Case Study: University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust achieves 30% capacity uplift and hybrid‑ready scalability with Nutanix Enterprise Cloud

NHS Acute Hospital Trust Gets Hybrid-Ready With Nutanix

University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust faced an urgent technology refresh: its six‑year‑old three‑tier data centre was at end of life and struggling to scale and support 12,000+ users, 200+ VMware apps, Citrix desktops, SQL servers and other critical services — while meeting strict cost and tight timescales and keeping hospital services running 24/7. A full public‑cloud move was ruled out as too expensive, so the Trust needed an on‑premise, scalable, cost‑effective platform that could virtualise remaining physical servers and prepare for future hybrid cloud adoption.

The Trust selected Nutanix Enterprise Cloud (delivered by Cristie Data) with both VMware and Nutanix AHV hypervisors and Prism management, deploying two clusters for primary and DR sites. In a rapid migration the team moved 550 VMs, Citrix clinical desktops, Commvault backups and a DMZ in weeks, then virtualised 12 SQL Server clusters (≈60 systems, ~500 databases) within six weeks. Outcomes included a 30% immediate capacity uplift, six‑fold reduction in rack footprint (lower power/cooling and ops costs), simplified management, hypervisor‑licensing savings with AHV, and a hybrid‑ready platform to support VDI and future cloud migrations.

University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust

Rob Harder

Chief Technology Officer