With the rapid and large-scale growth of the New Energy Vehicle (NEV) and Rail Transit sectors, manufacturers have urgent demands for IT infrastructure modernization. Beyond ensuring the high efficiency and stability of core production systems like MES and PLM under high-concurrency scenarios, these manufacturers also require reliable, high-performance alternatives to address issues such as escalating licensing costs, performance bottlenecks, and operational complexity associated with VMware vSAN/vSphere.
Currently, SmartX has empowered numerous vehicle and rail transit manufacturers 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 WMS, MOM, PLM, DMS), as well as cutting-edge applications such as Internet of Vehicles (IoV) and Big Data platforms.
A Leading New Energy Vehicle Manufacturer: 30+ SmartX ECP Nodes Supporting Mission-Critical Systems, Driving Progressive vSAN and vSphere Replacement
A leading New Energy Vehicle (NEV) manufacturer originally relied on the VMware HCI solution (vSphere+vSAN), but was constrained by vSAN performance and stability issues. Additionally, as VMware transitions to a subscription-based licensing model, procurement costs have been rising.
Therefore, finding an alternative solution is more necessary than ever before, one that not only provides distributed storage with performance and stability superior to vSAN, but also ensures the continuous operation of mission-critical business like proprietary systems and MES. Furthermore, the solution must maintain compatibility with the existing VMware virtualization environment.
Following an extensive evaluation of multiple HCI vendors, the manufacturer endorsed and selected SmartX ECP for vSAN replacement. The enterprise deployed a 6-node ECP cluster to host proprietary business systems, MES/MOM, and general operational systems. Particularly, the ECP solution is integrated with VMware virtualization, retaining operational consistency with the original environment. Moreover, SmartX’s distributed storage delivered significant improvements in both performance and reliability over vSAN, thereby ensuring the stable operation of the manufacturer’s mission-critical workloads.
Following a successful pilot deployment, the SmartX ECP’s high performance and stability received consistent internal acclaim. Consequently, the manufacturer expanded the ECP cluster by 27 nodes to support full vehicle plant workloads. Looking ahead, the long-term plan is to progressively phase out vSAN and vSphere to achieve the complete exit from VMware, thereby establishing a more cost-effective, efficient, and stable enterprise cloud.
Chang’an Kuayue Vehicles: Replace vSphere with SmartX Native Hypervisor (ELF) for IoV Big Data Services
To meet rapidly growing market demand, Chang’an Kuayue Vehicles is driving IT intelligent transformation and making aggressive strides in the Internet of Vehicles (IoV) sector.
The previous IT infrastructure, based on VMware virtualization and centralized storage, suffered from low agility and high O&M overhead, making it unsuitable for IoV service development. Consequently, the manufacturer planned to introduce a new platform for IoV workloads, leveraging this initiative to validate the capabilities of domestic virtualization platforms as VMware alternatives.
Following in-depth technical due diligence, benchmark testing demonstrated that the SmartX Native Hypervisor (ELF) outperforms VMware virtualization by 60%. It also offers more advantages, including simplified deployment and management, flexible hardware decoupling, and the ability to reuse existing server assets.
Based on test findings, the manufacturer initially deployed a 3-node SmartX ECP cluster (utilizing ELF virtualization) to host IoV big data systems incorporating Kafka and HDFS components. The cluster was subsequently scaled out by 4 additional nodes a few months later, forming a heterogeneous cluster. Leveraging the self-developed SMTX Migration Tool, the manufacturer achieved a seamless transition from the original VMware environment to the ELF platform with minimal downtime, thereby ensuring business continuity.
In the future, the manufacturer plans to migrate its core production systems and sales database systems—including PLM, DMS (Dealer Management System), and other production line applications—to martX ECP, thereby achieving a full VMware replacement.
A Rail Transit Vehicle Manufacturer: Reframe Data Centers and Accelerate IT Localization with SmartX ECP and Distributed Storage
As a core R&D institution in China’s rail transit equipment industry, the manufacturer’s previous data center infrastructure utilized the “VMware vSphere + traditional SAN storage” architecture, alongside some VxRail appliances.
With the rapid growth of intelligent manufacturing, the scale of R&D and industrialization initiatives has continued to expand. Consequently, the existing architecture is gradually failing to meet business demands regarding resource utilization, horizontal scalability, and operational complexity. Facing increased uncertainty in VMware licensing and a growing need for IT localization, the institution requires a domestic solution capable of long-term, stable support for its mission-critical operations.
To address the challenges outlined above, the institution initiated a data center infrastructure upgrade in 2023. Following multiple rounds of technical validation and product selection, the SmartX ECP was ultimately adopted to construct the next-generation infrastructure, given its extensive deployment in the manufacturing sector, its compatibility with heterogeneous environments, and its capability for seamless migration from VMware environments.
The institution implemented a “parallel validation and smooth migration” strategy. Specifically, a unified resource pool was constructed using the SmartX ECP (utilizing ELF virtualization) to facilitate the migration of existing Intel cluster workloads. Simultaneously, a distributed block cluster was deployed to replace progressively the traditional SAN storage underpinning SAP workloads, thereby resolving the issues of difficult storage expansion and low resource utilization inherent in the traditional architecture.
The institution’s data center currently operates as a hybrid infrastructure platform with dual architectures: VMware and the SmartX ECP. The SmartX ECP cluster now hosts over 30% of existing business systems, including mission-critical systems for manufacturing and process management. Verified through production operations, the SmartX ECP has matched the standards of international peers in IOPS performance, storage scalability, and cross-region disaster recovery capability. Furthermore, in mission-critical scenarios such as SAP, SmartX’s distributed storage delivered a 40% improvement in read/write performance over traditional SAN storage, effectively supporting the institution’s global business expansion.
Moving forward, the institution plans to progressively migrate systems, including ERP and OA, from the existing VMware environment to the SmartX ECP, following the strategy of “edge-first, core-later; new-first, old-later.” This effort will establish a new-generation IT infrastructure centered on the SmartX ECP, providing robust support for the digital transformation of China’s rail transit equipment industry.
Inovance New Energy Vehicle: Migrate Mission-Critical Systems (MES, WMS, ERP) to SmartX ECP (ELF)
Changzhou Inovance New Energy Vehicle Technology Co., Ltd. (hereafter “Inovance NEV”) previously utilized VMware vSphere + vSAN/SAN storage for its data center IT infrastructure. With the ongoing expansion across two bases, the volume of data center services increased, raising the company’s requirements for infrastructure stability and operational simplicity. Furthermore, following adjustments to VMware’s sales strategy, the company was concerned about future uncertainties in VMware’s domestic service delivery.
To safeguard the sustainable growth of mission-critical business services, Inovance NEV benchmarked several domestic solutions. Ultimately, SmartX was chosen with its extensive experience supporting production-environment workloads in the manufacturing sector. Furthermore, SmartX ECP facilitates gradual VMware replacement by supporting heterogeneous cluster deployment and unified management across diverse hardware brands and virtualization platforms.
The Inovance NEV data center currently operates two parallel infrastructure clusters, utilizing both the VMware virtualization cluster and SmartX ECP cluster (ELF virtualization). Newly deployed systems, including mission-critical applications such as MES, WMS, OA, and ERP spanning from office to production, are hosted on SmartX ECP.
Moving forward, Inovance NEV plans to orderly transition the existing VMware environment to the SmartX ECP (ELF) environment, aligning this process with the hardware replacement cycle.
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
