September 25, 2019 Harrison Steel Deploys Scale Computing

September 11, 2019

Key Challenges

• Previous legacy IT environment was unreliable and difficult to manage
• Experienced low memory space and memory leaks
• The steel castings company needed IT infrastructure with the ability to scale and grow alongside the business

Business Benefits

• Simplified, highly affordable IT infrastructure with improved performance
• Automated, self-healing edge computing environment
• Ability to quickly and easily deploy virtual machines
• Improved resilience and reduced risk of network downtime for maintenance
• Reduced hardware management time
• No additional licensing fees, training or certification needed

Harrison Steel Castings Company

Harrison Steel Castings Company in Attica, Indiana is a world leader in the production of highly engineered carbon and low/medium alloy steel castings and is a preferred supplier to many of the world’s most prestigious names in agriculture, energy and oil/gas industries. Harrison Steel Castings Company has been in service for over 100 years.

A privately owned company, Harrison Steel Castings Company operates a state-of-the-art, technology-driven international engineering and manufacturing organization. Their U.S. physical plant encompasses 650,568 square feet under roof and is capable of castings ranging from 350 to 12,500 pounds net casting weight. Sophisticated engineering software, tightly controlled manufacturing processes, superior quality programs, a motivated workforce, an emphasis on safety and a continuous improvement culture ensure their customers with the best results possible.

The Scale Computing Solution

Scale Computing HC3 was deployed on site to support Harrison Steel Castings Company’s IT operations. Within the Scale Computing HC3 solution, edge computing, virtualization, servers, storage and backup/disaster recovery have been brought into a single, easy-to-use platform. All of the components are built in, including the hypervisor, without the need for any third-party components or licensing.

The all-in-one HC3 platform was far less complex than other solutions, greatly simplifying the management and maintenance of its infrastructure. HC3 includes rapid deployment, automated management capabilities, and a single-pane-of-management, helping to streamline and simplify daily tasks, saving time and money.

“When you look at other hyperconverged setups, you can quickly see cost is a huge benefit with Scale Computing. Take the overall cost, plus the time it takes to implement, and you have a winning combination. Our customers rely on us to supply high-quality engineered products, so maximum uptime and reliability are vital to our business,” said Shane Rogers, IT director at Harrison Steel Castings Company. “Previously, our IT infrastructure was frequently running out of memory, failing to function properly and requiring frequent maintenance. With HC3, the system is so simple to operate, it runs on its own. It greatly improves reliability, reduces complexity, and gives us the ability to grow our IT infrastructure.”

Improved Scalability

Implementing Scale Computing HC3 has addressed the outdated and unreliable clusters previously in place that were preventing growth and slowing down business. HC3 further supported Harrison Steel Castings Company’s status as a Tier 1 casting supplier able to reduce time and cost, resulting in an improved casting supplier value stream for customers seeking simplicity, efficiency, and accuracy.

Rogers said, “We have a lot of big projects on the horizon and we’re excited by how much closer they are to achieve now. We are set up for greater success knowing we can set up HC3 and it will run on its own without much oversight. This enables us to help our customers and focus on providing them with high-quality cast solutions.”

Simplicity and Ease of Use

The virtualization capabilities in HC3 enables users to automate overall management of IT environments within a comprehensive system. Rogers said, “Deploying HC3 has really freed up time and energy. Once I moved my virtual machines over to it, there was no management to it from that point forward. I don’t spend any time managing that system, it just runs!”

Scale Computing HC3 is a complete ‘data center in a box’ with server, storage and virtualization integrated into a single appliance to deliver simplicity, availability and scalability at a fraction of the cost. Rogers continued, “We have a small virtual environment and we were looking for a cluster that would allow us to easily be redundant and able to quickly push out VMs. HC3 checked those boxes and was so easy to use, we never wasted time trying to figure out how to work the system.”

Proactive Support

While finding a solution capable of hyperconvergence was a priority for Harrison Steel Castings Company, Rogers understood the need to find a dependable solution with a dedicated customer service team behind it. In the midmarket, IT administrators need a partner in the data center. That’s why Scale Computing views their Support and Service as an extension of its HC3 line of products, with critical support available 24/7/365 days a year.

Rogers added, “Running clusters in our previous environment always yielded memory issues. The hosts would run out of memory or have memory leaks, so we never knew when the hosts would be up and running, When we looked at other options, we chose Scale Computing for their reputation of having great customer service.”

Rogers concluded, “Just by talking to Scale Computing, you’re going to get that warm and fuzzy feeling that they’re there to help you all the way through from beginning to end and after implementation.”

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