makeIT – Delivering a high-performance network for eins energie in sachsen and makeIT

makeIT – Delivering a high-performance network for eins energie in sachsen and makeIT.

As a subsidiary of eins energie in sachsen GmbH & Co. KG (eins for short), Chemnitz-based make IT GmbH provides IT services to regional energy suppliers, transportation companies and SMEs, operating its own data centre, and managing its customers’ PCs, networks and software. With the decision made for eins to move from their current location, Bechtle was commissioned to fully equip the new building with network and WLAN technology. The result was a future-secure and high-performance network utilising Cisco components with the Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE).

Project details.

Services

Networking Solutions

Industry

ITC / Media

Manufacturer

Cisco

Company size

< 250 employees

Challenge.

As a subsidiary of eins, make IT GmbH in Chemnitz provides IT services to numerous customers in the energy and transportation sectors. make IT has its own data centre managers and operates all IT components itself—from central data centre resources and networks to end terminals—supporting its customers and providing them with a reliable IT infrastructure. The IT service provider also leverages high-performance IT at its own site. When make IT was tasked with planning the eins move, the new building was still under construction Meaning the entire network infrastructure along with the LAN and WLAN could be designed from scratch. In order to make everything as secure as possible, it was important to physically separate the various security zones such as LAN and management with communication between them only possible through a firewall. However, having to juggle such a large-scale project with day-to-day business would have pushed make IT to its limits, and so the company began the search for experts to help it plan and implement both the integration and migration. Once the design and strategic plan had been put in place, make IT put the project out to tender. As the economic viability of the components was a vital factor during implementation, value for money was at the top of the agenda when it came to choosing a manufacturer that would provide the necessary switches, access point and WLAN controller.

Our employees’ day-to-day revolves around managing customers’ applications and the eins new-build really stretched our capacities. Bechtle’s expertise and manpower has been an enormous help and the company were also on-hand to advise on all things network security. Together, we designed a secure WLAN and LAN for the new eins office in Johannisstraße and for our own site on Straße der Nationen. The entire installation and migration were completed quickly and on schedule.

Torsten Krone, Head of Service and Network Technology, make IT GmbH

Solution.

As a long-term partner of make IT, Bechtle took part in the tender process suggesting Cisco components for the new network. make IT were already using Cisco and that combined with Bechtle’s coherent concept for implementation, integration and migration saw the IT company awarded the commission. Based on the tender, Bechtle collaborated with several make IT employees to deploy 65 Cisco Catalyst 9300 and seven Cisco Catalyst 9500 switches, two-thirds of which were installed in the eins new-build on Johannisstraße and the other third in the Straße der Nationen site. Bechtle also completely renewed the WLAN infrastructure installing 79 Cisco Catalyst 9115AXI-E access points and two Cisco Catalyst 9800 WLAN controllers. The coup de grâce is the Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE), which as a radius server automatically identifies and authorises new devices on the network, assigning roles and access rights. This centralised and smart method of authentication enables the uniform configuration of the switches’ network ports preventing errors caused by intricate manual configurations. This saves time, money, and does not require expertise. After extensive redundancy testing, including two cycles of tests on the core components, Bechtle was able to demonstrate the network’s full functionality. While the administrators had received training on the switches during the installation process, Bechtle carried out its own workshops on Cisco ISE once the project had been completed.

Business benefits.

make IT now runs the new network completely independently with the components integrated into central network management allowing the admins to see in an instant where devices are in the network, which access rights they have and which do not comply with policies. The new network has a large bandwidth to ensure high performance and can be quickly scaled up to handle whatever the future holds thanks to Cisco ISE. make IT’s administrators operate the infrastructure themselves with Bechtle’s experts on-hand should they need additional support.