University of Maryland Deploys Nutanix

The University of Maryland is leveraging Nutanix, Inc. to deliver a secure infrastructure that will make it easier for researchers to access the IT resources needed for their projects while meeting compliance requirements for grant eligibility.

The federal government allocates billions of dollars each year to thousands of universities in the form of R&D grants and contracts. As the only major public research university inside the Washington D.C. beltway, the university is positioned for federal partnerships and grants. This work often includes data protection requirements to be met by researchers.

Because the data for the research may potentially include information from entities such as the Department of Defense (DoD), the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Department of Energy (DOE) and the National Security Agency (NSA), the standards for receiving federal grant funding are very high. An increasing number of opportunities are contingent on compliance with the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) security standards. Therefore, the university needed an IT solution that could deliver additional resources without adding IT management complexity and overhead.

“If someone walks in and tells us that they have received a new $10 million grant, but it needs five times the infrastructure to support it, that’s a good problem to have – but only if you are ready to handle it quickly,” said Jeff McKinney, director of engineering IT operations, University of Maryland. “Nutanix provides us a solution that is both secure and easy to scale, requiring a minimal amount of effort to manage. As new research grants come in, we can now add capacity with just a few clicks.“

After considering several options, the university chose a combined solution from Nutanix and Tera Insights, LLC. The Nutanix HCI platform and AHV hypervisor provide the foundation for a secure IT infrastructure environment, thanks to native security features like data-at-rest encryption, network micro-segmentation and self-healing security configurations based on industry and DoD best practices.

This platform was a complement to Tera Insights tiCrypt software, which makes file sharing simple and secure through the utilization of public/private key encryption. The solutions work together to enable a single secure platform for handling research data while reducing complexity.

Additionally, the Nutanix solution helps to automate application and provisioning processes for grant-based research, offering them the ability to scale to accommodate unexpected changes and new research requests. Administrators can add new resources to the platform with a few clicks to take advantage of more research opportunities.

“With the right IT infrastructure in place, the University of Maryland is able to size its IT resources appropriately while providing a clear pathway to scale,” said John Pellettiere, senior director and sales leader, state, local, education, Nutanix. “Instead of focusing on whether or not they have the infrastructure space and security capabilities to complete the research for these grants, they can now focus on completing their research.“

To facilitate storage of research data, the University of Maryland is currently evaluating Nutanix files to enable software-defined scale-out file storage solutions with simplified self-service management. it is looking forward to continuing to grow and build on its secure infrastructure to take advantage of new grant opportunities well into the future.

Case study: University of Maryland, College Park Positions Itself for Millions in Research Grants with Nutanix