Nutanix has announced it has overhauled Adelaide Oval’s IT environment to help improve business operations and lower costs while reducing the organisation’s carbon footprint.
Adelaide Oval is the premier sports ground in Adelaide, South Australia, and home to the Adelaide Crows, Port Adelaide Power and other prominent sports brands. The ground has an increasingly diverse range of functions including hospitality, entertainment and corporate events.
The venue is widely regarded as one of the most technologically advanced stadiums in the country, a reputation it has gained through its technology and innovation partnership with Telstra.
As a result of continued efforts to diversify its business and expand and increase its digital engagement with patrons, the Oval realised its previous IT infrastructure was no longer fit for purpose and becoming prohibitively expensive to maintain.
The sports operator worked with Nutanix and local Adelaide IT partner, Nuago, to replace its hardware based environment with Nutanix hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) – which now runs the Oval’s point of sale, CRM, Disaster Recovery (DR), Business Continuity Planning (BCP), database management and other systems, delivering significant benefits to the organisation.
“We may not have game days and other events right now, but when we’re back up and running, we need an IT system that enables us to deliver the right experience for spectators and clients,” said Bruce Malcolm, ICT Manager, Adelaide Oval.
“Scalability is vital – most of our trade happens during short 15-minute windows where sales go from virtually nothing to peak in a matter of seconds. That requires considerable IT capabilities to maintain, which will only increase as sporting and hospitality events are further digitalised.”
Since deploying Nutanix, Adelaide Oval has seen a 50% gain in IT department management efficiency, enabling it to refocus resources on more pressing business developments: such as the technology requirements for its first-of-its-kind integrated hotel, the Oval Hotel, anticipated to open in September 2020.
The new IT environment has also reduced energy costs by 32% through reductions in physical footprint and HVAC (heating, ventilation and air con) expenditure, which is also contributing to the Oval’s Sustainability Management Plan.
The organisation has also further lowered licencing costs and increased efficiency by adopting the Nutanix AHV hypervisor. Further, data backup and recovery has significantly improved through Nutanix and a multi-cloud data protection solution from HYCU, which has turned data protection into a one-click experience.
A new view from the top on ICT
The simplicity and enablement brought by Nutanix and Nuago has changed the organisational leadership’s approach to, and appreciation of, ICT according to Malcolm.
He added: “I’m speaking to our CEO, CFO and other business leaders in a different way now – they’re no longer seeing ICT and IT infrastructure as a hidden away operational component, but something that can truly enable the business. We’re looking forward and thinking about what Nutanix and Nuago can do next.”
The Oval is, for example, considering the Nutanix Xi Frame cloud-based virtual desktop service, to better enable multiple departments to operate remotely during and after the pandemic.
“Post COVID, there is a new business reality and IT infrastructure is leading the way,” said Lee Thompson, Managing Director A/NZ, Nutanix. “As the economic fall-out from the pandemic escalates, the role of ICT is only set to grow. Adelaide Oval exemplifies this – a value added contributor to the business.“
