Berliner Wasserbetriebe and its 4,336 employees supply around 210 million cubic meters of the best drinking water every year from nine waterworks. Between them lie almost 19,000 kilometers of pipe and sewer networks. This makes the company Germany's industry leader, which can look back on 160 years of tradition.
Once used, water becomes wastewater. Wastewater is pumped via 163 pumping stations and 1,183 kilometers of pressure pipeline to six wastewater treatment plants. The main pumping stations act as control centers for the automatically operating connection, overflow and rain pumping stations. Overpumping stations lift the wastewater, if necessary, into higher sewer networks or directly into the suction chamber of another pumping station. Rain pumping stations drain low points, for example in road tunnels. They pump the water into storm sewers at higher elevations, for example.
"To ensure this quality, our IT infrastructure is naturally subject to the same high standards as our drinking water," emphasizes Gerd Klinke, head of IT at Wasserbetriebe. "As a critical infrastructure according to the IT Security Act, we also specifically focus our attention here on high security and availability of the entire IT system."
The lease for the building, which housed the old data center for many years, expired. Together, they looked for a forward-looking solution. Gerd Klinke has already been with the company for 14 years and has many years of experience in the IT sector. The former data center was very large - due to the previously voluminous technology - and for energy reasons they wanted to downsize significantly.
The goal was a high-speed data center that would meet the highest security and environmental requirements. Availability and energy efficiency were top priorities, along with a comprehensive security solution.
The decision was made to build a new data center and a suitable site was identified. A call for tenders was then issued to find a partner with whom a forward-looking solution could be developed and a new data center realized on a greenfield site. The Data Center Group came out on top in the tender. Gerd Klinke and his team took a look at some of the Data Center Group's projects that had already been implemented. They discussed alternatives with DCG's experts and specified the offer. "It was very important to us to find a competent partner who delivers planning, construction and operation from a single source," says Klinke. "We already knew Data Center Group from a collaboration. We were particularly convinced by the modern modular design of the security products offered by the subsidiary Data Center Products. Essential further factor was the short construction cycle, because we didn't have much time." The planning process and project flow have been swift. The new data center consists of a room-within-a-room solution, based on the DC IT Room Quartzite, which provides protection against the main physical hazards and is modularly expandable. Redundancy and resilience are a priority. Therefore, the DCM Agent ensures transparent key figures of the IT infrastructures and clear processes and alarms in case of failures. Technology rooms and an energy-efficient climate control solution round out the solution. In the event of a power grid failure, the emergency power system (NEA) takes over the supply of electrical energy to security-relevant consumers.
The planning process and project progressed swiftly. The new data center consists of a room-in-room solution based on the DC IT Room Quartzite, which offers protection against the main physical hazards and can be expanded on a modular basis. Redundancy and reliability have priority. The DCM Agent therefore ensures transparent key figures for the IT infrastructures and clear processes and alarm messages in the event of faults. Technical rooms and an energy-efficient air conditioning solution round off the solution. In the event of a power grid failure, the emergency power system (EPS) takes over the supply of electrical energy to safety-relevant consumers. “It was important for us to find a competent partner who could provide planning, construction and operation from a single source. Gerd Klinke
The solution combines flexibility and security at the highest level, energy efficiency and sustainability. In the evaluation of energy and resource efficiency in data centers, the criteria of the "Blue Angel for energy-conscious data center operation" were applied and fulfilled. Furthermore, the new data center meets the criteria of a TÜViT Level 3 certification. With Green IT technology, Berliner Wasserbetriebe's information technology is thus making its contribution to CO2 reduction in order to achieve the company's climate targets. The team of technical planners and specialists for energy-efficient infrastructures from the Data Center Group provided Berliner Wasserbetriebe with comprehensive advice on how energy consumption can be sustainably reduced by means of intelligent air conditioning, power concepts and the use of energy-saving hardware and software components.
Two other companies have also housed their servers in the data center space: an innovative and forward-looking colocation model that creates a win-win situation. This is because companies can securely house their IT without having to create their own infrastructure for it.
"The Data Center Group accompanied us throughout the entire project as a competent contact partner and was available to us at all times during the process. The close coordination and good communication already confirmed to us during the construction phase that we had found the right partner. The result achieved has confirmed this." His résumé: "It's a great concept that convinced us from planning to realization to completion."
