Case Studies

Real problems. Real results.

From cost transformation to compliance — see how Illumia Solutions has delivered measurable, durable impact for organisations across industries and geographies.

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8
Case Studies
17+
Industries
1k+
Branches Served
Illumia Solutions client success — team collaboration
Impact at a Glance

Engagements that move the needle — not the slide deck.

Every project below was scoped against measurable business outcomes — cost reduction, compliance attainment, or measurable threat reduction — and delivered against a published architecture and a written roadmap.

Sector

Microfinance

1,000+ branches

Sector

Retail

17 locations

Sector

Non-Profit

Pan-APAC

Sector

Compliance

PCI DSS · GDPR

Sector

Infrastructure

VMware · Proxmox · HCI

Sector

Managed Services

AMC · 24/7 support

Selected Engagements

Detailed accounts of the work, the architecture, and the outcomes.

Driving 50–65% IT Cost Reduction with Open Source Infrastructure
Open Source · Non-Profit

Case Study · 01

Driving 50–65% IT Cost Reduction with Open Source Infrastructure

A leading Microfinance Non-Profit in the Philippines transformed its entire IT landscape — cutting costs, improving collaboration, and scaling operations across 1,000+ branches with an integrated open-source stack.

The organisation was locked into a sprawl of proprietary licences across collaboration, ERP, virtualisation and storage. Annual renewals alone were eating into mission-critical programme budgets. Illumia delivered an end-to-end migration — Nextcloud for collaboration, ERPNext for financial operations, Proxmox for virtualisation, and Ceph for distributed storage — orchestrated across 1,000+ branch sites with zero data loss and no service interruption.

  • Full collaboration suite replacement on Nextcloud
  • ERPNext rollout covering 1,000+ branch operations
  • Proxmox + Ceph stack for HA virtualisation
  • Phased migration — zero downtime
50–65%
IT Cost Reduction
~1,000
Branches Migrated
3–5 yrs
Savings Horizon
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Strengthening Cybersecurity & Compliance with Open Source Technologies
Cybersecurity · Open Source

Case Study · 02

Strengthening Cybersecurity & Compliance with Open Source Technologies

One of the largest nonprofit microfinance institutions in the Philippines implemented a comprehensive open-source security stack — full visibility, threat detection, and compliance readiness.

Regulatory scrutiny and growing threat exposure demanded a defensible security posture without commercial-tool licensing inflation. Illumia engineered a layered defence: Wazuh for SIEM and XDR, Suricata for network IDS, OpenVAS for vulnerability scanning, and an internal SOC playbook for incident response. The result — full audit trails, 24/7 monitoring, and data sovereignty on the customer's own infrastructure.

  • Wazuh SIEM/XDR with custom detection rules
  • Suricata-based network intrusion detection
  • OpenVAS continuous vulnerability scanning
  • Internal SOC runbooks and IR workflows
24/7
Monitoring
Audit
Ready
On-Prem
Data Sovereignty
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PCI DSS Compliance for a Grocery Store Chain in Illinois
Compliance · Retail

Case Study · 03

PCI DSS Compliance for a Grocery Store Chain in Illinois

During the pandemic surge in credit card transactions, Illumia delivered full PCI DSS Level 2 compliance for a 17-location grocery chain — on time, on budget, and with zero business disruption.

A regional grocery chain processing rising card volumes faced a hard deadline to achieve PCI DSS SAQ D Level 2 attestation. Illumia owned the entire programme: scoping the cardholder data environment, segmenting payment networks, hardening point-of-sale endpoints, implementing logging and quarterly ASV scans, and authoring the evidence package for the QSA assessment. Compliance achieved on the first attempt.

  • Cardholder data environment scoping and segmentation
  • POS endpoint hardening across 17 sites
  • Centralised logging + quarterly ASV scans
  • QSA-ready evidence package and remediation
Level 2
PCI DSS SAQ D
17
Locations
Zero
Downtime
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80% Licensing Cost Reduction via VMware to Proxmox VE Migration
Infrastructure · Proxmox

Case Study · 04

80% Licensing Cost Reduction via VMware to Proxmox VE Migration

Lifebank Foundation Inc. undertook a virtualisation platform review as part of a licensing cost-optimisation programme. ISPL delivered a phased, rolling migration to Proxmox VE — zero new hardware, zero VMs lost, every downtime threshold met.

With no new hardware permitted and production workloads classified across three downtime tiers, ISPL executed a node-by-node rolling migration: decommissioning each VMware host, commissioning it as a Proxmox VE node, migrating workloads offline, and validating with application owners before moving to the next. Veeam servers were repurposed as Proxmox Backup Server nodes with encryption at rest on all backup data — on-site and off-site.

  • Node-by-node rolling migration — VMware cluster live throughout
  • Proxmox VE built-in migration tooling — no third-party utilities
  • Orphaned VMs recovered from Veeam repository and re-platformed
  • Proxmox Backup Server replacing Veeam with encryption at rest
80%
Licensing Cost Reduction
Zero
VMs Lost
$0
New Hardware Capex
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Progressive HCI Expansion & NVMe Cluster for High-IOPS Workloads
Infrastructure · HCI

Case Study · 05

Progressive HCI Expansion & NVMe Cluster for High-IOPS Workloads

As I/O-intensive workloads outgrew an existing SSD/HDD HCI cluster, ISPL designed and delivered a new NVMe cluster for high-IOPS VMs — scaling out without replacing, and wrapping the full estate in 24/7 managed services.

