Carl Fuhr GmbH & Co. KG – Keep work secure in the cloud with Bechtle Azure operations

Carl Fuhr GmbH & Co. KG – Keep work secure in the cloud with Bechtle Azure operations.

FUHR ensures security and comfort at home. At the heart of the family-run SME is the development and production of innovative and secure multi-point lock systems for doors, windows and gates. To drive digitalisation, FUHR introduced Microsoft Azure as a cloud with Bechtle. For the secure and legally complaint operation of the Azure Cloud, the company also leveraged Bechtle’s Azure Operations Managed Service bundle. Bechtle now securely manages all systems while FUHR saves costs.

Project details.

Services

Managed Services
Cloud

Industry

Manufacturing

Manufacturer

Microsoft

Company size

< 250 employees

Challenge.

CARL FUHR GmbH & Co. KG is a family-run SME Focussing on the development and production of high-quality and secure multi-point locking systems for all kinds of doors and windows. FUHR is a market leader in its industry with its innovative portfolio of automatic, panic and electronically controlled motorised locking systems. The company has been located in Heiligenhaus near Düsseldorf since 1859. Working hard every day to maintain FUHR’s high quality standards are around 240 employees at the headquarters, from where all activities are managed in Germany, across Europe and worldwide. As an internationally active company, FUHR has branches in Great Britain, the Netherlands and Poland. To support collaboration between the branches and headquarters, FUHR made the switch to the cloud and now pursues a consistent digitalisation strategy. Bechtle configured Microsoft Azure as a cloud and took on management of the Azure tenant within the framework of the SMART Workplace Managed Service. To ensure that all data is used in a legally compliant manner and is also protected against unauthorised access, FUHR also selected Bechtle Azure Operations Essentials.

Thanks to our excellent experience with Bechtle’s SMART Workplace, we made the decision to procure the company’s Azure Operations Managed Service package to guarantee the secure and legally compliant operation of our virtual machines, databases, VPN gateways, KeyVault, storage accounts and virtual networks in the cloud. What’s more, Azure invoicing is much more transparent and our cloud-related expenses have been significantly reduced.

Dr Tobias Trepper, Digitalisation and Process Design, CARL FUHR GmbH & Co. KG

Solution.

To ensure the secure operation of FUHR’s virtual machines, databases, VPN gateways, KeyVault, storage accounts and virtual networks, Bechtle first analysed the existing environment and FUHR’s policies. The company’s data needed to be secured in accordance with the EU GDPR and ISO 27001 standards. The results of the Bechtle Azure migration workshop, assessed and optimised according to the Center for Internet Security (CIS) standard, formed the basis for a future platform concept and the professional, secure operation of FUHR’s Azure cloud resources.

Bechtle took over operations and ensured they complied with ISO 27001 and Azure Expert MSP standards plus Bechtle experts run the platform around the clock in accordance with modern methods and security standards, monitoring the system’s availability and performance as well as its general status. Governance and compliance policies are taken into consideration and the platform’s settings adjusted as required. Even though the self-service portal certainly takes a weight off the shoulders of the FUHR IT department, Bechtle’s experts are also on hand to offer support between 8:00 and 17:00.

The service bundle purchased by FUHR includes the monitoring, maintenance, configuration and operation of the Azure Virtual Machine, Azure Firewall, Azure Load Balancer, Azure Applications Gateway as well as incident and service management. Bechtle also configured a VPN gateway that the IT service provider manages alongside FUHR’s virtual machines.

Integrated cost management makes the price of single items on the Microsoft Azure invoice completely transparent as each item is listed individually. Bechtle monitors the cloud resources and continually optimises system load, controlling and optimising costs for Azure, which—along with optimally utilised volume discounts—in turn reduces FUHR’s monthly operating costs.

Business benefits.

The highly-automated operation of Azure via Bechtle’s cloud management platform gives FUHR the security it was looking for. Unauthorised access is so restricted that the entire cloud platform runs in compliance with the GDPR and statutory regulations and FUHR’s cloud resources are secure. Bechtle’s Azure Operations service not only created maximum security for FUHR, but also made Azure—especially the invoicing—more transparent. In this way, Bechtle continuously optimises cloud costs and FUHR has significantly saved on operating costs. FUHR no longer has to worry about managing the Azure tenant and backing up data itself as Bechtle is now its reliable partner for this.