The reliability of a managed and hyperconverged infrastructure: the case of FERCAM

FERCAM’s history began in Bolzano, Italy, in 1949, as a small family business dedicated to rail carriage.
The first modes of transportation adopted were road and rail, which had their success with the acquisition of the company from the trucking company Eduard Baumgartner in 1963.
In 1981, FERCAM opened its first foreign subsidiary in Germany, in Munich.
Since then, exponential growth of the business has occurred through the opening of a series of subsidiaries throughout Europe, the Mediterranean basin, and Asia.
The advent of Information Technology and the company’s now international presence made it necessary to equip itself with cutting-edge technological solutions: first, in 1994, thanks to the online connection of the network it managed to reduce barcode Tracking & Tracing.
In this context began the relationship between Deda Cloud, Dedagroup’s Managed Cloud & Security Services Provider, and FERCAM , which over the years became more and more intense, with the aim of defining and updating the best technological solutions able to best follow the evolution of the market.
The continuous comparison and the common goal of growth have allowed Deda Cloud to turn out to be the ideal partner to support FERCAM year after year in its expansion, actively reacting to the different needs that a constantly moving business like FERCAM’s requires.
Hence the need for FERCAM to transform its infrastructure, no longer capable of guaranteeing security and solidity for its business, by focusing on saving both “downtime” and time.

The starting scenario saw the client with a classic infrastructure (computing + storage), with servers installed within a single datacenter located in Bolzano, making FERCAM vulnerable and exposed to potential damaging events that reduce business reliability.
In reviewing the infrastructure, FERCAM decided to embrace the concept of hyperconvergence in stretched cluster mode by going to redundant infrastructure on two different and geographically distant sites.
In this way, even in the event that one of the sites was compromised, the company’s data would remain safe while ensuring business continuity.
In order to achieve this, FERCAM has previously equipped itself with high-performance connectivity that can guarantee minimal latency times.
Throughout the project phases, the relationship with Dell Technologies, of which Deda Cloud is a Titanium Partner, was decisive and allowed us to work in close collaboration with the client in order to fully understand its business needs to guarantee the expected results.
The client also chose to rely on Deda Cloud, Dedagroup’s Managed Cloud & Security Services Provider, for the management of the new infrastructure signed Dell Technologies, activating a ManS for Infrastructure service able to guarantee a higher level of protection and efficiency to protect its investment.

For the logistics and transportation sector, time is a key variable that should not be overlooked and invested in to achieve ever higher levels of efficiency while remaining competitive in the market.
The premise is to secure high-performance connectivity with extremely low latency times.
Next, it is equally important to rely on an infrastructure that can safeguard the company from adverse events that could cause damage to business continuity itself.
Choosing a relevant and reliable vendor like Dell Technologies, with specialized staff and vertical expertise, has enabled FERCAM to invest time, resources and budget in one of the most cutting-edge solutions on the market. Similarly, entrusting Deda Cloud with infrastructure management by choosing the “Mans for Infrastructure” service has enabled the company to focus its resources on activities that are strictly strategic to its business.

Now FERCAM has achieved its goals:

• Innovate the previous infrastructure, replacing it with a more efficient one;
• Hire certified and constantly updated personnel to monitor the infrastructure;
• Ensure business continuity in case of unforeseen and adverse events;
• Contain and plan costs while meeting the set budget.

The expertise and professionalism demonstrated during the project allowed Deda Cloud to consolidate both the decades-long trust that characterizes the relationship with FERCAM and the Titanium-certified partnership with Dell Technologies. Investing in technology and innovation is an ongoing process for FERCAM, which is already working with Deda Cloud to continue developing its infrastructure, making it increasingly secure.
In fact, the next goal is to secure business operations not only with the loss of one data center and one node, but also with the loss of one data center and two nodes on the secondary.