NATO headquarters IT infrastructure project complete
Cassidian has announced that it has delivered and installed the turnkey IT infrastructure to the NATO sites in Brunssum (NL), Heidelberg, Ramstein and Wesel, and full acceptance has now been concluded. The customer was the Federal Republic of Germany, which acted as the procurement agency on behalf of NATO.
The IT infrastructure is for use by a total of 3,000 users, and is part of a project to expand and modernise the computer centres, the LAN and WAN networks and the entire end-user domain. The project saw the existing network infrastructure completely redesigned and its capacity and bandwidth increased simultaneously. The computer centres were modernised and expanded with a new server infrastructure based on blade technology and next-generation storage and back-up systems. During this process, cutting-edge technology, such as virtualisation, was used.
System components such as workstations, laptops and printers were also provided, and a secure printing system was set up. Out-of-band management enables the infrastructure to be managed fully, without influencing its operation. Migrating data and transferring all the existing applications to the new system constituted another essential component of the contract.
According to Cassidian, after successfully carrying out site integration tests at each of the sites, NATO was directly able to put the new infrastructure into operation. The final system acceptance has been concluded by the German Federal Office of Bundeswehr Equipment, nformation Technology and In-Service Support (BAAINBw).