How Lippert Left a Decade of FTP Account Sprawl Behind

Lippert, the operating business of LCI Industries, supplies engineered components to OEMs in the recreational vehicle, marine, and transportation markets: chassis, axles, slide-outs, awnings, windows, and the rest of the systems a finished RV or boat is built around. It has approximately 11,700 team members and a global, multi-site footprint.

A supplier positioned between that many OEMs and vendors exchanges files with outside companies as a routine part of production, and those companies connect the way industrial partners do: over FTP and SFTP. For roughly ten years, the system on Lippert's end of those connections was an FTP server the company ran itself. Lippert had to retire the server without interrupting those partner transfers—and without carrying a decade of account sprawl onto its replacement.

A Ten-Year-Old Server With 200-Plus Accounts and No Owner

“It's like a 10 year old server that nobody has paid any attention to in years.”

The cost of that neglect was a standing condition, not a single incident. More than 200 user accounts had accumulated on the server with no lifecycle hygiene. Every one of them was a working credential into Lippert's file exchange, and nobody could say which still belonged to a live partner, a current vendor, or anyone at all. The box itself needed hosting, patching, and attention from an IT organization that had stopped giving it any. And it was not alone: a related legacy transfer server on the marketing side had been judged insecure internally, and getting off it was already rated a high-priority migration.

The Endpoint Had to Outlive the Server

The server survived a decade of neglect because it could not simply be switched off. OEM partners and vendors connected to Lippert's FTP and SFTP endpoints, and those are outside companies on their own schedules. Turning the server off meant breaking working exchanges with the companies Lippert supplies. Replacing it in kind meant standing up another server and signing up for another decade of the same hosting and patching. That was the work IT wanted out of, not more of.

The objective was never a better FTP server. As Soper framed it, Lippert wanted "FTP as a service": the endpoints kept alive and maintained by someone else, with Lippert's own infrastructure out of the picture. The replacement had to speak FTP and SFTP so partners could keep connecting exactly as they always had. It had to take the server, the patching, and the uptime off Lippert's hands. It had to put access under corporate identity instead of a standalone account list. And it had to give the decade of accumulated accounts somewhere to end, rather than somewhere to move.

Lippert selected Files.com to be that service.

The Cleanup Happened Before the Cutover

The first move was not a migration. Before anything cut over, Soper audited the 200-plus account base and removed stale accounts, so only live users landed on the new platform. The sprawl was retired with the server instead of being copied onto its replacement.

Files.com then took over the transfers themselves. Partners and vendors connect over the same FTP and SFTP they always used, and Lippert's own teams reach the same files over WebDAV and HTTPS, all against one managed platform instead of a box in Lippert's data center. Internal sign-in runs through Files.com's Okta single sign-on connector with two-factor authentication, so access follows the corporate identity Lippert already manages. Permissions are granted folder by folder through Files.com Groups, so each user and group reaches its own folders and nothing more. And when it is time to review who has access, the full user directory comes out as a CSV through the Files.com CLI.

Within months, Files.com was in production carrying partner traffic.

No Server to Patch, No Sprawl to Migrate

With Files.com in production, Lippert replaced infrastructure it operated with a service it consumes.

• The ten-year-old FTP server is retired, and so is the insecure legacy transfer server on the marketing side. There is no transfer box anywhere in Lippert's infrastructure to host, patch, or pay attention to.
• Partner and vendor exchanges kept running through the change. The same FTP and SFTP connections now terminate on a maintained platform instead of an aging server.
• The account sprawl ended at the cutover instead of moving. Access is granted per folder through groups, staff sign in through Okta with two-factor authentication on top, and the user directory exports on demand when Lippert reviews who can reach what. The account question that had no answer on the old server is now an export.
• The condition that created the problem cannot rebuild itself. A self-hosted server ages into the next decade's problem. A service does not, because there is no box on Lippert's side left to age.

A Service Lippert Uses, Not a Server It Runs

And the part most companies in Lippert's position dread turned out not to be a separate project at all. The decade of account sprawl never had to be migrated. It was audited out before the cutover, so the mess died with the server, and only the live business crossed to Files.com.