Olvi
Olvi is a Finnish beverage company, which wants to offer beverage enjoyment for its consumers. Olvi has already produced beverages since 1878 in Iisalmi. Currently the company operates locally in Finland, the Baltic states, Denmark and Belarus.
NetNordic has been involved in designing and implementing various innovations for Olvi.
The usability of the domestic brewery’s operations management is ensured by the server and storage architecture designed and implemented by NetNordic. The health status of the environment is monitored through continuous services.
Operations management is at the core of Olvi’s business production, logistics, and overall sales. The company’s production lines operate in three shifts on weekdays and two shifts on weekends. Founded in 1878 in Iisalmi, the brewery is the only one of its kind that has remained independent and Finnish.
"Our sales in Finland are about 200 million liters per year. The uninterrupted operation of management is extremely important, and the data center infrastructure must be very reliable. The IT architecture must also be able to respond to the continuously increasing automation in orders, logistics, and invoicing. There are a vast number of transactions coming through the messaging system, and we need sufficient computing power for that"
“The level of automation in our brewery and supply chain is very high. We use a lot of different measurement technologies to make our lines operate even more cost-effectively. We have made significant investments in logistics, and the majority of orders already come to us electronically,” Ahomaa explains. “Our storage system was nearing the end of its lifecycle, and we started to map out a new one.”
Better Continuity Management
NetNordic has been involved in designing and implementing several generations of IBM Power architecture updates for Olvi. The latest implementation includes IBM Power servers as well as IBM’s All-Flash storage system and a new storage network. Performance was ensured during the design phase through load testing. The implemented solution provides performance and high availability for Olvi’s operations management for many years.
“We have had good experiences with IBM’s hardware for a long time, and they have proven to be very reliable. The computing power has been sufficient for our needs, and fault tolerance has been at an excellent level. Our environment, updated in spring 2018, provides the necessary computing power and storage space for operations management for many years to come,” says Ahomaa.
“We value scalability, speed, and effective continuity management. We can anticipate future needs and potential problems. In exceptional situations, we need the capability to recover quickly.” Olvi employs about 300 professionals in Iisalmi, and the entire group employs 1,800 people. Olvi is also bringing its subsidiaries operating in the Baltic countries and Belarus under the same operations management. The data center environment is redundant, and the communication between the halls has been enhanced. The updated storage also serves as the storage environment for Olvi’s virtual Windows servers. “We decided to acquire the storage system through NetNordic as well. They monitor our server and storage environment that runs operations management and report to us. We know whom to turn to when we need deep technological expertise,” says Ahomaa.
“Our cooperation has always been good and based on trust.”
Jussi Ahomaa, Olvi
Focusing on Business Advancement
The updated architecture provides better visibility into operations management in the data center infrastructure. NetNordic provides Olvi with monthly reports that show the current situation and the functionality of the solutions.
“With NetNordic’s continuous services, we get useful information about the health status of the environment. We can anticipate potential problems and take necessary actions well in advance before they escalate. Updates are now also handled in a timely and controlled manner. Our operations management data center infrastructure works more seamlessly together and now meets our requirements better. We have gained clear synergy benefits by using a wider range of solutions from a single technology provider and the expertise and services of a single partner,” emphasizes Ahomaa.
NetNordic helps Olvi’s IT department make necessary changes according to best practices while securing the brewery’s business and freeing up resources for future development.
“We are increasingly focusing on the management of entire systems in IT. We can now view our environment more broadly, and I see significant benefits in promoting automation and digitalization,” says Ahomaa.
“NetNordic’s experts are absolutely our trusted advisors, and we utilize their expertise whenever there is a need for changes, for example, in processes related to operations management. We discuss together what the change means from a technological perspective and how it should be implemented. They build test environments for us.”
NetNordic provides Olvi with:
- A reliable and high-performance server and storage environment, as well as the design, data migration, and implementation of a storage network and redundant data center environment.
- Support for the IBM data center environment provided as a continuous service.
- Monitoring and comprehensive reports on the health status of the operations management data center infrastructure.
- Technological expertise and consulting for the development and change management of the data center environment.