Dataport Guarantees High Levels of Availability for Clients
A Case Study from Emerson Network Power
Overview
Dataport is a shared IT services provider for municipal government organisations in
Schleswig-Holstein, Hamburg, Bremen and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. It develops,
hosts and maintains systems that support a wide range of local government needs.
Based in Altenholz, the company also operates from locations in Hamburg, Rostock
and Bremen and employs 1,630 people.
“We see the Avocent environment as an insurance
policy for the company because it helps us to guarantee
high levels of availability for our clients. Above all,
we are absolutely sold on Avocent DSView™ [ 3
management software] and would recommend
it without hesitation. Our high expectations were
completely justified because it saves so much time and
effort for our staff.”
– Marcel Reddig, Responsible for Vital Systems, Dataport
Dataport
Secure remote management
for the data centre of the future
Location
Germany
Industry
Local government / IT services
Website
www.dataport.de
Key Benefits
•Provides a single solution for remote
management of all servers, storage
systems and network devices
•Enhances security by enabling the
realisation of a “lights-out” data
centre concept
•Cuts costs and saves time for
employees while helping to ensure high
service levels for clients
Challenge
With demand for IT services in local government constantly rising, Dataport wanted
to ensure that its data centre infrastructure would be capable of scaling to support
its clients’ needs. The company decided to embark on a major infrastructure upgrade
project, known as ZaBI-RZ (Zielarchitektur Basis Infrastruktur-Rechenzentrum or in
English, Target Architecture for Basic Data Centre Infrastructure).
“The purpose of ZaBI-RZ was to design and build the ‘data centre of the future’: a
new, highly flexible and scalable architecture built on technologies from Fujitsu
Technology Solutions, EMC2, Cisco, Microsoft and recently IBM in partnership
with Bechtle,” explains Marcel Reddig, who is responsible for vital systems at
Dataport. “One of the top priorities is security, so we are using the IT-Grundschutz
methodology designed by the German Federal Office for Information Security to
achieve ISO 27001 certification for the new architecture.”
As part of the security design, Dataport wanted to follow a “lights-out” model,
minimising the need for people to enter the new data centres except when
absolutely necessary. As a result, a comprehensive secure remote management
solution was vital to enable the IT teams to control servers, network devices and
other infrastructure without visiting the data centres themselves.
“Remote management was important not only from the point of view of security, but
also for the sake of convenience,” says Reddig. “Unlike our existing data centres, the
new facilities are not located on-site, so it would be very time-consuming to visit
them every time we need to change something.”
Solution
Dataport worked with its technology partners to finish the
implementation of ZaBI-RZ. When this was completed in 2011, all
the new data centres became fully operational.
As part of ZaBI-RZ, Dataport decided to build an out-of-band
network based on KVM over IP technology, which would enable
remote management of all servers and serial devices while
maintaining security by remaining completely separate from the
main network.
“Although we had used various KVM products before, we didn’t have
a clear strategy for out-of-band management, so we had a mixture
of products from different vendors and there wasn’t a single point
of control for all devices,” explains Reddig. “As part of the ZaBI-RZ
project, we want to completely standardise on a small, coherent set
of solutions, ideally from a single vendor.”
The company looked at various options, but was most impressed
with a proposal from Avocent solutions.
“We had a long relationship with Avocent solutions, and we had
always been impressed with the quality of service we received,”
comments Reddig. “Moreover, the Avocent solutions offered better
compatibility with server and network hardware from a very wide
range of manufacturers, helping us achieve our objective of creating
a single point of control for all out-of-band management.”
The solution includes Avocent MergePoint™ service processor
manager to monitor and control basic server health; Avocent
MergePoint Unity™ KVM over IP and serial console switch to manage
servers (via KVM over IP) and network devices (via serial console);
and Avocent DSView™ 3 management software to provide a single
management portal for the entire infrastructure.
“We are really big fans of Avocent DSViewTM 3 software,” says Reddig.
“We now regard it as ‘the’ central administration portal for the
ZaBI-RZ out-of-band infrastructure since it can manage everything:
rack-mounted servers, blade servers, storage, switches and firewalls,
no matter if they come from IBM, HP, Cisco, Sun or Fujitsu.”
Dataport has integrated Avocent DSViewTM 3 software with Microsoft
Active Directory, which ensures that users can only access servers
and devices if they have the correct authorisation. This is particularly
important from a security perspective because Dataport’s new data
centres host systems for several different clients. And, it is critical to
ensure that the right people have access to the right systems.
“Another advantage is ease of use,” explains Reddig. “We have 400
users and approximately 1,300 systems in total. Avocent DSViewTM 3
software makes it easy to navigate this large infrastructure because
when users log in, they can immediately see the systems that are
relevant to their roles, instead of having to search through a list of
hundreds of servers to find the ones they need.”
Results
“With Avocent DSViewTM 3 software and the other Avocent solutions,
we will be able to achieve our objective of moving to a ‘lights-out’
data centre model,” says Reddig. “Except for installing or removing
the hardware itself, there will be no need for anyone to enter the
new facilities, since we will be able to manage everything remotely.
This is not only a much more secure way to manage our clients’
infrastructure–it’s also much easier for our team, because they don’t
have to waste time travelling from the office to the data centre and
back again.”
Since physical accessibility is no longer an issue, it will be possible
for Dataport to locate its data centres at a distance from its offices.
This will give the company the option of using purpose-built facilities
in lower-cost areas–potentially cutting costs and improving service
levels.
Above all, the Avocent solution helps Dataport ensure that its
servers, storage systems and network devices are maintained and
managed to a high standard, supporting clients’ business-critical
applications with a minimum of downtime. The solution also delivers
considerable time-savings for Dataport staff by enabling them to
work on several systems in parallel instead of dealing with each one
separately.
“We see the Avocent environment as an insurance policy for the
company, because it helps us to guarantee high levels of availability
for our clients,” says Reddig. “Above all, we are absolutely sold on
Avocent DSViewTM 3 software and would recommend it without
hesitation. Our high expectations were completely justified, because
it saves so much time and effort for our staff. In conclusion, the
Avocent solution forms a vital component in the ZaBI architecture
and is enabling us to realise our vision for the data centre of the
future.”
Emerson Network Power
EmersonNetworkPower.com
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trademarks of Avocent Corporation. All other marks are the property of their respective owners. ©2013 Emerson Electric Co. 1013-DP-CS-EN