Scale Computing Helped KIB Electronics Revamp Infrastructure

Scale Computing, Inc. has helped KIB Electronics revamp its infrastructure to avoid downtime and better serve its customers with the installation of a HC3 hyper-converged platform.

With a commitment to providing customer service and delivering quality products in a timely manner, KIB Electronics has set a standard for helping its clients solve their most challenging problems efficiently and cost-effectively. Its engineering team has completed over 4,000 projects featuring a variety of monitoring panels, lighting controls, switch plates and wire harnesses across a range of applications for more than 1,300 customers since its founding in 1975.

Having previously developed an ad-hoc network with specialized equipment sourced from eBay, KIB Electronics decided to upgrade its IT environment after a large storm knocked out its production servers, which resulted in manufacturing and delivery delays. This event made the company realize that it needed to have a more reliable data center infrastructure in place to support its requirements for 24×7 uptime. After researching solutions that would help it avoid future downtime, it was decided that hyper-convergence would be the best way to go.

“Serving our customers is not possible if we do not have the right computing infrastructure in place,” said Brian Milovich, IT consultant, KIB Electronics. “We were looking at doing the infrastructure upgrade from a financial aspect – what would make sense given our growth from an IT standpoint. I came across some articles on hyper-convergence and it sounded like a great idea.“

KIB Electronics looked at hyper-converged solutions from HP and Dell but felt that their attitude was poor and their customer service was lacking. Milovich said that he spoke to seven different people at Dell on seven different occasions and got a different answer every time.

A colleague at GHA Technologies, Inc. recommended that he look at Scale Computing and its HC3 hyperconverged platform. After checking references from other customers in the Indiana area, Milovich made the decision to implement the Scale solution for its affordability and functionality.

HC3 platform brings storage, servers, virtualization and management together in a single system. With no virtualization software to license and no external storage to buy, HC3 products lower out-of-pocket costs and simplify the infrastructure needed to keep applications running. HC3 products make the deployment and management of a highly available and scalable infrastructure as easy to manage as a single server.

The installation process only took a few hours to get the HC3 system up and running. KIB Electronics currently has 12 servers running on the system, hosting a variety of business-critical applications, including ERP, HealthCore and SQL database, in addition to a VDI testing environment. With no hardware limitations, they have the ability to scale as their business grows, with Scale Computing able to provide additional nodes when needed. Future plans for the HC3 include expanding to offsite DR, making use of the replication functionality of Scale Computing’s HyperCore software, for additional protection.

“I love the simplicity, the functionality and the convenience – not to mention its impeccable architecture,” said Milovich. “The HC3 snapshot functionality provides a great environment for troubleshooting and for infrastructure. I can actually go home and not worry about a physical box dying while I’m away from work. Ultimately, Scale Computing gave me my weekends back, as well as peace of mind.“

KIB Electronics also appreciated Scale Computing’s customer-centric approach. Milovich says Scale Computing “always goes the extra mile in providing the assistance I need.”

The combination of product reliability and personalized support is what makes him not hesitate to recommend the HC3 platform to other mid-market enterprises.