German local authority future-proofs its IT services

Background

Located in the Bavarian Alps, Garmisch-Partenkirchen (GAP) is a district of the German state of Bavaria. Its administration is managed by the District Office (Landratsamt) which performs two distinct functions. It is both a municipal authority responsible for managing local issues and a lower state administrative authority tasked with implementing directives from the Bavarian state government or the federal government.

With a staff of about 300 people working for the organisation, Landratsamt GAP is responsible for providing a wide selection of services to its inhabitants, ranging from education and waste management to children, youth and family services. This inevitably means that it is highly dependent on having an effective and efficient IT system.

Challenges

It was becoming increasingly clear to Landratsamt GAP that its data storage system was struggling to cope with the increasing amounts of data its activities were producing.

Frank Pönig, IT Manager, Landratsamt GAP explains:

The District Office relies heavily on its IT systems to carry out its work. The data storage system we had had served us well, but it was obviously starting to struggle and become unreliable. It lacked capacity and was effecting the level of service we were able to offer to our clients.

Looking to the future, the organisation also realised that in dealing with this problem, it would need a solution that would provide much better security and protection in the event of a system failure. This meant creating a duplicate data centre that could take over in the event of a problem, something it had not had before.

Solution

Under pressure to find a replacement solution quickly, the Landratsamt GAP IT team looked at a number of options but it was a chance phone call from IT Systems integrator Microstaxx that introduced them to the possibilities offered by Huawei’s OceanStor platform.

I wasn’t sure at first but the more microstaxx told me about the Huawei solution, the more I realised that it was a solution that we should give serious consideration to as it appeared to offer everything we were looking for, at a very competitive price.

Frank Pönig

The addition of OceanStor’s HyperMetro feature provides total peace-of-mind by enabling the creation of a duplicate system that can run in tandem and mirror every process that is running on the main one. This makes sure that should one of the two fail services will automatically switch to the other one without the user noticing any break in service.

Landratsamt GAP finally made the decision to choose microstaxx’s proposal after a visit to Huawei’s demonstration laboratory in Munich. Henning Dorsch, Account Manager microstaxx observes:

Huawei’s OpenLab facility gave us a great opportunity to give the Landratsamt GAP team first-hand experience of the technology and to show them how the range of features offered by the OceanStor solution could be tailored to meet their specific needs. It was also invaluable to have the Huawei experts on-hand to answer their questions.

Benefits

Landratsamt GAP’s OceanStor system has now been in operation for over two years. It was installed over two days without any problems and with no break in service. Since then, users of the system have really noticed a difference, with applications able to access the files they need twice as fast.

Not being familiar with Huawei I wasn’t sure when microstaxx first contacted me but as a public authority, we have a limited budget and it soon became clear to me that the Huawei solution offered the balance between cost and functionality we were looking for.

“I have also been very impressed with the on-going cost savings we have experienced since the system went live. Power consumption is lower, we need less space for the cabinets and with one console needed to look after the whole system, we spend less on managing it.

Frank Pönig

Looking ahead Landratsamt GAP need have no concerns about its ability to adapt to the growing demands being placed on its IT systems. The modular design of OceanStor means that capacity can be easily increased as it is needed, something which the organisation is now actively considering.

About Huawei Enterprise Business Group

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About Landratsamt Garmisch-Partenkirchen

Garmisch-Partenkirchen is a district of the German state of Bavaria. It is administered by District Offi ce (Landratsamt) which has two functions. Firstly, as a municipal self-governing authority and secondly as a state administrative authority with responsibility for tasks assigned to it by Bavarian state government or the federal government.

For more information, please visit: lra-gap.de

About microstaxx

Operating throughout Germany since 1990, microstaxx is a leading provider of individual IT solutions. Based in Munich its main focus is on medium-sized businesses from all economic sectors, as well as clients from the public sector, particularly in the fi elds of science, research and education.

The company’s range of skills includes everything necessary to design, implement and maintain a sophisticated IT solution. It provides a range of services from basic IT management to full IT out-sourcing.

For more information, please visit microstaxx.de