“I Would Recommend Source Data Products Every Day Of The Week. Call Them. Don’t Even Waste Your Time Calling Anyone Else.”
Background
Claxton Poultry Farms, Inc. produces, processes, and exports poultry products. The company offers broiler, fryer, and roaster chickens. Since its humble beginnings in 1949, Claxton Poultry has grown into a top-rated, full service producer, offering more than 200 products to retail grocers, distributors, restaurants and institutions throughout the Southeast and around the world.
Claxton Poultry Farms is one of the largest family-owned broiler production companies in the United States selling some 300 million pounds of chicken to 750 customers from mom-and-pop restaurants to national chains like Chick-fil-A. Located in Claxton, Georgia, Claxton Poultry runs three shifts daily and makes 30,000 boxes of product by 1,800 people per day.
130 Concurrent Users On IBM 9105-41B, 64 GB RAM, 3.2 TB NVMe Flash Storage, With a Cybernetics Virtual Tape Library (VTL)
Claxton relies on its IBM Power 10 9105-41B to support its 130 concurrent users of 200 total user profiles. The Power 10 has 64 GB RAM memory, 3.2 TB NVMe Flash Storage and a Cybernetics miSAN Virtual Tape Library for back up. Their application software is custom written, developed over 30 years. The 9105-41B is connected to three Dell servers which connect to networks throughout Claxton to collect shop-floor production information and track all packages.
Claxton’s MIS Manager Butch Pippin worked with Source Data’s Senior i Engineer Mark Breisacher to upgrade his IBM Power 10 9105-41B server from V7.3 to V7.5.
A Busy Production Schedule Requires An Early Morning Plan
During the initial IBM i Version Upgrade planning session, Mark Breisacher offered a variety of options for Claxton’s upgrade.
Butch explains, “He called and we discussed different options. Because we’re a 24/7 shop here so we had to find a time that wouldn’t interrupt production. We mutually decided to upgrade early Sunday morning.”
Remote Access Allowed For Ultimate Flexibility
In preparation, Mark provided downloads to Claxton on Thursday and Friday for the Sunday version upgrade.
Butch continues, “Working with Mark could not have been better. I actually never even had to come into the office. I got Mark set up on a machine for him to remotely log into in order to check any software patches, PTFs or things we needed and to download the upgrade.”
Source Data Products Worked Around Our Needs
“With all preparations in place, the upgrade was executed perfectly.
“Mark woke at 3am his time Sunday to start on it.
“I did the remote Save 21 full back up around 240 gigs. That took around 40 minutes and then handed it over to Mark.
“Mark started around 8 am EST. He had the version upgrade completed in about 2 hours. When Mark notified me that it was complete, I conducted the post Version Upgrade Save21.”
A Successful Upgrade
When asked how the upgrade process went, Butch said “could not have been better. All was done remotely.
“Smooth as silk”
Butch Pippin Recommends Source Data Products
“I would recommend Source Data Products every day of the week.
“Call them. Don’t even waste your time calling anyone else.”