Preparing for strategic autonomy
As a leader in high-tech manufacturing, NXP must constantly innovate and scale, and their infrastructure should enable that ambition. Recent shifts in the virtualization market introduced not only significant cost increases but also uncertainty in product direction andvendor lock-in risks. NXP decided to take control of its infrastructure by finding an open, cost-effective alternative that still offered a cloud-like experience for its engineering teams.
Licensing pressure and vendor lock-in
As more vendors shift to subscription-based models, NXP faced unsustainable cost increases during their transition from perpetual licensing. Since NXP already operates on the "Pets vs. Cattle" principle, treating its thousands of virtual workloads as automated,disposable assets rather than unique "pets", they required a high-performance infrastructurethat matched this specialized operational model without the escalating overhead. Tomaintain this scale and efficiency during company-wide cost optimizations, NXP turned to SUE for a more cost-effective, open alternative.
"We were looking for a cost-efficient virtualization solution that offers the benefits of the cloud: scalable, stable, and secure. With Apache CloudStack and SUE’s guidance, we proved that an open-source platform can deliver the same operational capabilities while giving us back control over costs and our technology roadmap."
From Proof of Concept to production implementation
SUE was called in after NXP had drawn up a shortlist of virtualization alternatives. Our proposal centered on Apache CloudStack: a mature open-source platform that can replicate the core functionalities of proprietary solutions, including live migration, VM cloning, role-based access control, and online resizing. Because Apache CloudStack is completely open-source, NXP gains transparency, autonomy, and long-term flexibility, while both engineering and operational teams maintain an excellent user experience.
We started with a PoC that had to demonstrate that Apache CloudStack could meet more than 40 functional requirements defined by NXP. Week after week, we validated these use cases through live demos and close collaboration with their engineering teams.
Following a two-month proof of concept, during which Apache CloudStack met 95% of NXP’s 40+ functional requirements, the project moved into a “Pre-Prod” phase to validate Apache CloudStack (ACS) within a representative multi-site data center environment. In this phase, SUE provided a Foundational High-Level Design and additional expertise to enable the migration of R&D test and development workloads. This validation process ensured that NXP’s R&D IT leaders had access to empirical performance data and support for custom design, allowing them to make an informed, low-risk decision for the eventual global production deployment.
From proprietary constraints to open-source agility
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Lower operating costs: By moving away from proprietary software, NXP realized significant budgetary relief.
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Strategic independence: By adopting an open architecture, NXP eliminated vendor lock-in and the risks of proprietary roadmaps.
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Cloud experience, On-premises: Engineers now request and manage VMs via a self-service portal, similar to the user experience of the public cloud.
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Scalable design: Apache CloudStack effectively scales with NXP's workload requirements, both for Linux and Windows environments.
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Ready for the future: Their new data center in the US was fully equipped with Apache CloudStack.
The result
- A repeatable Infrastructure as Code deployment.
- A fully configured and supported Apache CloudStack environment, validated against NXP's operational and security standards.
- Automated deployment blueprints, which NXP used to replicate our demo environment into their production setup.
Following the initial build, we supported NXP's team in mirroring the deployment across their global environments. Today, this architecture powers a consistent, scalable, and secure
platform across six global data centers.
<br><br>What began as a proof of concept evolved into a long-term architectural shift. The cloud-like agility of Apache CloudStack, combined with the open-source cost model, enabled NXP to rethink how infrastructure is delivered to global R&D teams. With Apache CloudStack, NXP gained strategic freedom, budgetary flexibility, and a robust platform to scale up R&D innovation.
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