Our customer active logistics is the European market leader vertical software solutions for the logistics market. Their software builds and controls logistic chains and organizes large cargo networks. They operate two independent data centers, close to the headquarters and central hubs of several cargo networks in Niederaula in the heart of Germany.
In late 2008 active logistics’ Head of IT Strategy Michael Otto rised two major challenges: “We wanted to unify and consolidate the infrastructures of all subsidiaries. On the other hand our customers demanded to us to take the overall responsibility for the ICT operations for our software solutions from a managed desktop to our host systems. Our solutions offer great advantages, especially because we are able to operate the complete ICT infrastructure of our customers.” While the central multi-platform ERP infrastructure supported multi-tenancy from the early beginnings, active logistics was not able to offer the same level in the Windows based infrastructure.
The solution was a standardization and centralization project in the Windows environment. Beside the introduction of central file services and a managed desktop, active logistics implemented a multi-tenant and high-available Exchange Server infrastructure. “We now offer our customers and subsidiaries additional services and are able to reduce the manpower requirements at the same time.” says Michael Otto. In Exchange Server active logistics implemented messageconcept ExSBR to control the routing paths of customer’s emails. Therefore the data center is able to route some mails to encryption gateways or anti-virus-solutions, based on the needs of the specific customer. All routing capabilities are controlled inside active directory.
