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BlueCat helps W&W Informatik seamlessly transition from previous DDI solution, increasing productivity and eliminating down-time
Technology Category
- Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) - Cloud Computing
- Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) - Cloud Middleware & Microservices
Applicable Functions
- Discrete Manufacturing
- Business Operation
Use Cases
- Factory Operations Visibility & Intelligence
- Cybersecurity
- Predictive Maintenance
Services
- Cloud Planning, Design & Implementation Services
- System Integration
The Challenge
W&W Informatik, a German IT company, was facing challenges with its previous DDI vendor. The outdated version of the solution they were using had limited functionality, poor data consistency, and major issues handling high volumes of DDNS transactions. These limitations reduced the performance, reliability, and availability of the solution, hindering W&W’s productivity. Periodically, all VOIP phones would reboot causing the solution to fail, resulting in outages of the VOIP infrastructure. W&W’s network is heavily distributed across Germany and with the company’s rapid growth, they must deal with the challenge of offices frequently opening and sometimes closing. Each new office requires the setup of a small network. To support this rapid growth, W&W needed to find a DNS, DHCP and IP Address Management (DDI) solution that would grow with its network. Their network needs have evolved since their legacy solution was initially rolled out – the company’s focus has shifted to private cloud implementation, VMWare automation and server automation – and their solution was no longer able to meet their requirements. Additionally, their previous DDI vendor did not offer the ease of upgrade and support that W&W was looking for.
About The Customer
W&W Informatik is a German information technology company based in Ludwigsburg. It was founded in 2002 following the merge of the IT departments of all the Wüstenrot & Württembergische Group companies. W&W Informatik, a subsidiary of W&W AG, is responsible for all networks, decentralized systems, architectures and computer centers within the W&W Group. W&W’s network consists of 50,000 IP addresses (35,000 dynamic client IP addresses and 15,000 static IP addresses) and is continuing to grow, with 20,000 people accessing the network. Users typically connect through a local area network (LAN), but the 15,000 remote workers and 4,500 remote office locations also rely on VPN to connect. The DDI infrastructure is managed by a two-person DDI team based in Ludwigsburg, Germany.
The Solution
W&W Informatik implemented the BlueCat solutions for internal DNS, DHCP and IPAM, as well as the BlueCat VCO Plugin. W&W helped extract the necessary data from the legacy IPAM tool and BlueCat handled the entirety of the migration and a thorough database cleanse, which went very smoothly. BlueCat’s approach to validating, optimizing, testing and importing the data proved very valuable to the customer. This was a major improvement over their legacy solution, where DNS and DHCP were running on separate systems, making the former upgrade processes unnecessarily complex. With BlueCat, as recently experienced, upgrades and patching are made seamless and without downtime. BlueCat provided W&W with a centrally managed, single-vendor solution that scales with their company’s rapid growth. The BlueCat solution was much more intuitive, easy to implement and offered a level of support that W&W had not seen with their legacy solution.
Operational Impact
Quantitative Benefit
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