Lake Erie College reduces its operational costs by replacing outdated hardware and moving to hyperconvergence with StarWind HCI Appliance (HCA)

January 04, 2024

Brad Luhta

Director of Information Technology. A seasoned professional with over 13 years of experience and a strong skill set in infrastructure, network administration, and cloud computing.

CHALLENGE

Before using StarWind HCI Appliance (HCA), Lake Erie College had multiple hosts, two HP servers, and a VMware hypervisor. Although they engaged in regular backups, the absence of redundancy beyond the disk level left the college vulnerable to potential crashes. The existing infrastructure, only 4-5 years old, required an upgrade for improved performance and greater failover options. Additionally, the need for cost- effective solutions was crucial.

Lake Erie College considered the possibility of purchasing VMware vSAN, but the characteristics and price of StarWind’s solution became a safe bet.

StarWind offered the best of several worlds: improved performance, lower cost, and increased redundancy and failover capabilities.

Brad Luhta, Director of Information Technology

SOLUTION

Lake Erie College chose StarWind HCI Appliance as it allowed for replacing outdated hardware and moving to hyperconvergence even with the strictest budget. The college also started using Microsoft Hyper-V. Together, this allowed the college to gain reliable backup, facilitate the adoption of SSDs, and ensure Hyper-V live migration by minimizing downtime.

The transition to StarWind HCI Appliance significantly streamlined maintenance tasks, eliminating the burdensome processes associated with the previous infrastructure. The system now satisfies all requirements, providing Lake Erie College with a stable, high-performance IT environment and laying the foundation for future scalability and efficiency.