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EDEKA more security for IT

References | 14.02.2017

EDEKA Südwest and EDEKA Nordbayern-Sachsen-Thüringen needed more security and an update for their IT

The EDEKA group of companies in Northern Bavaria-Saxony-Thuringia, based in Rottendorf, is one of seven regional companies in the cooperatively organized EDEKA group. Around 1,000 stores, mostly operated by independent EDEKA merchants in northern Bavaria, northern Baden-Württemberg, Saxony, and Thuringia, are supplied with everyday food such as fruit and vegetables, dairy products, ultra-fresh convenience, meat and sausage items from our own production as well with an extensive range of dry and non-food products. The group turnover in 2015 was around 3.0 billion euros. Together with the independent retail business, the EDEKA group of companies employs over 25,000 people and around 1,000 trainees in the region.

However, EDEKA South West was founded on January 24, 1927 and is based in Offenburg today, making it the second largest of seven EDEKA regional companies in Germany. Their sales area extends over the federal states of Baden-Württemberg, Rhineland-Palatinate, and Saarland as well as the southern part of Hesse and adjacent parts of Bavaria. With around 1,350 stores, EDEKA Südwest is present across the board in its business area. Five logistics companies in Balingen, Ellhofen, Heddesheim, Offenburg and St. Ingbert guarantee short and therefore environmentally friendly transport routes. With external group sales of 8.2 billion euros (2015) and over 43,500 employees as well as 3,000 trainees in 25 apprenticeships and nine courses (all information including independent retail), EDEKA South West is one of the largest employers and trainers in the region.

Each of the two data centers has
•    2 transformer stations (redundant) with 2,000 kVA each and 1 transformer cell as an extension
•    Ring feed into the medium-voltage system
•    1 emergency power system with 2,500 KVa
•    2 UPS systems divided into A + B supply
•    2 dry coolers with approximately 900 KW cooling capacity with the option of expanding to 3 dry coolers and 1,800 redundant KW cooling capacity
•    All rack areas with cold / hot aisle division
•    A nitrogen extinguishing system for the data center areas and all technical rooms consisting of 8 extinguishing areas.

The two builders EDEKA South West and EDEKA Northern Bavaria-Saxony-Thuringia were looking for suitable locations for their IT and commissioned the Data Center Group as general transferee and project partner to plan and build two data centers.
The location of the IT was no longer secure enough for the two regional companies at the former locations and, from a technical point of view, was no longer state-of-the-art. Therefore, it was decided in 2014 to look for new and safe locations for a new data center. In order to safely accommodate their IT, EDEKA wanted to build 2 identical data centers in Würzburg, which would offer each other additional redundancy. An important criterion for the certification of the data centers was that the distance between the two locations could not be too big or too small. After an intensive search, EDEKA found two suitable properties in the Würzburg area. In addition to the device redundancy required by the TüV Hessen certification, this also resulted in a further complete redundancy in the form of building, technology and computer world. Then an intensive planning phase began in the building structure, technical services and a security level was determined.

 

Pictures: © Piman Khrutmuang / #282280224 / stock.adobe.com (Standard licence)

Data center in the construction phase from a bird's eye view

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