership
05Implementation Coordination
06Migration & Validation
07 / OUTCOME
A modern data center foundation ready for both traditional and cloud-native workloads.
The project delivered a refreshed primary data center platform with modern compute, all-flash storage, high-speed networking, VMware vSphere 8 and a dedicated Tanzu cluster — while providing a controlled migration path for the existing production environment.