With the vigorous development of the new energy industry, surging order volumes and the trend of IT localization have brought new IT infrastructure challenges. Beyond ensuring high efficiency and stability for critical business systems during high concurrency, new energy enterprises must also replace VMware virtualization (ESXi/vSphere) and vSAN with domestic solutions.
As a specialized vendor in enterprise cloud, SmartX has empowered numerous new energy enterprises to replace VMware virtualization and vSAN with SmartX Enterprise Cloud Platform (ECP). This solution provides high-performance, highly reliable, and easy-to-manage IT infrastructure support for mission-critical application systems (such as MES, PLM, ERP, and SCADA), and more scenarios.
A Leading New Energy Battery Manufacturer: Standardizing on ELF as the Sole Virtualization Platform for Future Cluster Deployment
A leading domestic new energy battery manufacturer previously relied on VMware virtualization and centralized SAN storage to support core business systems.
However, when faced with the launch of new business systems such as the BatteryNet private cloud, customer service, HR, and big data platforms, the original infrastructure revealed major limitations: low overall resource utilization, high operational complexity across branch platforms and hardware, aging equipment with poor stability, and limited scalability. These issues made it difficult to keep pace with the company’s fast business growth.
After a thorough evaluation, the manufacturer designated ELF as the exclusive virtualization platform for all new clusters. Over time, more than 100 ELF-based ECP nodes were deployed to support core business systems at headquarters and branch plants, including MOM (AI-MES), big data platforms, BatteryNet private cloud, customer service, HR, and other production systems and databases.
A Global Leader of New Energy Innovative Technologies: Deployed 100+ ELF Nodes Across 7 Sites to Power Core Business Systems
A world-renowned new energy technology company is committed to delivering first-class solutions and services for global new energy applications. Previously, each factory relied on VMware vSphere for virtualization services. However, following VMware’s acquisition by Broadcom, technical support and service availability in Mainland China weakened, while the new licensing model introduced high costs and uncertainty. Therefore, the company hoped to seek a stable, reliable, high-performance domestic alternative for its production line systems across subsidiaries.
In the end, the company adopted ELF virtualization to gradually replace more than 100 VMware clusters across seven sites and subsidiaries, supporting MES, AGV, formation, process management, campus access, and integrated management systems.
The solution was delivered as pure software, compatible with multi-vendor servers. By combining ELF virtualization with ZBS distributed storage under a perpetual licensing model, the company significantly reduced licensing costs. Moreover, the platform integrates with existing O&M and backup systems, further lowering the cost and complexity of IT modernization.
A Leading Lithium Battery Manufacturer: Deploying SmartX ECP to Support MES and PLM, Reducing Reliance on VxRail
A leading lithium battery manufacturing group has maintained a deep partnership with Dell EMC for years, extensively deploying VxRail HCI products pre-installed with software such as VMware vSphere, vSAN, and vCenter.
However, following VMware’s shift to a subscription-based licensing model, the customer faced significantly increased costs for new device procurement and capacity expansion. Against this backdrop, the customer grew concerned about the product’s future technical evolution and technical service assurance. They urgently needed a stable and reliable domestic alternative that could meet the following requirements:
- High Product Maturity & Comparable Capabilities: The solution must offer high maturity and achieve replacement parity with VxRail HCI in terms of O&M functionality, storage performance, stability, and reliability.
- Support for Critical Workloads: The new solution must provide stable, high-performance support for business systems, including MOMS, SCADA, Energy Storage Platforms, PLM, and MES.
- Self-controlled Technology: The solution must rely on proprietary, controllable core technologies to reduce licensing costs and minimize transformation risks.
Based on the evaluation results, the manufacturer ultimately selected SmartX ECP (with native hypervisor ELF) from numerous potential solutions. To validate the solution’s capability to replace VMware, they deployed ECP clusters across multiple manufacturing sites within two subsidiaries:
- Subsidiary A: Deployed 3-node ECP clusters at facilities in Guangdong and Vietnam, hosting mission-critical production systems—such as MES and PLM—along with their underlying databases.
- Subsidiary B: Following six months of stable operation at Subsidiary A, Subsidiary B successively deployed 6-node HCI clusters at its Guangdong plant to support business systems, including MOM, SCADA, and the Energy Storage Platform.
Building on the stable performance of SmartX ECP, the customer plans to advance VMware replacement in a phased manner. This strategy aims to achieve the transition to domestic infrastructure while simultaneously reducing investment costs.
Battero Tech: SmartX ECP Supports Logistics and AGV Systems, Driving Phased Replacement of VxRail
Battero Tech is an innovative high-tech lithium battery company under the Tsingshan Industrial Group, a Fortune Global 500 enterprise. The company is primarily engaged in the R&D, production, and sales of lithium-ion batteries, battery modules, and battery systems.
Battero Tech’s original data center primarily relied on VxRail appliances as their IT infrastructure. The change in the VMware licensing model led to increased costs and stability risks, prompting the customer to seek a new infrastructure platform for comprehensive replacement.
After in-depth evaluation of multiple solutions, the customer recognized the distinct advantages of SmartX ECP, including its stability and reliability, open ecosystem, and support for hardware reuse (maintaining existing hardware investment). Consequently, they selected SmartX ECP to host critical production applications, including logistics conveyor lines, AGV (Automated Guided Vehicles), and lithium battery packaging.
In Phase I, Battero Tech initially built a 10-node SmartX ECP cluster (based on the native hypervisor – ELF). Following successful validation of the platform’s stability in the production environment, Phase II soon followed, introducing a new 4-node all-flash high-performance cluster. They also introduced Everoute to provide distributed firewall capabilities, further ensuring secure and stable business operation.
Currently, all SmartX ECP clusters are running stably, and the customer plans to gradually migrate existing VMware VMs to SmartX ECP in the future.
Learn more about high-end manufacturers’ VMware replacement stories and VMware-existing strategies from our previous blogs:
SmartX ECP in Manufacturing: Supporting ROBO, Dev/Test, and VMware/Nutanix Alternative
Your VMware Exit Plan: Four Solutions to Consider Based on SmartX ECP
Replacing VMware vSphere with SmartX ELF: Higher Availability with Optimized Performance
Replacing VMware NSX with SmartX Everoute: Comparable Capabilities with Simpler Operations
Replacing VMware Tanzu with SmartX SKS: Streamlined Operations and Superior VM-Container Management
Replacing VMware DR with SMTX Backup & DR: Integrated DR System with Simplified O&M
