ACRO Automation Systems Inc. News

ACRO Automation Systems Upgrades IT Storage, File Distribution and IT Security Systems

July 17, 2019

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In keeping with the company’s continued focus on leading-edge technologies to excel at engineering innovation, ACRO Automation Systems has made significant upgrades to its Information Technology Systems. The upgrades are aimed at improving business efficiencies through enhanced storage, file distribution and security.

Joshua Loomis, IT Specialist at ACRO says, “We continue to invest in our IT infrastructure to meet the growing needs of our customers. We are living in a time where data transfer is doubling every year and file size for CAD drawings and other project-based files are nearly tripling. The vSAN will not only meet ACRO’s storage needs now and in the foreseeable future, but also provide our employees with higher levels of efficiency and response time.”

Leaner, More Robust Storage Network

Among these upgrades is the change from network-based hardware to a VMware’s virtual storage area network (vSAN).

• The vSAN is a hyper-converged, software-defined storage (SDS) product. It pools together direct-attached storage devices across a VMware vSphere cluster to create a distributed, shared data store.
• The user defines the storage requirements, such as performance and availability, for virtual machines (VM’s) on a VMware vSAN cluster. vSAN ensures that these policies are administered and maintained.

ACRO’s business has grown significantly in recent years owing to our superior offerings in the custom welding and assembly space. To accommodate this expansion in business, the file storage space increased from 3 terabytes (each terabyte equates to a trillion bytes) to 10.5 terabytes. This new architecture allows us to retire one of our existing servers and go from four servers to three. The vSAN environment provides 100% failover in case of hardware outages or failure. To maintain the current high level of operational efficiency, ACRO will be replacing a server every three years. The next new server will also add another 3.5 terabytes of storage.

Improved Data Availability and Distribution

With this increase in storage, we also implemented a DFS (Distributed File System). This provides us with the ability to scale our file server up in storage. No more confusion around the workplace by raising more than one file server! DFS has two components to its service: location transparency (via the namespace component) and redundancy (via the file replication component). Together, these components improve data availability in the case of failures or heavier loads by allowing shares in multiple different locations to be logically grouped under one folder, the “DFS root” or in our case, acro.com. The DFS also allows for more seamless file server updates.

Better Protection Against Spam, Malware and Cyber Attacks

ACRO also enlisted the services of Vircom’s modusCloud, a security-based software which provides spam and phishing protection.

• The modusCloud utilizes Proofpoint’s MLX machine-learning technology which analyzes every email’s envelope header and structure, content and email sender reputation.
• Email encryption is also available, adding another layer of security.
• ModusCloud will certainly help minimize spam emails, malware and other malicious email from reaching ACRO’s employee inboxes.

ACRO is an industry leader, providing high-speed, custom designed and manufactured welding and assembly automation. Our customers span a range of industries and include global OEM manufacturers. While our customers expect the highest quality of services and solutions from the ACRO team, it is critical for the company’s in-house systems to be robust and support our employees dedicated to meeting customer expectations. The recently completed IT upgrades are a step towards ongoing enhancements that solidify the IT infrastructure, thus enabling consistently stellar performance.

For more information, contact ACRO Automation Systems at (414) 352-4540 or contact us online.

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