Busch-Poggensee – Off to the new data centre: Outsourcing of server & storage.

Challenge.

Agriculture engineering isn’t just tractors, and this is something that Busch-Poggensee GmbH's 140 plus employees and their customers know well. As the largest John Deere dealer in Schleswig-Holstein, Busch-Poggensee’s branches have everything that makes farmer’s hearts beat quicker and enable them to do their job more efficiently—from milking machines and combine harvesters to new and used tractors. The machines and solutions are equipped with the latest technology and the agricultural engineering company also provides the right service, replacement parts, and workshops. This requires a great deal of logistics management and the right IT in the background. Busch-Poggensee’s mobile repair acceptance and service processing in the field, farm yard, or office all takes place via the AMS Arista ERP system from C.O.S. software that employees can access in the office and on-the-go via Citrix. But it needs to be reliable at all times. Previously, their data centre was based at their branch in Sülfeld. But the company continues to grow and needed both more space and more powerful IT in terms of network, server, and storage. This needed to offer enhanced availability and automatic failover when individual components fail in order for the ERP system to be used at any time.

Solution.

As a long-term partner, Busch-Poggensee turned to Bechtle. That their data centre had to move soon became clear. Bechtle found the right hosting provider in Hamburg and collected together all necessary components for the new data centre based on HPE ProLiant DL380 Gen10 servers. The three most powerful servers at the hosting partners, one of which serves as a backup server, were equipped with more RAM. Bechtle built the network on a basis of HPE Aruba switches and used these in each of the five branches together with new firewalls. New Security Access Points from Watchguard harmonise with these firewalls and provide high-performing WLAN in buildings and the open air at Busch-Poggensee’s branches. For even better security, Bechtle installed McAfee Endpoint Threat Protection as an antivirus solution and updated the existing Microsoft Windows and Citrix licences. This all resulted in a secure network, now housed in a external date centre and based on VMware servers and the existing EMC storage. This saves space, maintenance times, and offers security as the internet service provider’s systems are connected to the internet directly, redundantly, and via broadband and offer security, performance, optimum access times, and very high availability.

For a smooth system move with as little downtime as possible, Bechtle first created a demonstration environment and tested the new system in it before delivering it to and installing it in the data centre. Within one weekend, Bechtle then conducted the relocation of Busch-Poggensee’s systems and applications to the new server, thereby avoiding productivity downtime for the agricultural engineering company.

Business Beneftis.

Thanks to the new data centre, Busch-Poggensee now has an ERP system with ultimate performance that employees can access wherever they are and which is scalable. Sales, repair acceptance, installation of 3D software, and many other applications vital to Busch-Poggensee can therefore be conducted on customers’ sites without a hitch. All employees can now use Citrix, making the ERP system always available. The complete environment at the locations, as well as in the data centre, is secured against external attacks and other adversities. Data backup also happens like clockwork now, so that no data can be lost.