Stable and sustainable IT infrastructure environment as a system foundation
As Austria’s largest transport association, VOR (Verkehrsverbund Ost-Region) combines all public transport in Vienna, Lower Austria and Burgenland. In 2018, more than one billion passengers used the services of the transport association. To ensure that VOR’s systems continue to run without interruption in the future, IT availability and the IT security level have been increased by a new data center and modern fiber-optic cabling.
In times of digital processes and increasing data volumes, the demands on server and computer rooms that store these systems and data and make them accessible in the shortest possible time are also increasing. High IT security standards and state-of-the-art IT infrastructure make a significant contribution to the availability of these systems in the company and can prevent expensive failures or downtimes. With more than 40 rail and bus transport partners, VOR ensures nationwide mobility and comprehensive service. The focus of these processes is on high quality and safety standards. These requirements are reflected in the field of ICT.
In the course of the revitalization of the Westbahnhof in 2011, the company moved into one of the two new office buildings. VOR commissioned the experienced and long-standing partner for turnkey data center infrastructures EPS Electric Power Systems (EPS) with the planning, design and installation of the structured fiber optic and CU ICT data cabling in the data center and office area in accordance with EN 50173.
The existing IT infrastructure with over 400 servers was transferred to the new location at that time. ICT division manager Gregor Teichmann recalls: “We moved during ongoing operations, and the switching time between the old and new data center was less than 30 seconds. EPS helped to ensure that the environment at the destination was right. Every cable, every UPS system was properly prepared and therefore everything worked perfectly.”
Over the years, the office space became too small and therefore an additional floor was added. Here, too, EPS was allowed to take over the planning and installation of the ICT cabling. In the course of the expansion, additional space was created for a second server room. The data center expert planned and built the entire infrastructure here. The new server room was connected to the existing room by means of a redundant fiber optic backbone. A new top-of-rack cabling architecture (ToR) was fabricated, which was laid in special data center (data center) overhead cable routing with bend radius control.
Dipl. Dimitri Akerman, Head of the Infrastructure Department, explains: “The development of recent years has required a higher transfer speed. We have complied with this and now only use fiber optic technology.”
High availability through A/B multi-path resiliency with fault-tolerant solution
Two energy-efficient UPS (uninterruptible power supply) systems, each with 30kW of power, were implemented as a redundant multipath A/B UPS system in the new data center. Two separate UPS supply paths supply the IT infrastructure is supplied at half-load operation. Sales and Project Manager at EPS, Peter Reisinger, underlines the importance of such a solution: “A single UPS system is definitely a single point of failure. The risk of failure would be far too high and an available 24*7 server room operation would not be guaranteed. That’s why we used our standard, the A/B multipath fail-safe with two stand-alone UPS systems.”
Furthermore, a higher-level monitoring system for monitoring and alerting the infrastructure, an H2 gas warning system, as well as the entire power supply with external bypass switch and digital RCM/LS with RCM (Residual Current Monitor) residual current monitoring, without switching off the consumers, was planned and built by EPS. Dipl. Dimitri Akerman praises the cooperation with EPS and the new data center solution: “A rock-solid and high-performance infrastructure has been created and thus a sustainable basis for the ICT of the Verkehrsverbund Ost-Region. I would like to highlight the handshake quality and highly professional work of EPS.”
The data center project in detail
Structured data cabling according to EN50173
- IT fiber optic backbone cabling between server room on 2 floors
- IT CU Cat6A 10Gbit Horizontal Office/Office Cabling in 2 Floors
New server room
- Data Center Basic Investigation, Draft Planning and Implementation Planning
- Data center overhead cable routing for fiber optic and CU interrack cabling
- Data center UPS system A+B redundant with 30kW (40kW) power
- Data center power supply with UPS PDM equipped with external bypass switch and digital RCD/LS with RCM residual current monitoring
- RZ Equipotential Bonding
- Data center monitoring system for monitoring the infrastructure
- RZ H2 Gas Warning System for the Detection of Hazardous Battery Gases
- RZ CU & FIBER 10Gbit ToR Interrack Cabling
Existing server room
- Data center power supply upgrade during operation incl. Upgrade to digital RCD/LS in the PDM ́s
- Data center overhead cable routing for fiber optic and CU interrack cabling
- Data center monitoring system for monitoring the infrastructure
- RZ H2 Gas Warning System for the Detection of Hazardous Battery Gases
- RZ CU & FIBER 10Gbit ToR Interrack Cabling
