a Thai air logistics company

A leading air cargo logistics company in Thailand was facing rising annual IT costs due to VMware’s new subscription-based licensing model, coupled with challenges in repurposing aging hardware and ensuring business continuity. ZStack’s ZSphere virtualization platform was chosen for its consistent user experience with VMware vSphere, broad hardware compatibility and repurposing capabilities, seamless V2V migration, integrated operations, and transparent licensing model. The solution enabled the customer to achieve a smooth business migration, leverage existing server and storage investments, and significantly reduce the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). Furthermore, the high-availability architecture built on the platform has enhanced business resilience, laying a solid foundation for the customer’s future digital development.

The 7×24 Hub of Thailand’s Air Cargo Logistics Chain

As a leading integrated air cargo logistics company in Thailand, its core operations are centered at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport and Don Mueang International Airport. It provides crucial air cargo warehousing, ground handling management, customs clearance coordination, and logistics distribution services to a global clientele. Its business systems operate 24/7 without interruption, acting as the nerve center that ensures the efficient operation of the airport’s logistics chain.

Facing the Challenge of Zero-Downtime Migration and Hardware Reuse

Under the dual pressures of VMware’s licensing policy changes and continually rising costs, the customer urgently needed to find a superior enterprise-grade cloud platform alternative. However, the replacement path was fraught with high complexity and risk:

Zero-Downtime Requirement:Operating at the core of airport logistics, the business systems must remain online at all times. Any planned or unplanned downtime could lead to cargo backlogs and flight delays, resulting in huge financial losses and reputational damage.

Hardware Repurposing:The company had already invested heavily in a large number of x86 servers from various brands and a mature SAN (FC/iSCSI) storage network. The new platform had to fully repurpose this hardware and seamlessly integrate with the existing storage to avoid redundant investments.

Smooth V2V Migration:How to securely and smoothly migrate live VMware vSphere virtual machines to the new platform (V2V) was a critical technical hurdle for the project’s success.

TCO Control:The customer required an integrated solution that offered enterprise-grade features while ensuring a transparent and controllable long-term licensing cost to achieve continuous TCO optimization.

The Solution Provided by ZStack

After a rigorous evaluation and testing process of multiple cloud platform solutions, the customer ultimately chose ZStack ZSphere. Its core appeal lies in:

Broad Compatibility and Native Integration:ZStack ZSphere can repurpose multi-brand, multi-model, and multi-generation servers, supporting the customer’s existing server brands and models without requiring new hardware purchases. Its deep, native integration with SAN storage (including FC-SAN and IP-SAN) ensures that existing storage investments are fully utilized.

Guaranteed “Worry-Free” Migration:The online migration tool provided by ZStack (ZMigrate) was a key factor in winning over the customer. Leveraging mature technology and extensive migration experience, customers can securely migrate workloads from VMware to ZStack at their own pace.

Integrated Design and Simplified O&M:ZStack ZSphere integrates compute, storage, and network management into a single, unified platform managed through an intuitive web UI. This significantly simplifies daily operational complexity and lowers the learning curve and technical barrier for the IT team.

Reduced Total Cost of Ownership (TCO):ZStack ZSphere offers more flexible and diverse licensing models, including per-CPU core, per-physical server, and subscription-based options tailored to customer needs. This flexible business model provides greater convenience and cost control for enterprise users.

Customer Benefits Delivered by the ZStack Solution

Smooth Business Migration:Successfully achieved a live, smooth migration of all critical business systems, meeting the demanding requirement of “changing the engine in mid-flight.”

100% Hardware Repurposing and Seamless SAN Integration:All existing x86 servers were repurposed, and the platform seamlessly integrated with the customer’s existing SAN storage, with native support for multiple protocols like iSCSI, FC, and NFS.

Significantly Enhanced Business Resilience:The high-availability (HA) architecture built on ZStack (including management HA, network HA, storage HA, and VM HA) effectively prevents business interruptions caused by single points of failure, taking system reliability to a new level.

Improved O&M Efficiency and Cost Optimization:The unified management platform makes operations simpler and more efficient. Simultaneously, the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of the cloud platform has been effectively controlled, laying a solid financial and technical foundation for the company’s future digital expansion.