The client's original Proxmox HCI cluster — hosting mail, collaboration, cloud storage, and business apps — was hitting performance limits as VM workloads grew. Rather than a disruptive rip-and-replace, ISPL commissioned a three-node NVMe/SSD cluster at the central office, migrated high-IOPS VMs over a ~14-day on-site engagement, and integrated both clusters under unified backup, logging, and monitoring. A comprehensive AMC and managed services contract now covers the full two-cluster estate.

  • Three-node NVMe/SSD cluster for low-latency, high-throughput VMs
  • ~14-day on-site migration sprint for high-IOPS workloads
  • PBS backup architecture with incremental backups and restore drills
  • AMC covering both clusters, applications, security, and network devices
2
Production Clusters
NVMe
High-IOPS Tier
24/7
Managed Services
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80% Licensing Cost Reduction via VMware to Proxmox VE Migration
Infrastructure · Proxmox

Case Study · 06

80% Licensing Cost Reduction via VMware to Proxmox VE Migration

Force Ten Technologies Pvt. Ltd., a financial software developer, initiated a virtualisation licensing review. ISPL delivered a phased, rolling migration to Proxmox VE — zero new hardware, zero VMs lost, every downtime threshold met.

With no new hardware permitted and workloads classified across three downtime tiers, ISPL executed a node-by-node rolling migration: decommissioning each VMware host, commissioning it as a Proxmox VE node, migrating workloads offline via Proxmox's built-in tooling, and validating with application owners. Existing dual SAN headroom carved the new LUNs, and both Veeam servers were repurposed as Proxmox Backup Server nodes with encryption at rest.

  • Node-by-node rolling migration — VMware cluster live throughout
  • Proxmox VE built-in VMware migration tooling — no third-party utilities
  • Existing dual SAN reused — ~40% headroom carved into new LUNs
  • Proxmox Backup Server replacing Veeam with encryption at rest
80%
Licensing Cost Reduction
Zero
VMs Lost
$0
New Hardware Capex
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VMware vSAN to Proxmox VE Ceph Migration with Zero New Hardware
Infrastructure · Ceph HCI

Case Study · 07

VMware vSAN to Proxmox VE Ceph Migration with Zero New Hardware

Data Consultants Corporation, a US-based IT services firm, consolidated its virtualisation estate onto Proxmox VE. ISPL re-platformed a live hyper-converged cluster to Proxmox VE with Ceph — on existing hardware, sub-24-hour downtime.

With no spare hardware, ISPL bootstrapped a Proxmox VE cluster from nodes still active in the vSAN cluster: spare drives became temporary local datastores, VMs were shifted off the vSAN pool, and nodes were evacuated one set at a time and re-provisioned as Proxmox VE with Ceph. SSDs became Ceph OSDs and NVMe drives the DB/WAL tier. A migrate → evacuate → expand cycle ran until VMware was fully decommissioned, with PBS replacing Veeam.

  • Phased node-liberation strategy on a live production cluster
  • Ceph for self-healing hyper-converged storage — vSAN equivalence
  • SSDs as Ceph OSDs, NVMe drives as Ceph DB/WAL tier
  • Proxmox Backup Server with encryption at rest and retention policy
vSAN→Ceph
Storage Re-Platformed
< 24 hrs
Downtime Ceiling
$0
New Hardware Capex
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From Bare Metal to a Two-Cluster Proxmox HCI Estate
Infrastructure · HCI

Case Study · 08

From Bare Metal to a Two-Cluster Proxmox HCI Estate

Lifebank Foundation's 5,000+ employees were served by fragmented bare-metal servers. ISPL consolidated them onto a Proxmox HCI cluster with Ceph and PBS, then added a dedicated NVMe tier — 50+ VMs across two clusters, IOPS interruptions cut to zero.

A two-stage, open-source evolution: first migrating core services off siloed bare-metal servers onto a Proxmox VE + Ceph HCI cluster with on-site/off-site PBS backup; then, as workloads turned increasingly I/O-intensive over four years, commissioning a dedicated NVMe/SSD cluster and selectively migrating high-IOPS workloads via weekend cutovers. Both clusters run as one estate under full AMC and managed services.

  • Bare-metal consolidation onto Proxmox VE + Ceph HCI
  • Dedicated NVMe/SSD cluster — high-IOPS capacity up several times
  • Daily on-site PBS backups with off-site replication and restore drills
  • End-to-end AMC across both clusters, apps, security and network
50+
VMs Across Two Clusters
Zero
IOPS Interruptions
24/7
Managed Services
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How We Deliver

A repeatable, evidence-based engagement model.

Every case study on this page followed the same four-phase delivery framework — designed to de-risk transformation and make outcomes measurable from day one.

01

Discovery & Assessment

We start with a forensic look at the current environment — infrastructure, contracts, compliance gaps, and operational pain points — before recommending a single change.

02

Architecture & Roadmap

Every engagement is anchored by a written architecture document and a phased roadmap with measurable milestones, risk markers and rollback paths.

03

Execution & Migration

Phased, low-risk delivery — typically running new and legacy stacks in parallel until cutover is validated. Zero data loss is the baseline expectation.

04

Operate & Optimise

Post-go-live, our managed services team handles 24/7 monitoring, patching and continuous improvement so the savings keep compounding.

Work With Us

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Tell us what you're trying to solve. We'll show you how open source, sound architecture and proven engineering deliver outcomes that last.

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