City government of Nördlingen uses professional monitoring software Paessler PRTG

About the city of Nördlingen, Germany

Nördlingen is located in Donau-Ries, a district of Swabia in Bavaria, Germany. Once a “Free Imperial City,” it is the largest city in the district with 20,000 inhabitants. Nördlingen is well known for its historic, circular city center. Surrounded by a wall built in 1327, this center is home to the Gothic St. George's Church, Nördlingen’s most famous attraction that everyone knows as “Daniel.” The center also includes an historic marketplace that has been drawing crowds since the Middle Ages. Thanks to its many landmarks, Nördlingen is an extremely popular tourist destination.

The city’s local government has offices in no less than 15 locations around the city. 300 employees assist Nördlingen citizens (as well as visitors to the city) with everyday administrative concerns to optimize the quality of their services. A 300-foot cathedral nicknamed “Daniel” towers over the town of Nördlingen in Swabia, Germany. From the top of the church tower, visitors enjoy an excellent view of the city, including its historic center. Undoubtedly, the city’s IT manager drew inspiration from this all-encompassing view when searching for a professional monitoring solution to provide a constant overview of the city’s IT infrastructure. They opted for PRTG Network Monitor, a comprehensive network monitoring tool offered by Paessler AG.

“PRTG promptly detects errors, allowing us to take action immediately. Thanks to PRTG, we already know where the error lies before the telephone rings or a worker sends us a frantic email. We can conveniently check the status of the network, at any time and from anywhere. PRTG provides us with a continual overview of our entire network. And that’s a huge relief.”

Georg Kugler, IT manager for the city of Nördlingen

Monitoring goal

For Nördlingen, the goal was to implement a solution that could monitor all the IT components of the network, and immediately sound the alarm in the event of errors. The software was to monitor each of the local government’s 15 locations, allowing the IT managers to ensure smooth-running operations between the various departments of the public institution, all the while administering the tool from one central location. In addition, it was vital that the existing IT environment could be integrated into the software.

Planning phase

After an informational event held by system integrator Kutzschbach Electronic to demonstrate the capabilities of the solution, talks began on the best way to implement the software to meet the monitoring goals of the city. Previously used solutions (Nagios and System Insight Manager from HP) proved less than ideal due to the exorbitant amount of time required for configurations and updates.

During the talks, it quickly became clear that PRTG from Paessler was the right solution for comprehensively monitoring the IT infrastructure and allowing for proactive troubleshooting thanks to a prompt notification system. The IT team was also happy to learn that network statuses could be called up at any time and from anywhere via the PRTG app for iPhone and Android.

Nördlingen chose PRTG for the following reasons:

A single tool for monitoring all hardware, software, and applications
Professional monitoring of virtualized environments
Quick and intuitive user interfaces
Straightforward integration with the city’s existing network

Implementation phase – Part of a contingency plan

PRTG was implemented as part of a contingency plan developed by the city of Nördlingen. The integration of the monitoring software with the existing IT environment was both quick and easy. In order to ensure the functionality and performance of these systems, PRTG monitors a variety of parameters in addition to basic availability, including memory use, bandwidth (using NetFlow), power supplies, server room temperatures, website availability, and much more.

The software also makes use of “remote probes” to monitor the individual systems at the city’s 15 different locations. This feature allows the local government to keep an eye on all its distributed networks with a single PRTG installation. PRTG “sensors” serve as measuring points that regularly query devices for the desired data. The city of Nördlingen prefers to use SNMP sensors (around 1,000) for its monitoring. These sensors collect detailed data (e.g., on the bandwidth utilization of servers, routers, or switches) that display the current status of each monitored component and allow for the generation of long-term analyses and reports. What’s more, SNMP sensors are easy to set up and place very little strain on the processor.

Thanks to PRTG, the city can now take action immediately when its predefined thresholds are exceeded, thereby stopping potential failures and disruptions in their tracks. If an IT emergency does in fact occur, PRTG quickly (and reliably) displays the affected systems. For the most part, the IT managers use the web-based interface for their monitoring.

The monitoring data collected thus far has already enabled the city to make a number of optimizations.

Summary – 24/7 control of the network

Georg Kugler, IT manager for the city of Nördlingen, concludes: “Monitoring is the cornerstone of our newly implemented IT contingency plan, and its goal is to help us reduce downtime and increase the security of our systems. The use of PRTG immediately proved beneficial for the city’s administration. For example, many of the everyday tasks of admins have been streamlined or even automated. PRTG is also scalable, which means it can be upgraded at any time to meet our growing needs. And in the event that we require technical support from the experts at Kutzschbach or Paessler, we quickly get all the answers we need. In short: with its attractive design, fast service, wide range of features, and remote monitoring possibilities, PRTG from Paessler is the “tower” of our network, from which we can keep an eye on everything.”

About Kutzschbach Electronic

The city of Nördlingen sought out a professional and experienced system integrator to implement its network monitoring solution. Kutzschbach Electronic GmbH & Co.KG has been successfully implementing IT solutions at companies in Germany and abroad for the past 30 years. Kutzschbach relies on teamwork and the active contributions of all its employees to identify and meet its customers’ needs. 45 members strong, its team is driven by the quest for quality and the long-term satisfaction of customers. Kutzschbach Electronic has been a partner of Paessler for many years, and provides support for the PRTG installations of numerous customers both in Germany and abroad. For the city of Nördlingen, the company was therefore an obvious choice for the planning and subsequent implementation of its network monitoring solution. “We recommended PRTG because it perfectly met the monitoring needs of the city of Nördlingen, is quick and easy to install, and would reduce the everyday workload of the IT managers considerably. In addition, PRTG provided for the best price/performance ratio for this project,” explains Tobias Schiffelholz, Systems Engineer at Kutzschbach Electronic.

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