Data Center Refresh Project at Rivier University

This case study details the data center refresh project undertaken by New Era Technology for Rivier University, a private Catholic Liberal Arts University in Nashua, New Hampshire. The university faced significant performance issues with its aging 3-tier data center infrastructure, particularly affecting its Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) environment, where boot-up times reached an unacceptable six minutes. In response, New Era Technology redesigned the data center using Nutanix technology on a Dell platform, migrating older servers to the Dell EMC XC Series Web-Scale Hyper-Converged Appliance. This solution enhanced performance and simplified management by integrating computing and storage into a single appliance. As a result of the upgrade, Rivier University can now support up to 700 virtual desktops with improved efficiency, reducing boot-up time from six minutes to approximately six seconds. The project also decreased the data center's physical footprint, leading to lower power and cooling costs, allowing the IT department to focus more on innovation.