Success Story: Modernizing A Japanese Mega Bank’s End-User Computing with a Hybrid Cloud VDI Platform

Client: Mizuho Financial Group

Project: Hybrid Cloud VDI and Disaster Recovery on Azure VMware Solution (AVS)

Team: Viruserv Architects & Engineers

The Challenge: Enhancing Security and Resiliency for a Hybrid Workforce

Mizuho Financial Group, a global banking and financial services leader, faced the critical challenge of modernizing its End-User Computing (EUC) platform. Their existing on-premise Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) lacked the agility to seamlessly support a growing hybrid workforce and did not meet the evolving, stringent requirements for business resiliency and disaster recovery in the financial sector.

The key objectives were to:

• Establish a robust, active Disaster Recovery (DR) solution for their critical VDI environment.
• Strengthen the security posture for remote access to sensitive financial applications and data.
• Create a flexible, scalable platform that could support both persistent and non-persistent user needs without a massive capital investment.
• Migrate existing users from the on-premise environment to the cloud with minimal disruption to business operations.

The Solution: Architecting a State-of-the-Art Hybrid VDI Platform

The Virtuserv team designed and implemented a sophisticated hybrid cloud solution, leveraging the power of Azure VMware Solution (AVS) and the VMware Horizon VDI stack to create a secure, resilient, and high-performance platform.

1. Foundation in Azure (AVS): We began by deploying and configuring a new VMware Software-Defined Data Center (SDDC) within Azure using AVS. Secure, high-speed connectivity back to Mizuho’s on-prem data centers was established via ExpressRoute.
2. Advanced Networking and Security: We configured NSX-T to provide advanced routing and micro-segmentation. The Distributed Firewall (DFW) was implemented to create a zero-trust security model, isolating workloads and protecting critical applications within the VDI environment.
3. Hybrid VDI Architecture: We deployed a full VMware Horizon on AVS environment, implementing Horizon Cloud Pod Architecture (CPA). This created a unified hybrid VDI platform spanning both the new AVS environment and Mizuho’s existing on-prem data center, enabling a powerful active DR solution.
4. Seamless Migration and Application Delivery: We executed live workload migrations of persistent VDI VMs from the on-premise environment to AVS using VMware HCX, ensuring a seamless transition for end-users. Horizon AppVolumes was implemented to virtualize and deliver applications on-demand, streamlining management and updates.
5. Unified and Secure Access: To create a single, secure point of entry, we integrated the solution with Workspace One Access. This provided a central portal for users to access their VDI and SaaS resources, protected by mandatory Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) and managed through Horizon Connection Servers and Unified Access Gateways (UAGs).

The Result: Unprecedented Resiliency and a Modernized Workforce

This project successfully transformed Mizuho Financial Group’s VDI capabilities, delivering significant improvements in security, resiliency, and operational efficiency.

• Financial-Grade Business Continuity: The multi-datacenter hybrid cloud architecture with an active DR solution ensures that critical employee desktop services can fail over seamlessly, guaranteeing uninterrupted operations during a site disaster.
• Strengthened Security Posture: With NSX-T micro-segmentation and mandatory MFA through Workspace ONE, Mizuho has significantly enhanced its security for remote access, protecting sensitive financial data and applications.
• Flexible and Scalable Platform: Mizuho now has a modern EUC platform that can scale on demand. It supports a diverse range of user needs through both persistent and non-persistent VDI pools and a streamlined application delivery model via AppVolumes.
• Zero-Disruption Migration: The use of VMware HCX ensured that the migration of user workloads to the cloud was completed with no significant downtime, allowing business productivity to continue unabated.
• Optimized Cloud Investment: By building on AVS, Mizuho was able to leverage its existing VMware expertise and tools while gaining the economic benefits and agility of the Azure cloud, successfully shifting a major workload from a CapEx to an OpEx model.