Success story: Breisgau-Hochschwarzwald District Office optimizes protection of school IT

Introduction 

The Breisgau-Hochschwarzwald District Office, based in Freiburg, is the school authority responsible for 16 school sites with around 10,000 pupils and 2,000 teachers in terms of legal, financial and technical issues. The district authority has been expanding the IT infrastructure required for this “since the mid-1990s” and shows a “strong commitment to technology”, says Harald Farinato, responsible for digitalization and IT. 

Ever since the coronavirus pandemic, everyone involved has been aware that an efficient IT infrastructure is essential for smooth school operations. The Breisgau-Hochschwarzwald District Office recognized this trend towards digitalization early on and has continuously expanded and improved its processes in the area of digitalization. Ten colleagues in the IT department are now exclusively responsible for the teaching networks on site, i.e. servers, end devices, digital bulletin boards, WLAN and everything else associated with this. A further 14 colleagues spread across the IT departments are responsible for school administration.

The challenges at the school sites 

Each of the 16 school sites has a small data center with physically separate networks for school administration and teaching. Each of the two networks has its own server, which is responsible for this network. The administration networks are integrated into the Baden-Württemberg state intranet and function like small branch offices of the district office with installed PCs, printers, etc. The teaching network contains all the systems required for teaching..  

Each data center has a large UPS system to protect the two servers and various network components against problems resulting from power failures. As we hear again and again in press releases, there are good arguments for separating the two networks for security reasons.

However, this separation is a problem for the UPS with only one LAN interface, as the UPS can only shut down the servers and virtual machines of the directly connected administration network in an orderly manner in the event of a power failure. The teaching network cannot be notified due to the lack of a physical connection and would run into a disorderly system shutdown if the worst came to the worst. Problems when restarting the system are therefore inevitable.

Manufacturer-specific appliance solution is “difficult to monitor” and to configure 

The previous UPS manufacturer software had to be hosted in its own small virtual machine and was therefore somewhat out of the focus of IT staff during daily administrative tasks. As a result, problems with the UPS often went unnoticed and, in the event of an incorrectly configured threshold value, led to a sudden shutdown of the systems, much to the surprise of the IT staff.

Due to the evolved structures of the outdated operating structure of the UPS manufacturer’s software, changes to the configuration were always very time-consuming and error-prone. 

Problems and downtime due to power failures without a controlled shutdown 

In recent years, there have been repeated power failures at various school locations. Even though current server systems are very robust and power failures have not caused any major problems or downtime in most cases, this is not a desirable solution when dealing with this fundamental challenge. In one specific case, an uncontrolled shutdown at a school site actually resulted in irreparable damage to the RAID file system. As a result, some new hardware had to be purchased, the server reinstalled and the data restored from the backup. At the time, both internal staff and backup measures were not as well prepared for this situation as they are today. In total, this incident led to a complete week of downtime in the IT environment. Plan B was to switch the school with almost 1000 pupils and several tablet classes back to analog teaching. Of course, it is important to avoid this happening in future.

Solution 

Additional connection of the UPS via USB enables the controlled shutdown of both networks

OPMONis supports UPS monitoring via LAN and USB interface. This meant that the UPS could be connected to the second server via USB and the classroom network could also be shut down in an orderly manner in the case of an emergency. 

Thanks to this feature of OPMONis, the Breisgau-Hochschwarzwald District Office found a solution to this problem and was able to avoid the purchase of an additional UPS. This not only had a positive financial impact on the budget, but also saved resources in terms of space requirements in the server cabinet, heat generation and power consumption. 

Stress-free installation in the existing admin VM 

According to the IT staff at the district administration office, the installation and configuration in the virtual admin system of the servers was “stress-free” and was implemented quickly. All questions could be clarified quickly and efficiently by telephone or Team Viewer connection within the IT department.  

The Windows interface of OPMONis runs directly in the Admin VM and is therefore always in view of the IT staff. This gives them automatic control over the status of the UPS and its battery. Sudden, unexpected surprises are therefore a thing of the past. 

Rollout of OPMONis within just 4 weeks 

Thanks to the installation and the simple and self-explanatory interface, the project team was able to test and roll out OPMONis at all 16 school sites within just 4 weeks. During the test phase, school sites with different UPS models were deliberately selected. Locations that had experienced frequent power outages in the past were also prioritized for the test. The test was carried out in a very simple and classic way by unplugging the UPS. All tests were successful, with the expected result of a clean and orderly shutdown of the servers and systems. 

Benefits 

Simple, clear and self-explanatory user interface 

The IT staff at the district administration office praised the simple interface and the clear, self-explanatory design. This makes OPMONis intuitive to use and requires hardly any training time for the administrators, as they find their way around the software right from the start. 

Fast and friendly support from Germany for questions 

German-speaking support was very important to the Breisgau-Hochschwarzwald District Office, which confirmed that all inquiries to OPMONis Support were answered very quickly, in a friendly manner and with technical expertise. This was described as a major plus point, as communication with international providers is often difficult and lengthy. The direct line to technically competent contact persons saves a lot of time on all sides. 

Perfect integration into the system concept and the existing Admin VM VM 

According to the customer, OPMONis could be optimally integrated into the existing IT infrastructure by installing it in the Admin VM. This approach ensured seamless and optimal integration. 

Protecting servers and IT infrastructure from damage caused by power outages 

The software can be used to protect the servers from damage caused by uncontrolled shutdowns during power failures. This increases availability and prevents expensive repair and recovery processe. 

Relieving the burden on administrators with OPMONis as part of standardization process

As a documented and standardized solution within the district office’s IT infrastructure, OPMONis reduces the workload of administrators by automating and reducing routine tasks Control effort. 

Conclusion 

OPMONis has enabled the Breisgau-Hochschwarzwald District Office to significantly improve the protection of its IT systems against data loss in the event of power failures. Thanks to the support of both USB and SNMP, no additional UPS systems had to be purchased, thus avoiding the need for additional resources. The solution also scores points for its simple, self-explanatory operation and perfect integration into the existing infrastructure.