GIA Informatik: Renewal of infrastructure - several million francs invested

GIA Informatik is due for a renewal: A large part of the infrastructure has already been in operation for five years. The IT company was therefore looking for a supplier for the basic components including expansion, the entire server infrastructure, storage space, extensions and backup systems, and therefore carried out an evaluation. "As the overall supplier, we decided on HPE Switzerland, which had already provided the server landscape up to that point," says René Lüscher, Head of IT Solutions and member of the management team at GIA Informatik AG. By choosing a single supplier for servers, storage and backup systems, the company, which focuses on cloud computing, IT services and SAP, aimed to ensure that operations would be simpler in the future, so that the various components of the infrastructure would work smoothly together. The total cost of the infrastructure renewal amounts to several million Swiss francs.

Zofingen replaced by Lucerne

In parallel, GIA Informatik is replacing the existing data center in Zofingen with a new one in Lucerne, as already reported. "The two projects run synchronously on the timeline. That's why, at the strategic level, we thought about handing them over together and in an integrated way," explains René Lüscher. The primary data center is in Oftringen; all system classes classified by availability are located here. Disaster-tolerant systems are in operation in Lucerne.

The evaluation for the large-scale project began in the fall of 2017, and the contract was signed with Carlo Giorgi, Managing Director of HPE Switzerland, in September 2018. Immediately afterwards, GIA Informatik placed the hardware order and had the entire platform installed by HPE Switzerland by March 2019, including all configurations. To ensure secure operation, it will subsequently be monitored as standard.

Bits and bytes

The renewal includes 54 hosts (computers), running over 2000 virtual servers. The total amount of data is two petabytes, which corresponds to 2000 terabytes. The backup contains 5.5 petabytes; it is mirrored in both data centers with the same capacity. The backup hardware weighs two tons per data center. The storage is all flash memory, specifically SSD; there are no more traditional hard drives. "Storage is growing rapidly, and data storage is becoming more efficient. Thanks to increased performance, we can cut the host systems in half. Previously, we needed more than 104 hosts for the same performance," explains René Lüscher. In addition, GIA Informatik relies on a "composable" infrastructure for fast application provisioning of virtual computing and storage resources with the new, software-defined solution HPE Synergy.

Added value for GIA customers

The use of the latest technology from HPE brings maximum flexibility and innovation for customers. The new IT infrastructure coupled with the industry expertise of GIA Informatik make it possible to respond quickly and flexibly to a wide range of customer and market requirements. Thanks to the new platform, innovation projects such as Cloud, Big Data, Internet of Things, Virtual Desktop Infrastructure, SAP HANA, etc. can also be driven forward and steadily expanded for and with GIA customers. More efficient operations at lower costs provide the IT service provider with more resources for new projects.

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