Herman Andersson
Herman Andersson Oy is the leading logistics specialist in Northern Finland. We provide full service port operations – stevedoring, forwarding, and ship clearing – since 1902
Modern data center serves Herman Andersson’s business and digitalization
The IT architecture of Herman Andersson, a leading logistics professional in Northern Finland, has been modernized with Nutanix’s hyper-converged solution. The redundant environment provides performance and reliability for the production of information systems and ICT services well into the future. In a company that generates over 19 million euros annually from port services, data center management is now efficiently handled with a single tool.
Founded in 1902, the logistics company offers comprehensive port services for both large and small businesses operating in the Port of Oulu.
“We provide stevedoring, freight forwarding, and terminal work services for our customers who import and export goods through the Port of Oulu. We are dependent on information systems and digital solutions as a service-producing company. The usability of ICT must be at a high level, and the entire infrastructure must be kept in good condition. We need to be able to efficiently deliver the ICT services that businesses require,” says Timo Kuusela, IT Manager at Herman Andersson. “Our previous data center did not scale efficiently enough to meet our needs. We needed more capacity and performance.”
Kuusela is the only IT professional in the company, which employs 125 people. “We wanted a reliable data center architecture that does not need constant monitoring and is genuinely easy to maintain. We also previously lacked full transparency in our environment.”
Functionality of information systems has clearly improved
The transition from the old solution to a modern architecture was managed smoothly under NetNordic’s guidance in the summer of 2018. In the new modern and agile architecture, resources can be increased as needed, and configuration changes and updates can be made without downtime, with a single interface providing transparency to all data center resources. Herman Andersson also did not need to invest in a separate storage network.
According to Kuusela, Herman Andersson has several business-critical applications, and the data center had not previously been duplicated for disaster recovery.
“Our customized operations management and the integrated systems must operate practically 24/7. We handle approximately 2.8 million tons of goods passing through the Port of Oulu annually, including all sales product deliveries from Stora Enso’s Oulu mill and incoming raw materials such as eucasella and carbonates. We also handle a lot of sawn timber, primarily as bulk shipments but also in containers. This all amounts to about 500 ship calls per year.”
“With the architecture renewed by NetNordic, we secure our data, information systems, and the continuity of our business,” Kuusela states. “We can now promote our organization’s comprehensive digitalization in a completely different way than before. It is now easier for us to provide our customers with even better digital services. The performance brought by Nutanix is also directly reflected in the fact that our operations management now works more efficiently, quickly, and user-friendly than before. Data archiving is handled cost-effectively with an affordable storage solution in another data center space. With the predictive analytics provided by Nutanix, we were also able to optimize the memory and disk space of over-provisioned servers.”
Agile and customer-centric service
Herman Andersson operates about 55 machines in port areas and warehouses, most of which are equipped with touchscreen computers. “Connections are handled via wireless networks, and with eight virtual servers in the ‘Microsoft RemoteApp farm,’ we manage application sessions for both machine users and office users. We can now deploy a new virtual machine in minutes, and we can set up dedicated virtual machines for things like Proof of Concepts and see how the application works within our internal network.”
“Agility has clearly increased with the construction of our private cloud. If we wish, we can also utilize capacity from the public cloud for product development, as Nutanix offers ready integration. We can now promote digitalization and the development of electronic services in a completely different way than before.”
“NetNordic’s customer service-oriented and proactive approach has even surprised me. We receive development ideas and recommendations for actions to be taken. We know what is happening in our environment, and we can use our resources more cost-effectively. NetNordic’s experts ensure the availability and quality of our ICT services. They also keep us informed about Nutanix’s technology developments,” Kuusela emphasizes and continues: “I feel that we are being taken care of, and I am very satisfied with the service we receive.”
NetNordic implemented for Herman Andersson
- Nutanix skalbara och dubblerade hyperkonvergerade datacenterarkitektur, som dimensionerades baserat på en grundlig kartläggning.
- Datas replicering till ett separat datacenterutrymme.
- Proaktiva och reaktiva kontinuerliga supporttjänster.
- Helhetlig vård av ICT-miljön.
- Besparingar genom hyperkonvergens.
Thanks to the modern platform, we can provide our customers with even better services.