The housing association Vereinigte Hamburger Wohnungsbaugenossenschaft eG (VHW) has outsourced all its information technology to Pironet NDH Datacenter. The company, which offers and manages around 7,900 flats and some 700 special care places, will obtain all its ICT services, including the ERP environment and virtual desktops for at present 230 employees, from Pironet NDH's Business Cloud.
Industry ERPs utilise storage space and computing power from the cloud
From its own high-security data centre Pironet NDH provides, among other things, two ERP software systems which are tailored to the requirements of housing management and of the senior citizens sector and which VHW uses to control major business processes. The applications fetch the infrastructure resources for operations from the ICT service provider's Cloud infrastructure on demand.
Virtual Windows desktops with Office applications for 230 employees
VHW also uses fully equipped virtual Windows workstations from the Business Cloud for at present 230 Office and Outlook users in the form of Desktop as a Service. The advantage of this provision model for VHW is that the association can expand or reduce the IT services on a monthly basis in line with requirements and pays for all services at a fixed price per application and user. In addition, Pironet NDH has set up a corporate network for new locations and networked this with the Business Cloud.
Until 2011 the housing association had a data centre which it operated itself. But as years passed the complexity and technical requirements increased. "That was why we thought about outsourcing our data processing and profiting from the benefits of a specialised service provider," says Sven Arne Vogeler, responsible for IT service and process management at VHW.
Cloud services from a German data centre
The main aspect for VHW when selecting its ICT service provider was therefore that the provider should offer all the required services from a single source while complying with the statutory data privacy policies and ensuring a high level of reliability. Pironet NDH produces its Cloud services only in its own German data centres. Sensitive business data and business-critical applications are consequently kept available and stored under German law and in accordance with the stringent German regulations and compliance requirements.
Plannability and cost flexibility
In terms of costs the housing association profits from the fact that it obtains all of Pironet NDH's services at contractually defined prices. Costs are thus transparent, and the company does not have to continuously invest in new technology. "This means that even short-term requirements for the IT environment remain calculable," says Mr Vogeler. "For example, if we need more workstations from the Cloud in the future, we always know precisely what outlay will be required. The Cloud also saves on step-fixed costs for us when eliminating capacity bottlenecks in our local infrastructure. This is particularly effective for projects which are limited to a specific period because we can order and cancel additional IT resources flexibly."
Industry ERPs utilise storage space and computing power from the cloud
From its own high-security data centre Pironet NDH provides, among other things, two ERP software systems which are tailored to the requirements of housing management and of the senior citizens sector and which VHW uses to control major business processes. The applications fetch the infrastructure resources for operations from the ICT service provider's Cloud infrastructure on demand.
Virtual Windows desktops with Office applications for 230 employees
VHW also uses fully equipped virtual Windows workstations from the Business Cloud for at present 230 Office and Outlook users in the form of Desktop as a Service. The advantage of this provision model for VHW is that the association can expand or reduce the IT services on a monthly basis in line with requirements and pays for all services at a fixed price per application and user. In addition, Pironet NDH has set up a corporate network for new locations and networked this with the Business Cloud.
Until 2011 the housing association had a data centre which it operated itself. But as years passed the complexity and technical requirements increased. "That was why we thought about outsourcing our data processing and profiting from the benefits of a specialised service provider," says Sven Arne Vogeler, responsible for IT service and process management at VHW.
Cloud services from a German data centre
The main aspect for VHW when selecting its ICT service provider was therefore that the provider should offer all the required services from a single source while complying with the statutory data privacy policies and ensuring a high level of reliability. Pironet NDH produces its Cloud services only in its own German data centres. Sensitive business data and business-critical applications are consequently kept available and stored under German law and in accordance with the stringent German regulations and compliance requirements.
Plannability and cost flexibility
In terms of costs the housing association profits from the fact that it obtains all of Pironet NDH's services at contractually defined prices. Costs are thus transparent, and the company does not have to continuously invest in new technology. "This means that even short-term requirements for the IT environment remain calculable," says Mr Vogeler. "For example, if we need more workstations from the Cloud in the future, we always know precisely what outlay will be required. The Cloud also saves on step-fixed costs for us when eliminating capacity bottlenecks in our local infrastructure. This is particularly effective for projects which are limited to a specific period because we can order and cancel additional IT resources flexibly."
