Cobra-Electronics

Cobra Electronics

Merrimac Solutions Helps Cobra Electronics Be Flexible

Cobra Electronics is a leading global designer and marketer of radar detectors, two-way and CB radios that successfully expanded into the marine radio, GPS and other markets. The ability to quickly pursue growth markets requires an agile business with flexible IT systems. Over the years, Cobra Electronics has turned to Merrimac Solutions to give its small IT staff the flexibility it needs. Merrimac has provided advice, strategy, systems and even staffing to support Cobra’s business.

Like other public companies, Cobra’s data storage and records retention requirements have been a growing burden in recent years because of Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX), electronic discovery and other regulations. The legacy tape-based backup operation was too time consuming and expensive to meet Cobra’s changing needs. While the volume of data Cobra needs to process and store is growing, the staff time available for backup and archiving is not.

“Budget is an issue too,” said Cobra Electronics Director of IT Dean Marino. “We can’t just go out and buy the latest and best solutions every time our needs change. We have to be careful and strategic with our investments.”

Cobra sought advice and options from Merrimac, which is a specialist in storage, backup and recovery and business continuity systems and has expertise in a wide range of solutions from leading manufacturers. Merrimac used its experience to tailor a solution that met Cobra’s needs and budget.

“As a public company, Cobra needs to retain its data for a long time. Tape is fine for long-term storage, but doing daily tape backups was no longer time efficient based on the volume of data and the size of Cobra’s staff,” said John Quinn of Merrimac Solutions. “We proposed a solution where data automatically backs up daily to SATA drives, which are cost-effective storage mediums and allow the data to be recovered quickly if systems need to be restored or there is a disaster recovery situation. For long-term storage, the disk contents are transferred to tape, which Cobra can do using its existing tape system. The tape backup takes longer, but it is no longer used for time-sensitive operations, so Cobra has flexibility to do the transfers when it has some time.”

The two-pronged approach that used Cobra’s legacy tape backup system appealed to Marino, who went forward with the project. A Merrimac team then installed the SATA drives with an iSCI interface and configured Cobra’s critical file servers, e-mail systems and Web servers to automatically back up to the SAN.

“Merrimac really listens to the requirements, and provides a range of options for solving the problem at different budget levels,” Marino said. “For this project they provided a range of options, educated us about different technologies and approaches, and set us up with the right vendor contacts who could provide more information. The solution we went with wasn’t the most sophisticated, but it met our needs, and it fit our budget.”

That’s the kind of flexibility Cobra needs to keep moving forward. The company has also used Merrimac for a variety of other IT projects, and to provide long-term on-site staffing support. Merrimac has performed different roles for Cobra, but its service levels have been consistent.

“All the Merrimac people we’ve worked with are very hands-on and have strong technical knowledge. There is a good range of skills throughout the organization,” said Marino. “Merrimac is also very responsive, and makes it easy for me to get answers when I need them.”

Needs:

  • More efficient backup, data storage and disaster recovery capabilities to meet SOX and other requirements
  • General IT support
  • Temporary staffing

Challenges:

  • Limited staff
  • Limited budget

Solutions:

  • Essential systems automatically backed up to new SATA drives
  • Legacy tape-based backup system retained for long-term archiving

The Merrimac Advantage:

 “Merrimac really listens to the requirements, and provides a range of options for solving the problem at different budget levels.”

Dean Marino
Cobra Electronics


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