Starting point.
DRK Harburg’s facilities and accommodation are spread throughout the Harburg district of the city of Hamburg and beyond. In addition to the areas of internal services; children, youth and family and social services, it also runs a hospice, the DRK rescue service for the whole of Hamburg and a medical alarm system. All of these business areas are managed from the main branch. Their IT connects all areas and facilitates communication. As part of the construction of a new DRK building, the IT infrastructure also needed to be rebuilt in order to ensure seamless communication between the various branches and areas.
Project objectives.
In the new office complex at Rote-Kreuz-Str. 3-5, a comprehensive network for all employees needed to be installed. The focus of the IT realignment was on efficiency, improved IT availability and replacing obsolete IT infrastructure components. The DRK required a fail-safe, high-performing solution that offered redundant 10 GB Ethernet between the floors of the buildings and all switches. They also requested a powerful connection between their existing office building.
Process.
Since Bechtle has been responsible for DRK Harburg’s system operation for several years, the company was commissioned to develop a proposal for a solution. In a comparison of several manufacturers, DRK Hamburg-Harburg tested the proposed solutions for their reliability, high availability and speed.
Our IT is a central element for seamless cooperation between our many areas of business. It spins a web of communication across rescue services, ambulance services, residential complexes, nurseries, the crisis intervention team, the hospice and other facilities, which means our IT has to work at all times. Thanks to the new IT infrastructure and Bechtle’s implementation we’ve been able to ensure just that in our newly constructed building.
Karin Bischoff, Deputy Chair, German Red Cross District Association Hamburg-Harburg e.V.
Solution.
The DRK ultimately opted for a homogeneous IT infrastructure based on 15 Hewlett Packard Aruba Switches. Bechtle used more than a dozen HPE Aruba 2930Ms and two HPE Aruba 5406Rs in the new building, which are all fail-safe and offer a high level of flexibility for Mobile First networks. The modular layer-3 switch features dynamic segmentation, virtual switching framework (VSF) stacking technology, hitless failover, 40 GbE cable speed, plus solid service quality and security. Bechtle delivered a total of some 850 ports to the DRK Hamburg-Harburg. The stacking modules are easily scalable to accommodate any future expansion of DRK’s business portfolio. The switches support static, RIP and access routing in addition to 10 GbE and 40 GbE uplinks, making the entire DRK Hamburg-Harburg network highly available.
Business benefits.
With this future-proof, quickly expandable IT, the DRK Hamburg-Harburg can continue to expand their portfolio and ensure humanity’s well-being. Bechtle monitors system operation to enable the relief organisation’s IT to focus on other projects. For the DRK Hamburg-Harburg, all business processes are securely available and all their needs are taken into consideration.