German Utility Service Provider Stadtwerke Saarbrücken Upgrades to FalconStor FreeStor

FalconStor Software Inc. has been chosen by German utility service provider, Stadtwerke Saarbrücken GmbH to provide its SDS platform FreeStor to underpin its vision of a software-defined data center.

Saarbrücker Stadtwerke is the biggest communal service provider in Saarbrücken. Saarbrücker Stadtwerke employs over 1000 employees to provide water, electricity, long-distance heating, the main operations for gas, water, electricity, and heating, public transport, meter management, the operation of public baths and several other holdings.

A critical success factor for Stadtwerke Saarbrücken is the operation of its highly-available software-defined data center stretched over two locations. These locations guarantee the IT infrastructure for their own subsidiaries, as well as for clients of IT services throughout Germany. Stadtwerke has been using software-defined technologies wherever possible to achieve a higher level of flexibility and scalability. The virtualized storage layer based on technology from FreeStor offers synchronous mirroring of all data to optimize capacity and BC across their storage infrastructure. In addition to using FreeStor, Stadtwerke relies on server virtualization, VDI, software-defined networking and other modern components alongside a context-defined security solution, and big data management with real-time data analytics.

When FalconStor announced its SDS platform, FreeStor, Stadtwerke did not hesitate to upgrade from its previous FalconStor solution, NSS. The FreeStor SDS platform offers storage virtualization, intelligent abstraction, analytics and unified data services that deliver real, tangible benefits to any IT organization looking to regain control of their data. From a virtualized storage pool, FreeStor abstracts the provisioning of storage, regardless of vendor, type or location. This abstracted approach simplifies the complexities of shared storage environments through one centralized GUI.

“Our data center is not just a means to an end for our enterprise,” says Christian Schorr, IT-manager, Stadtwerke Saarbrücken. Many of our subsidiaries act nationally and offer services that require a flexible and powerful IT foundation. With FreeStor, we achieve the agility that we need from our storage. Consequently using this SDS approach does not only save us OPEX, but also a lot of time and resources to manage our storage infrastructure.

Stadtwerke Saarbrücken is a showcase early adopter of software-defined technologies, and is already realizing financial savings from that decision, says Stefan Hirsch, regional director Central Europe and Nordics, FalconStor. SDS is one of the most important pieces to complete their vision of a completely software-defined datacenter. FreeStor provides a critical SDS foundation that enables Stadtwerke the ability to offer their customers flexible and scalable services.