Key Challenges
With 18 locations across three counties in Southern California, Goodwill Central Coast needed an affordable virtual hyperconverged infrastructure solution capable of managing the region’s file systems and databases out of a central database in Salinas.
Goodwill Central Coast has a small IT staff of three people, and without the resources available to provide on-site services for each location, they wanted an edge solution that required less management for remote servers.
Goodwill Central Coast needed to replace an outdated legacy virtualization system with an affordable solution capable of maximizing uptime.
Business Benefits Gained from Selecting Scale Computing
Goodwill Central Coast now has a simplified IT infrastructure which is built on an edge computing strategy with easy remote management, connectivity and reliability.
Using Scale Computing’s edge solution, Goodwill Central Coast now has the ability to scale services across its distributed locations without the need for local IT staff.
Since implementation of the Scale Computing edge solution, Goodwill Central Coast has upgraded its point of sale system, increased drive space, saved resources and saved 15% on the initial IT budget.
“I migrated 24 file servers to the new Scale Computing solution during the day with little to no downtime, spending only 20 minutes on some servers,” said Kevin Waddy, IT Director, Goodwill Central Coast.
Goodwill Central Coast - Background and IT Challenges across its distributed locations
Spanning three counties in Southern California, Goodwill Central Coast serves Monterey, Santa Cruz and San Luis Obispo. Goodwill Central Coast’s mission is to provide employment for individuals who face barriers to employment, such as homelessness, military service, single parenting, incarceration, addiction and job displacement. To fund its mission, Goodwill Central Coast is also a retail organization, which provides job training and funds programs to assist individuals in reclaiming their financial and personal independence.
With a small IT staff of just three people and 18 locations to service, Goodwill Central Coast was in need of a virtual hyperconverged infrastructure solution capable of managing the region’s file systems at the edge and databases out of a central database in Salinas. Without the resources available to provide on-site services for each location, Goodwill Central Coast wanted an edge computing solution that required little or no management for it’s remote regional servers.
Scale Computing HC3 – Introduction, Selection and Implementation
Before turning to Scale Computing, Goodwill Central Coast was using an outdated legacy virtualization system that required physical reboots every other month. The IT staff at Goodwill Central Coast began exploring solutions to upgrade from their cumbersome legacy solutions in 2018. The nonprofit was looking to save management time by replacing their IT infrastructure with a virtual server system capable of simply and efficiently managing remote servers. Waddy was also interested in looking for a hyperconverged system for its ability to migrate from physical servers to virtual.
After learning of Scale Computing and researching other hyperconvergence providers, Waddy ultimately turned to Scale Computing for its affordability, dependability and simplicity. “The training and support during the migration was comprehensive and I’ve had zero issues with the system in the six months I’ve had it in place. Scale Computing HC3 is a single pane of glass that’s easy to manage, and it has saved us so much time on projects,” recalls Waddy.
HC3 was deployed and implemented quickly on 24 virtual servers across 18 locations in the region, providing the nonprofit with a solution that required less management and support, resulting in increased uptime.
Finding an Edge Computing Solution with Scale Computing
Since its implementation of Scale Computing HC3, Goodwill Central Coast has upgraded its point of sale system, increased drive space, saved resources and saved 15% on the initial IT budget. With Scale Computing HC3, Goodwill Central Coast now has a modern IT infrastructure that is high-performing, reliable and efficient.
Goodwill Central Coast’s lean staff needed to solve the challenge of managing a server system efficiently and remotely for all 18 stores dispersed across the wide region. “The main challenge we face is our geography. It’s just myself and two technicians who handle the three counties in our area, so we needed support and with 24 servers requiring physical reboots, we also needed a hyperconverged virtual system,” Waddy said. “Before we chose Scale Computing, my choices were to build physical servers or spend time on the legacy system to build some servers. All hyperconverged systems have the ability to migrate from physical servers to virtual, but the process Scale Computing uses is a quick proposition.”
After selecting Scale Computing, Goodwill Central Coast solved their geographical issue and found a solution capable of being deployed quickly, managed locally and remotely, and providing self-healing technology that reduces the overall amount of time spent on IT projects. “With Scale Computing HC3, the time it takes to spin up a server is minutes compared to hours. I’m using the system to spin up some lab servers for a project and now, I can spin up a lab with five servers in 30 minutes,” Waddy said. “Our server restores are quick, lasting only around 15 minutes. We’re now able to increase drive space and resources on the fly compared to our legacy infrastructure.”
For more information on Scale Computing HC3, visit:
https://www.scalecomputing.com/hc3-virtualization-platform and for more information on HC3 and retail, visit: https://www.scalecomputing.com/retail.
Pull out quotes:
“The cumbersome nature of managing our previous technology led me to look into other solutions, and I’m so glad I found Scale Computing. Migration from our previous system was so quick and easy! I migrated 24 file servers to the new Scale Computing solution during the day with little to no downtime, spending only 20 minutes on some servers.”
Kevin Waddy, IT Director, Goodwill Central Coast
“The training and support during the migration was comprehensive and I’ve had zero issues with the system in the six months I’ve had it in place. Scale Computing HC3 is a single pane of glass that’s easy to manage, and it has saved us so much time on projects.”
Kevin Waddy, IT Director, Goodwill Central Coast
“The main challenge we face is our geography. It’s just myself and two technicians who handle the three counties in our area, so we needed support and with 24 servers requiring physical reboots, we also needed a hyperconverged virtual system. Before we chose Scale Computing, my choices were to build physical servers or spend time on the legacy system to build some servers. All hyperconverged systems have the ability to migrate from physical servers to virtual, but the process Scale Computing uses is a quick proposition.”
Kevin Waddy, IT Director, Goodwill Central Coast
“With Scale Computing HC3, the time it takes to spin up a server is minutes compared to hours. I’m using the system to spin up some lab servers for a project and now, I can spin up a lab with five servers in 30 minutes. Our server restores are quick, lasting only around 15 minutes. We’re now able to increase drive space and resources on the fly compared to our legacy infrastructure.”
Kevin Waddy, IT Director, Goodwill Central Coast