Ensuring Data Availability and Integrity in Critical Infrastructure Environments

The WWZ Group, one of the largest employers in Central Switzerland, faces the challenge of advancing digitalization across various areas of its business. The IT department must comply with regulatory requirements and data protection laws while operating critical infrastructure components on-premises. In collaboration with NetApp, Axians recommended ONTAP Select to provide a micro data center as a “first-aid solution” and ensure that operations can be restored quickly in the event of a complete failure of the Tier 1 infrastructure. Two identical micro data centers were deployed in separate data centers and protected through hardened hardware components and synchronous data mirroring to ensure data availability and integrity. NetApp delivers an independent and automated data protection solution.

The WWZ Group.

As one of the 100 largest employers in Central Switzerland, the WWZ Group plays a vital role in supplying households and businesses with energy, telecommunications, and water.

The search for the optimal data infrastructure test

Like many companies, the WWZ Group faces the challenge of driving digitalisation forward in various areas. From time and attendance recording and the materials catalogue to complex applications such as the geographical information system: the IT department is under pressure and must comply with regulatory requirements and data protection laws. Whilst the WWZ Group already uses the cloud for standard software such as Office 365, the utility company must, however, operate critical infrastructure elements on-premises. This raises a number of important questions, such as the correct method of data storage, the ability to quickly locate archived data, protection against unauthorised access and internet risks, and the implementation of cost-effective redundancies.

“As things stand today, if our entire MetroCluster were to fail, we would be left in the dark for a considerable period, as all our operational resources – such as password management tools and system management tools – are currently hosted on this cluster. In future, we will be able to access our ‘Datacentre in a Box’ and have the necessary on-board tools immediately at our disposal to implement a disaster recovery scenario.” Stefan Willi, CTO IT, WWZ Energie AG.

Project Overview

  • Initial Situation

    At the start of the project, the WWZ Group’s core infrastructure consisted of two data centers located within a 10-kilometer radius, supported by a well-developed 10 Gbps network and NetApp solutions for high availability (Tier 1) and backup (Tier 2) in a VMware environment. “To mitigate a complete failure of the Tier 1 infrastructure, we need an additional first-aid solution equipped with the necessary tools. Only then can we remain operational and restore services quickly,” says Stefan Willi. As CTO IT, he is responsible for all IT areas at WWZ, including infrastructure, applications, the TV headend, and control systems.

  • Goal

    The objective was to provide a micro data center as a “first-aid solution”: a password database, engineering and administration tools, software archives, documentation, Active Directory Services (ADS), DHCP, DNS, and other critical resources were to be securely stored in a dedicated micro data center. These components are essential for restoring Tier 1 systems and, consequently, the monitoring and alarm systems for the control environment following a complete infrastructure failure.

  • Solution

    In collaboration with our partner NetApp, we utilise ONTAP Select, a fully-fledged version of the NetApp operating system for standard servers. In addition to its cost-effectiveness, we were also impressed by the software-defined storage capability, which ensures complete independence from the core infrastructure, can be set up in a fail-safe, redundant configuration across two sites with lossless failover, and is fully integrated with VMware. By opting for the premium version, WWZ has sufficient virtual storage capacity and can also expand it.

  • Implementation

    Setting up ONTAP Select went very smoothly. We were surprised at how quickly we were up and running. Together with Axians, we had everything sorted in a single day, says Willi.
    Data security and availability are key considerations for any business. To meet these requirements, WWZ opted for a solution that is inherently and automatically secure. To this end, two identical micro-data centres were set up in different data centres, protected by secure hardware components and synchronous data mirroring. In addition, a Mediator instance at a third location monitors the ONTAP Select cluster. This VM is provided free of charge by NetApp as an Open Virtual Appliance (OVA).

    Should a server or a site now fail unexpectedly, two things are automatically initiated simultaneously: VMware HA restarts the failed VMs on the ONTAP Select VM. ONTAP Select, under the control of the aforementioned mediator, performs a cluster failover to ensure data availability. This process begins immediately, whilst the VMs are restarted by VMware after three minutes. With this solution, NetApp offers an independent and automated security solution to ensure data availability and integrity.

Results

The services that had gone down are now back up and running, without any intervention from the administration team. “NetApp’s ONTAP Select is technically mature, cost-effective and runs reliably,” says Patrick Schmidli, storage administrator at WWZ. “The failover test was successful straight away. And there’s very little for the administration team to do.” NetApp Active IQ is also a great help to the administration team. The software sends system data to the manufacturer daily and makes it available to the customer online in a visually organised format.

“Axians gets 10 out of 10. The team is extremely competent, always easy to reach and helps us make do with limited internal resources. NetApp is also a reliable point of contact for advice and support,” says Stefan Willi.