Case Study: Hamburg University of Technology achieves fast, cost-effective virtual infrastructure with NexentaStor (Nexenta)

Hamburg University of Technology - Customer Case Study

The Institute of Aircraft Cabin Systems at Hamburg University of Technology, founded in 2008 and funded by Airbus, needed a modern, high‑performance storage platform to support expanding research and virtualized teaching environments. Their existing SOHO NAS could not serve as a backend for server and desktop virtualization, and with limited funding cycles and a requirement to avoid vendor lock‑in, the institute required a cost‑effective, scalable NFS/iSCSI SAN that delivered strong I/O performance and easy management.

The institute deployed NexentaStor on a Supermicro-based appliance (via Thomas‑Krenn), bringing enterprise features such as hybrid storage pooling, snapshots, deduplication and thin provisioning into a whitebox, OpenStorage design. The system was deployed quickly, now supports VMware-hosted virtual services and delivers high IOPS, hardware neutrality, simplified management and predictable, budget-friendly scalability — meeting performance needs without costly vendor lock‑in.

Hamburg University of Technology

Thorsten Windrath

Institute of Aircraft Cabin Systems, Hamburg University of Technology