Success Story: Architecting a Unified Hybrid Cloud Platform for Emergent BioSolutions

Client: Emergent BioSolutions

Project: On-Premise Modernization and Hybrid Cloud Integration with VMware and Azure

Team: Virtuserv Architects & Senior Engineers

The Challenge: Building an Agile and Compliant Foundation for Biopharmaceutical Innovation

Emergent BioSolutions, a global leader in specialty biopharmaceuticals, operates in an industry where speed, data integrity, and regulatory compliance are paramount. Their existing IT infrastructure, comprised of disparate legacy systems, created significant operational friction, slowing down critical research and development cycles. They required a foundational shift to a modern, unified platform that could provide the on-premise security and performance needed for validated GxP systems, while offering the cloud’s agility and scale for R&D and a global workforce.

The primary challenge was to design and execute a holistic transformation that would modernize their on-premise data centers, seamlessly extend them to the public cloud, and deliver a next-generation End-User Computing experience without disrupting mission-critical operations.

The Solution: A Masterclass in VMware Hybrid Cloud Federation

Our team architected and delivered a true hybrid cloud ecosystem, leveraging the full power of the VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) stack on-premise and extending it natively into Microsoft Azure. This created a single, consistent operational plane across their entire IT landscape.

The execution was a multi-phased strategic initiative:

1. On-Premise Modernization with VCF on VxRail: We began by deploying VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) on Dell VxRail as the new private cloud foundation. This turn-key, hyper-converged solution standardized their entire stack. We utilized SDDC Manager for full-stack automation and simplified Lifecycle Management (LCM), and leveraged vSAN storage policies to deliver tiered, performance-tuned storage for different workloads.
2. Implementing a Zero-Trust Security Model: We implemented NSX-T for advanced network virtualization. This allowed us to use the Distributed Firewall (DFW) to create granular micro-segmentation rules, effectively isolating critical GxP manufacturing and lab workloads from the rest of the network, thereby enhancing their security and compliance posture.
3. Seamless Extension to Azure: We designed and implemented Azure VMware Solution (AVS), creating a dedicated VMware SDDC in Azure. Using VMware HCX, we established a seamless and secure network fabric between the on-prem VCF environment and AVS, enabling true hybridity for workload mobility and infrastructure management.
4. Strategic, Multi-Path Workload Migration: We executed a sophisticated migration strategy to move workloads to their optimal location:
   • VMware HCX was used for live, large-scale migrations of VMware-centric workloads from legacy HCI platforms onto the new VCF on VxRail private cloud and subsequently to AVS.
   • Azure Migrate was employed to identify and move suitable applications directly to Azure native PaaS and IaaS services, allowing for further cloud optimization.
5. Transforming End-User Computing: We designed and deployed a comprehensive Horizon VDI platform. By implementing Horizon Cloud Pod Architecture (CPA), we federated the VDI environment across both the on-prem VxRail cluster and the AVS cloud instance. This hybrid configuration provides secure, high-performance virtual desktops and applications to users regardless of their location, with workloads running in the most appropriate environment.

The Result: A Resilient, Agile, and Compliant Hybrid Cloud Powerhouse

This transformative project has positioned Emergent BioSolutions with a state-of-the-art infrastructure platform, delivering profound and measurable business value.

• Accelerated Research and Development: The ability to rapidly provision entire, isolated environments across the hybrid cloud has dramatically reduced the time-to-market for new research projects and digital initiatives.
• Strengthened Compliance and Security: The standardized VCF architecture with NSX-T micro-segmentation provides a consistent, auditable, and highly secure environment, simplifying the process of maintaining and validating systems for GxP compliance.
• Unified Hybrid Operations: Emergent BioSolutions now operates from a single, consistent management and operational model across their private and public clouds, significantly reducing administrative overhead and enabling their IT teams to focus on innovation.
• Unprecedented Business Agility: They now possess the flexibility to place any workload in the optimal location. They can run latency-sensitive manufacturing systems on-prem while leveraging the immense scale of Azure for large-scale genomic data analysis, all managed as a single, cohesive cloud.
• Empowered Global Workforce: The hybrid Horizon CPA platform provides all employees, from lab scientists to remote corporate staff, with secure, reliable, and high-performance access to the applications and data they need to drive the business forward.