Case Study: Goodwill Industries of Southeastern Wisconsin, Inc. achieves five-9s availability and faster store transactions with NetApp FlexPod

Goodwill: Smart IT Decisions Aid People in Need

Goodwill Industries of Southeastern Wisconsin is a nonprofit that operates nearly 100 locations and serves tens of thousands of people through job training and supportive services. As the organization expanded, its aging IT infrastructure struggled to keep retail and back-office systems running reliably; with tight budgets and a one-person IT team, Goodwill needed a fast, scalable, and easy-to-manage platform to avoid costly downtime and support growth.

Working with CDW, Goodwill deployed a FlexPod solution (NetApp FAS8020 storage with clustered Data ONTAP, Cisco UCS/Nexus, and VMware) in about 80 hours, giving single-pane management and automated monitoring that one engineer can run. The new environment sped critical workloads (a payroll/HR report dropped from ~12 hours to 4), reclaimed 33% storage through deduplication, improved retail availability (preventing lost revenue), and enabled new projects like inventory control and expanded services.

Goodwill Industries of Southeastern Wisconsin, Inc.

John Sidoti

Senior Systems Engineer