Project Profile
Peer Software Solution
- PeerGFS™️
Customer's Platform(s)
- Centralised NetApp storage
- Distributed Windows-based Dell PowerEdge servers
Locations
- 8 global locations (5 sites with PeerGFS)
Industry
- AEC
Applications
- General office
- CAD Files
The Company
Headquartered in Denmark, Liftra is an engineering company specialising in innovative lifting, installation and transport solutions for the global wind energy industry. With more than 20 years’ experience, it designs and manufactures advanced equipment for safer, more efficient wind turbine installation and maintenance both on- and offshore.
The company operates a distributed workforce across Europe, the Americas and Asia-Pacific. Its engineers and technical specialists work extensively with large-scale CAD and design data, collaborating across regions to deliver complex engineering projects.
The Challenge
Liftra’s existing file replication and storage environment was struggling to keep pace with the company’s global engineering demands. At the remote sites storage was under pressure, with 8TB total capacity and typically only around 1TB free. But the IT team was keen to avoid a complete infrastructure overhaul before hardware reached end-of-life.
The existing DFS Replication (DFS-R) model was no longer well-suited to the environment — with slow synchronisation between sites and delayed cross-location collaboration, contributing to challenges in maintaining file consistency and visibility across locations.
This created inefficiencies and bottlenecks: teams often logged into remote systems just to verify they were working on the correct file version, while limited visibility made it difficult to track file movement, status and storage usage across the environment.
Liftra needed a solution that could improve replication performance, support distributed engineering workloads and reduce storage pressure at edge locations — without replacing its infrastructure.
Solution
Liftra introduced PeerGFS across its global file environment, deploying it on Windows-based file servers at 7 edge locations. Each site used local storage to give engineering teams fast, low-latency access to large design files.
A high availability design was put in place across three key locations using an active-passive architecture, including a Linux-based quorum node and a passive management component. Core services continued to run within the existing Windows environment.
PeerGFS was integrated alongside the existing infrastructure and aligned with existing DFS-R naming conventions to minimise disruption. The Liftra and Peer Software teams worked closely together during implementation — going live with zero downtime, allowing a smooth transition from DFS-R without impacting ongoing engineering activity.
Results
The PeerGFS deployment delivered clear improvements across performance, infrastructure efficiency and day-to-day productivity.
Replication delays associated with DFS Replication were eliminated, allowing faster access to large engineering files, including SolidWorks CAD data, across all locations and improving collaboration between teams.
With Edge Caching and pinning policies in place, frequently used project data was kept locally available and hydrated at the edge as needed, supporting more efficient engineering workflows while reducing the storage footprint at remote locations. This approach also helped avoid the need for a full infrastructure refresh.
We went live with no downtime at all — in fact the only reason our teams knew there had been a change was because it was now quicker to download files, easier to collaborate and version control was more certain. After implementation, support from the Peer Software team has been spot on too, with great coverage and responsiveness.
