Highest security and availability for the IT production control center

IT know-how combined with expert knowledge of administrative processes – that is what makes the state IT.NRW (Information and Technology North Rhine-Westphalia). The specialists of the IT service provider support and optimize the processes in authorities and institutions of the state administration of NRW with their work. The state chancellery and ministries as well as the state parliament and the state audit office make use of the services. The highest safety requirements are the basis for all activities here. This is especially true for the Production control room (PLS), which was completely refurbished in cooperation with the experts from JST – Jungmann Systemtechnik^®.

“With the new building, we want to provide 24/7 availability and, in particular, fault processing for IT services with gold or silver SLAs (Service Level Agreement), even outside regular working hours,” explains Paul Große-Venhaus, project manager for the construction of the IT control center, production manager and head of unit 413 (production control center and service desk) at IT.NRW. When selecting a partner for this task, the IT specialists were particularly concerned about security.

"JST has best met requirements”

The project manager: “During the official tender, JST best met our requirements. The subsequent collaboration then confirmed our decision”. During a visit to the JST control room simulator the people of Düsseldorf could convince themselves of the range of services offered by the control room professionals.

Intensive discussions to determine the key data

The most important key data were discussed in intensive talks. This also included the desire for IP-less connections and individual adjustments to the various hardware and software solutions. “We liked this productive cooperation; especially the flexibility with which we reacted to our requirements and problems,” the project manager recalls.

"I only want to see when something turns red"

For example, IT service providers have never been interested in solutions for conventional system monitoring, where each server is assigned a display. On the contrary: “We are not a classic control room with hundreds of monitors”, says the project manager, “I don’t want to see green displays, I just want to see when something turns red”. PixelDetection^® from JST, the answer to this requirement is alarm software that allows the operator to carry out his activities while the program monitors the systems in the background according to previously defined parameters. If there are any deviations, the software proactively reports to the control center employee. Production manager Große-Venhaus: “That was a very important reason for us to choose JST. PixelDetection^® is a really interesting solution that no other company could offer us during our search”.

More flexibility with MultiConsoling^®

The project manager is similarly positive about other special products from Jungmann Systemtechnik. Among them for example the JST-MultiConsoling^®, a technology with which all information can be accessed from every workstation.

Special benefit: relevant data available everywhere

This means that relevant data can be displayed not only at the operator workstations and on the large screen wall in the control room, but also in the adjacent conference room. There it says next to the JST AllMedia conference table system another video wall is available, which is used by employees for meetings, training and also in a possible crisis situation. All data from the production control center can also be accessed there via the MultiConsoling^®.

Location-independent access to control center technology

And that’s not all: In order for IT.NRW to be able to provide its services at any time and from any location, the correspondingly authorized employees can login via the JST software solution myLogin^® for example also log into the system from their home workstations and access all data of the control room. Paul Große-Venhaus: ” We have created a way of accessing the control center technology from any location via the highly secure NRW teleworking infrastructure”.