Elias Woodwork Keeps Online Commerce Running Nonstop
Nutanix platform keeps essential manufacturing and sales applications running smoothly and sustainably
Elias Woodwork is proud of its long-standing commitment to quality and innovation. With a diverse product line that’s always growing and changing, this manufacturer of cabinet doors and components is constantly growing and evolving to meet changing customer needs. Like most manufacturers, the company’s employees depend on networked applications to design, build, and ship products. To build a more efficient, sustainable organization, Elias Woodwork migrated its operations to Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure running on-premises. This hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) gives Elias Woodwork a single point of control, providing nonstop availability for its most important factory floor, back office, and customer-facing applications. Just as importantly, it gives IT administrators peace of mind, freeing them to focus on strategic projects instead of troubleshooting.
Key Benefits
| Availability Stable solution enables 24x7 availability of essential applications | HCI Hyperconverged infrastructure saves 30% on power | Technical support Responsive technical support minimizes downtime |
In the past, more 60 percent of my time was spent making sure our infrastructure environment was up and running at its best. Upgrading to Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure has brought that down to about five percent.
Challenges
For Elias Woodwork, the network infrastructure is much more than a communications system. In many ways, it’s the engine that powers the company’s manufacturing processes, as well as the front door to the business for customers. The company’s data center supports more than 400 workers at two manufacturing sites in the Manitoba region, as well as global online sales through its AccessNow web portal.
With so much riding on its infrastructure, Elias Woodwork needs 24x7 availability and great performance from its data center. But its small IT team spent too much of its time supporting and troubleshooting its environment, leaving little time for planning and innovation.
The manufacturer needed a single, unified platform to support all of its networked services and applications, that it could run fully on-premises.
“We weren’t interested in a cloud-based solution, because we’re in a relatively remote location, which can introduce cost and performance issues, so we chose to keep operations on-premises,” said Rovin Hildebrand, System Administrator at Elias Woodwork.
Solutions
Elias Woodwork had been using the Nutanix Community Edition to get hands-on experience with a hyperconverged infrastructure environment. To take full advantage of the latest Nutanix features, capabilities, and support, the IT team upgraded to Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure. This unified platform supports all of the manufacturer’s most important manufacturing, sales, and administrative processes.
“We use Nutanix to host our database and on-premises servers, as well as our specialized woodworking software and computer numerical control (CNC) machines that we use to make drawings,” said Hildebrand. “We also host our AccessNow website, as well as our document management system.”
Since Hildebrand and his team were already familiar with Nutanix technology, moving from the existing platform to the fully functional solution was fast and easy.
“Were able to migrate our production seamlessly, and the process took us only about a day,” he said. “Nutanix provided the tools we needed to migrate, and we already had knowledge about how to manage it.”
Customer Outcomes
The full-featured Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure solution delivers the performance and dependability Elias Woodwork demands, making lives easier for IT and end users.
“Our overall stability is better, which has freed up my time to let me focus on different priorities,” said Hildebrand. “We’re currently planning to rework our internal network infrastructure, which will require a lot of my time. Now that I don’t have to scramble to fix issues, I’ll have more time to focus on this strategic project.”
Nutanix Prism gives Hildebrand and his team a single dashboard for tracking alerts and performing upgrades and other maintenance.
“It’s great to have all the information we need at a glance, and if we need to make a change, we only need to configure updates in one location,” said Hildebrand.
Hildebrand and his team are responsible for most infrastructure management, but if an issue does arise, Nutanix technical support is always available to help troubleshoot issues.
“The support has been great,” said Hildebrand. “The Nutanix team is top-notch, making it super quick to resolve issues.”
The power-saving Nutanix solution has also enabled the organization to save on power consumption, for greener operations.
“Our solution uses about half the space, and approximately 30 percent less power than our previous solution, so we’re seeing better efficiency,” said Hildebrand.
Next Steps
To protect some of its legacy servers that don’t support the latest security, Hildebrand is considering building on the solution Flow Network Security, which creates software-based firewalls to isolate them within the organization. With its flexible Nutanix solution in place, Elias Woodwork has a secure, future-ready platform for growth.
Learn more at www.nutanix.com.
About the Customer
Since 1983, Elias Woodwork has produced superior quality cabinet components for the kitchen, bath, and recreational vehicle industry. The company serves customers throughout Canada and has recently expanded its reach to consumers in countries around the world.