Saint-Gobain Isover G+H AG Monitors WAN and Data Center

Company Profile

Saint-Gobain Isover G+H AG is a manufacturer of noncombustible insulation material made of fiberglass and mineral wool. Their product range comprises about 5,000 insulation products and systems for heat, cold, sound and fire protection. In Germany there are about 1,250 employes, 1,000 of which are equipped with a terminal. Due to this amount of end devices the company relies on a perfect IT network. PRTG provides Isover with a permanent monitoring of the network situation in the central data center in Ludwigshafen, Germany. The communication of all German sites as well as four locations of the czech sister company Saint-Gobain Orsil s.r.o. are being managed from this central location.

Challenge

In order to catch and solve network problems as fast as possible the company needed a monitoring tool for its network usage. All WAN devices had to be considered, which included about 150 servers and 1,500 end devices, but also lines of the devices to the data center.

Solution Requirements:

• Cost-effective software
• Intuitive usability without training 
• Data recall via web interface
• Extensibility
• Automated analyses

Customer Benefit

The Isover hotline users as well as server and network management employees benefit from the possibility of recognizing WAN device problems immediately and being able to solve them just as quickly. So internal and external communication with customers gets much easier. The web interface enables the system administrators to recall the reports no matter where they are. That saves time and effort.

Key Advantages:

• Time saving: fast trouble shooting, quick installation and intuitive usability of the software
• Cost-effective: no high personnel expenses for network problems search, low-priced monitoring tool
• Flexibility: easy extensibility
• Optimized internal and external communication

Solution

The central Isover data center encompasses all locations in Germany, meaning the headquarters, 4 producing plants, 9 distribution centers and 25 service departments. Also, 4 czech locations of Saint-Gobain Orsil s.r.o. are connected with this data center. About 150 servers and 1,500 end devices are part of the monitored network. All locations are connected via Internet VPN (Virtual Private Network) and leased lines which are also monitored by PRTG. The employees who are responsible for the server and network management check the analyses via a browser on a regular basis. So network problems are easily identified and solved.

“We urgently needed a monitoring tool for our main data center, in order to solve network problems much faster. Before PRTG we used tools which were suboptimal for broad application because of desiderative rate and drawn-out installation, especially when adding new devices. PRTG is the solution for our problem – this tool is low-priced but still easy to install and to handle. The reports are being generated automatically and can be read via a web interface“, says Josef Wendel, head of data center and service with Isover AG