By being able to virtualize our environment with StarWind, we were able to retire some old hardware, get our services highly available, reduce power consumption and heat in our server closet.
David Gardner, Information Systems Manager
PROBLEM
Cygnus, Inc. had MS Windows AD environment, running 8 discrete Hyper-V servers. In the recent years, the company has become increasingly more dependent upon its IT infrastructure to keep the business going. Although, the company’s infrastructure included a Disaster Recovery (DR) solution, the server failure made them realize that the amount of time it took to restore functionality was unacceptable. To prevent similar issues in the future and assure business continuity, the company required failover capability and high availability.
SOLUTION
Cygnus, Inc. is a small company with a small technology budget. So, it was looking for an inexpensive and still full-scale solution that would ensure high availability. StarWind VSAN is a hardware agnostic software defined storage stack. It allows using off the shelf hardware. Thus, the company could utilize the hardware they already had and reduce the implementation costs. By being able to virtualize the IT environment, Cygnus, Inc. could retire some old hardware, provide high availability with failover to the users, and reduce power consumption and heat in their server closet. The company’s current infrastructure includes a 2-node failover cluster that enables high availability. With StarWind, Cygnus, Inc.’s infrastructure has become more stable, and it operates more efficiently. StarWind VSAN has met all company’s needs. Moreover, Starwind support was very responsive and easy to work with to resolve the issues Cygnus, Inc. had in configuring the cluster, even though these issues were not related to the StarWind software itself, but MS failover clustering. Cygnus, Inc. plans on adding a third node if they need the extra compute power.
About the Company
Cygnus, Inc. is a manufacturer of high quality aerospace precision sheet metal and machined components and assemblies. The components the company manufactures include angles, brackets, panels, enclosures, webs, doublers, clips, gussets and shims. Cygnus, Inc.’s customers include Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Triumph Group, Lockheed Martin, Brek Manufacturing, Primus International and Goodrich. Among the airframes the company supports are the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the C-17, the F/A-18 E/F, the F-15, the F-22, the F-16, and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) such as Global Hawk / BAMS, X-47B UCAS, and Fire Scout. Also, Boeing commercial aircraft such as the 777, 737, and 747-8 is supported.
Company Profile
Aerospace Sheet Metal Fabrication
Contact Person
David Gardner, Information Systems Manager