The feedback provided in this spotlight was collected and verified through a survey conducted on SUSE's customers by UserEvidence, an independent research firm.
At-a-Glance
Dong-A University was undergoing a digital transformation, embracing containers and microservices as the foundation of its future. This shift promised increased agility and innovation, but it also presented significant challenges. The organization was struggling to manage the complexity of its growing container environment and needed a solution to streamline operations and accelerate development.
Customer challenges before Rancher Prime
Dong-A University faced significant challenges in transitioning to a cloud native architecture. The university relied heavily on VMware for its core academic, administrative and portal systems, but rising licensing costs threatened to disrupt operations. Additionally, managing containers across a hybrid cloud environment consisting of AWS, GCP and on-premises VMware infrastructure presented complexities. The organization required advanced Kubernetes capabilities to support its growing application portfolio, while also grappling with securing, managing and scaling multiple clusters. Without a unified platform, Dong-A University struggled to efficiently operate and modernize its IT infrastructure.
"In our previous environment, we used Kubernetes on VMware without CI/CD, providing only simple web services for testing. After evaluating several products, we chose Rancher Prime to fully leverage Kubernetes and expand our web services. Now, we are developing many major applications through this platform. Rancher Prime's straightforward operation allows us to implement desired Kubernetes-related services instantly and easily add various add-ons. Because Rancher Prime adheres to CNCF standards, we anticipate that it will significantly increase our future capabilities."
Key features of Rancher Prime
To address these challenges, Dong-A University selected Rancher Prime for its robust feature set, including:
- Support for any certified Kubernetes distribution: Ensuring flexibility and choice.
- Support for any public cloud provider: Enabling hybrid and multi-cloud strategies.
- Simplified multi-cluster operations: Centralized management for complex environments.
- Unified security, policy and user management: Enforcing consistent security across clusters.
- Integration with a large catalog of tools and services: Streamlining workflows and enhancing productivity.
Benefits of Rancher Prime
The university plans to use Rancher Prime for hosting its major business operations such as academic, administrative and portal systems. By adopting Rancher Prime, Dong-A University has dramatically accelerated its time to deployment. And through the CI/CD pipeline, the university succeeded in automating 100% of its Kubernetes deployment processes from manual tasks. This means new applications and services reach customers faster than ever before.
Furthermore, Rancher Prime has significantly improved Kubernetes management by providing the university with a centralized platform to oversee and optimize its containerized environment. Its intuitive user interface and robust feature set have simplified complex operations, allowing the team to focus on innovation rather than infrastructure management.
Dong-A University has also benefited from enhanced availability and flexibility. Rancher Prime's support for multiple public cloud providers and hybrid cloud environments has given the organization the freedom to deploy applications where they make the most sense, without compromising on consistency or security.
By centralizing security, policy and user management, Rancher Prime has significantly strengthened the organization's security posture. Consistent policies are now enforced across all clusters, reducing the risk of vulnerabilities and unauthorized access. Moreover, Rancher Prime's ability to manage Kubernetes clusters at scale has been instrumental in the university’s journey towards modernizing and scaling its infrastructure. The platform's flexibility, supported by its compatibility with any certified Kubernetes distribution and multiple public cloud providers, has empowered the university to build and deploy applications with unprecedented agility.
Dong-A University has also leveraged Rancher Prime's extensive integration capabilities to streamline workflows and enhance productivity. By integrating with a wide range of tools and services, the organization has created a cohesive DevOps ecosystem that accelerates development and improves overall efficiency. Additionally, by eliminating VMware and adopting a bare-metal infrastructure, the university anticipates a 30% reduction in overall costs.