Our Work

Design, deployment, and setup of Persistent Technologies (PT) sourced multi-node HPE DL360 Gen10+ Hyper-V HCI cluster - complete with Windows Server 2022 Datacenter - for collection of primary steel manufacturing processes.  System integrated into Factory Floor/Process domain. Project also included services to migrate existing workloads/applications to new HCI solution.  Customer also provided management/monitoring tools – along with training.

• System hosts key workloads vital to operations of high-value steel manufacturing processes 
• Provides higher performance and availability for workloads/applications
• Licensing model allows for unlimited guest VMs – limited only by cluster host resources
• Solution designed to provide significant additional capacity to support future innovation needs
• Design allowed migrated guest VMs' OS to be upgraded to Windows Server 2022 without any additional licensing costs

Plant wide Backup and Disaster Recovery (DR) solution for both Business and Process/Manufacturing server workloads.  The architecture of the Persistent Technologies (PT) fully sourced solution consisted of a high performance HPE DL360 Gen 11 server, HPE Alletra 5030 Storage Array, Windows Server/SQL Server Licensing, and Veeam Backup and Replication (VBR) 12.x.  The new solution replaced a 16-year-old system which was barely fully functional and was incapable of supporting all of the customer's current Backup and DR needs.

Key benefits of new system included:

• Eliminated reliance on 16-year-old technology
• Sufficient performance and capacity to easily meet ALL of customer's backups needs
• Significantly reduced/streamlined backup and recovery times
• Ability to efficiently and safely run multiple Backup AND Restore jobs concurrently
• Extensive High Availability capabilities of Storage System to guarantee backup system availability
• Cloud AI based management/monitoring complete with analytics to predict and prevent disruptions
• Shutdown of obsolete/end-of-life hardware - allowing reclamation of vital server room rack space

Services provided by PT to guarantee successful project execution:

• Single competitive source for all hardware, software, and services
• In-lab up-front extensive configuration of HPE equipment to expedite on-site startup
• Setup and installation of HPE equipment on-site in approx. 3 hours
• Integration of HPE equipment with Compute Ops Managment (COM), Data Services Cloud Console (DSCC), and InfoSight
• Installation and setup of Veeam Backup and Replication software system
• Properly designed and implemented backups for all plant-wide server workloads
• Extensive documentation detailing restore procedures
• In-lab overall system training for support personnel

Design and startup of new compute/storage infrastructure for large stainless steel production line – based on multiple HPE servers and thin clients – as well as Dell storage and workstations.  Project included re-design of key workloads along with proper workload distribution.  Also designed and implemented new Factory Floor based Active Directory (AD) domain – complete with users, groups, OUs, GPOs (to control user environment), sites, subnets and logon scripts – and printer management.  Instituted HMI UI paradigm shift from thick client architecture to Remote Desktop Services (RDS)/Terminal services.  Custom utilities/automation tools were created to help ensure conversion accuracy and speed.

• 3-million-dollar project with unprecedented startup speed and success – with minimal production disruption  
• Significant reduction of TCO with overall new architecture design
• Customer estimated 2 million dollars project savings

Upgrade of VMWare ESXi system to ultra-high performance HPE DL360 Gen11 based S2D Hyper-V Windows Cluster.  This system provides High Availability (HA) virtualization hosting for all vital business workloads/applications for primary steel producer.  PT was single competitive source for system design/configuration, HPE hardware, and Windows software licensing, and startup/migration services.  VMWare workload migrations services executed in record-breaking time with absolute minimal production disruption.

Key system benefits include:

• Ultra-high performance HA support for all business compute workloads
• Significant capacity to meet future HA virtualized compute needs
• No reliance on external storage system to support VM virtual drives
• Elimination of costly yearly VMWare subscription fees
• State-of-the art Management/Monitoring Tools (On-Premise/Cloud)
• Overall reduction of long-term Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)

Replacement of catastrophically failed business operations NAS server for primary steel producer.  Server provided customer vital business file share/server functionality.  The Persistent Technologies (PT) sourced replacement solution was an HPE StoreEasy 1670.  Although enduring such an untimely failure was not desirable, the new cost-effective solution offered the customer significantly increased storage capacity and performance.

Within 5 weeks of receipt of PO, PT had the custom configured (CTO) solution delivered, installed, and fully functional.  Services to expeditiously achieve full functionality included:

• Worked with HPE to build and ship CTO solution as quickly as possible
• Complete server configuration
• Integration with business domain
• Full file recovery onto new server from backup
• Setup of shares
• Assistance with Windows ACL assignments
• Integration with HPE Computer Ops Management (COM)
• New properly designed Veeam File Share backup on PT sourced disaster recovery system

Compute/storage infrastructure design and implementation for primary steel producer – predominantly based on Dell Servers and workstations.  Project included deployment, configuration, and startup of key workloads.  Also included design and implementation of virtualization strategy.
 

For LOB customer involved in Biotech and Pharmaceutical recruiting, migrated all knowledge worker/business productivity operations to Office 365.  On-prem custom LOB application, and key associated workloads hosted on VMware, migrated to Azure Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS). Secure global access to custom web-based application provided via Azure AD App proxy and Azure Identity-as-a-Service (IDaaS).   

• Access to enterprise grade productivity tools for a small monthly fee
• LOB application secure anywhere access
• Instantaneous access to new features without any incremental cost
• Guaranteed availability with an SLA > 99.99%

Factory Floor based Active Directory (AD) domain design and implementation – defining all users, groups, OUs, GPOs (to control user environment), sites, subnets and logon scripts.  Leveraged by enterprise HMI for user sign on.

• Centralized user management
• Extensive user environment management
• Single sign on and password policy

Virtualization strategy and migration path design for large stainless steel production line.  Design included migration of 13 bare metal servers and all associated workloads to a Hyper-V architecture running on 2 high-powered HPE servers.  Design also included leveraging System Center components (SCCM\SCVMM\SCOM) for management and monitoring.

• Consolidation of hardware – lower TCO
• Increased workload performance
• Higher workload availability

For vital production databases used by large steel manufacturer, designed and implemented effective SQL Server maintenance plans providing 15-30 minute recovery point objective (RPO) and low recovery time objective (RTO).  In the unlikely event of disaster, solution provided customer with minimal loss of data and production time.
 

Design and implementation of disaster recovery solution for large stainless steel production facility Factory Floor/Process AD domain.