The Forest in the Cloud

DATAGROUP built the entire IT infrastructure in the public cloud at the start of operations of Forst Baden-Württemberg

When the staff of Forst Baden-Württemberg (ForstBW) is out and about today, they can work on a mobile basis and access the required data and applications from anywhere. This is made possible by the cloud-only strategy of ForstBW due to which the entire IT infrastructure and all associated IT processes were migrated to the Microsoft cloud. DATAGROUP was responsible for the rebuild as a strategic partner and operates the new structure in the cloud together with ForstBW.

The schedule for implementation of the entire IT in the cloud was tight. The project started in March 2019 and had to be completed by year end with no exception. This was because, from 1 January 2020, the former unified forest management in Baden-Württemberg was to be separated into two successor organizations: (1) Forst Baden-Württemberg, a public-law institution and self-funded entity, which is responsible for development and management of the state forest and for specific functions in forestry apprenticeships and Forest School pedagogy, and (2) the State Forest Management, responsible for communal and private forests as well as sovereign tasks. As part of this reorganization, the IT of the two organizations had to be completely separated as well.

Contact

Markus Koch
markus.koch@datagroup.de

»Most of our employees regularly worked on a mobile basis and were distributed across the state, in part without a fixed workplace in an office. We wanted a future-oriented IT solution that can be expanded if required and which has the necessary flexibility and efficiency to optimally support this kind of work. This is why we decided on the cloud solution, which has been successfully implemented with DATAGROUP as a partner.«

says Siegfried Nägele, Head of IT at ForstBW

ForstBW opted for a strict cloud-only approach, e.g. the company no longer has any on-premise servers. The data center and the complete office communication such as email, data storage or tools for cooperation and communication are available in the cloud. Several specialized procedures add to this, which are also made available via Microsoft Azure Cloud and are built on Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS).

“The advantage of an implementation with the Microsoft cloud is that there are extensive standardized modular systems, amongst others, that allow you to build complex environments quickly and make them available to the customer tailored to their needs”, explains Holger Hennig, Area Manager Cloud Consulting at DATAGROUP. Security and compliance were another focus in the selection of appropriate service components. Using the corresponding Azure services, the cloud architects of DATAGROUP compiled a custom-fit and, correspondingly, robust integrated solution, which was also confirmed by the external auditors of ForstBW.

Thanks to the extensive project experience with design blueprints and the supplementary CORBOX services such as configuration and initial setup of the equipment as well as roll-out to the employees, the transformation to the cloud was completed as early as autumn 2019, in good time before the start of operations on 1 January 2020.

In addition to purely technical support, DATAGROUP also provided support to train the employees and was part of the multiplier concept where one person per location received specific training to then be the first contact for their colleagues.

“There are hardly any comparable projects in the public sector, but this pioneer project has paid off. Right at the start of ForstBW, on 1 January 2020, our employees could take up work at ForstBW with their new equipment and work on a flexible basis from anywhere. At the same time, the cloud service components enable us to quickly adapt and expand our IT infrastructure and applications in the future if required”, summarizes Carmen Hahn, project employee at ForstBW.