On the road with JOST

JOST-Werke Deutschland GmbH is one of the world‘s leading manufacturers and suppliers of safety-related systems for tractors, semi-trailers and trailers.
Founded in Neu-Isenburg in 1952, JOST has more than 2,700 employees, a global sales network and production facilities in eighteen countries on five continents nowadays. As a partner for the commercial vehicle industry, almost all major manufacturers of trucks and trailers are among the customers who value the company for its quality and continuous innovations. 

From Neu-Isenburg, the team of specialists at the Hessian company controls and manages the IT-applications and server structures. The entire production control and the classic office environment must be available 24/7. To meet this high requirement, the JOST IT-team relied on a room-in-room solution from former provider Lampertz. But at the beginning of 2016, the team headed by Stefan Endres and Martin Frischkorn faced a new challenge in terms of IT-security. With the knowledge of future growing IT-infrastructures and increasing demands on security, availability and, above all, flexibility, JOST decided to build a second data center at Neu-Isenburg which on the one hand offers new space capacity and on the other serves as a backup data center.
 

“We were looking for a partner with experience in data center design and implementation. On the Internet, we came across the Data Center Group.After initial discussions, it was clear that we had found the right service provider for professional data center construction “, said Martin Frischkorn (Team Manager IT Administration & Operations).

In the middle of the year, the search for the right location for the new data center began. Together with a consultant of Data Center Consulting, the business unit of Data Center Group specializing in analysis and site sorting, a variety of facilities were tested at the company headquarters in Neu-Isenburg. The requirements and dependencies of the company itself, but also those of the city of Frankfurt, for example, had to be considered. “We took time to find the best location for the new data center, because despite all flexibility that the security solutions of the Data Center Group offered, we wanted a place where our IT is well stored on the long run “, says Frischkorn.
 

At the beginning of 2017, the time had come: In the basement of a production hall, the backup data center found its new home. But how can the danger of the adjacent paper archive and the nearby wells be dispelled? What to do if the new location is in the immediate vicinity of two of the biggest physical threats to the sensitive servers and switches? “This is where our partner's many years of experience and know-how came to the fore. By combining compact data centers and the F90 room-in-room solution, the Data Center Group has implemented the safest and most economical solution for us, “says Martin Frischkorn.
This is because of the IT-components which are secured in DC IT Safes of the Data Center Group subsidiary Data Center Products. Three of these Mini Data Centers are “chained“together. This means that the 19“-racks can be wired to each other, and the redundantly designed air conditioning system can be optimally adapted to current and future power levels. By means of IT-monitoring by the DC IT Monitoring agent, IT-managers always receive the up-to-date information on the status of IT-components. Should one of the defined limit values ever be exceeded, the alarm management of the DC IT Monitoring immediately alerts the people in charge via SMS.

“We have implemented a security concept that fits our current and future IT requirements “, says Sven Kattler (IT Administration & Operations).

“In order to additionally secure the permanent availability, we have the DC IT Safes regularly serviced by the specialists of the Data Center services."

One of JOST's next projects is the purchase of ITSafes for the secure and energy-efficient storage of the decentralized hardware components of the production sites worldwide. For this purpose, the DC IT Safe Office Edition is currently being tested.
 

Picture: © Surasak / #314772669 / stock.adobe.com (Standard licence)