Rotkäppchen-Mumm monitors its five IT locations centrally with Paessler PRTG

About Rotkäppchen-Mumm Sektkellereien

Rotkäppchen-Mumm Sektkellereien GmbH was founded in 1856 in Freyburg, Germany, by the brothers Moritz and Julius Kloss and their friend Carl Foerster. Today, its 500+ employees produce wine, sparkling wine, spirits, and trendy alcoholic beverages at its production sites in Freyburg, Eltville am Rhein, Hochheim am Main, Breisach, and Nordhausen. Rotkäppchen-Mumm Sektkellereien is the owner of traditional brands such as Geldermann, Rotkäppchen, Mumm, Jules Mumm, MM Extra, Kloss & Foerster, Chantré, Mariacron, Echter Nordhäuser, Eckes Edelkirsch, and Blanchet.

Eltville am Rhein is a city known for its wines, sparkling wines, and rosés. Not surprisingly, one of Germany’s best-known sparkling wine producers, Rotkäppchen-Mumm Sektkellereien GmbH, is located there. Since its production and administrative processes are now closely intertwined with IT, the company relies on network monitoring to quickly identify bottlenecks and prevent outages. With growing demands on devices such as servers, switches, routers, and UPSs, Rotkäppchen’s previous monitoring solution had reached its limit. The company therefore decided to make the switch to PRTG Network Monitor from Paessler AG. Thanks to PRTG, the IT team can now monitor all five of its German locations centrally from Eltville.

In 2013, Rotkäppchen-Mumm sold 234 million bottles of wine, sparkling wine, and spirits. That’s the equivalent of around 145,648,000 liters. Qualified employees, modern production facilities, and a perfectly functioning IT infrastructure are absolutely necessary to produce such quantities. Error-free IT is a basic prerequisite for all business processes. The PC workstations in the administrative, purchasing, sales, and other departments must run smoothly, while internal and external communications must function without a hitch.

Disruptions in operational processes quickly make themselves known, and above all, often result in financial losses. For all these reasons, the IT department in Eltville uses a network monitoring solution to monitor the availability of its services, systems, applications, and the consumption of its bandwidth. This team is also responsible for monitoring the branches in Freyburg, Hochheim am Main, Nordhausen, and Breisach.

“With PRTG, Rotkäppchen-Mumm benefits from flexible monitoring that can be continually customized to meet the company’s needs. What started as a software trial has quickly turned into an intricate monitoring environment with more than 2,400 sensors.”

Rainer Breidling, Technical Sales at netmon24

Wanted: A solution with bang for the buck

Rotkäppchen’s previous monitoring tool was no longer able to handle the company’s increasingly complex distributed network, which was supplemented by more and more virtual machines. As a result, the IT team was struggling to manage the network. The tool also disappointed due to its inability to provide comprehensive overviews and monitor systems according to individual specifications. The managers at Rotkäppchen therefore decided to look around for another solution. This is where netmon24 came in. Based in Limburg an der Lahn in Germany, netmon24 has been an expert in network monitoring, management, and analysis for many years. It specializes in preventive measures and the detection and elimination of anomalies in networks. netmon24 recommended PRTG, a monitoring tool developed by Paessler AG from Nuremberg, as a suitable solution for Rotkäppchen’s network.

PRTG monitors the availability of devices, analyzes data flows, and measures the consumption of bandwidth. In the event of an error or disruption, the software immediately sounds the alarm for example via SMS, email, or the PRTG apps for iOS or Android. These alerts allow the IT team to quickly take action and prevent (or minimize) downtime. In addition, PRTG supports important protocols such as SNMP, WMI, Ping, SOAP, Flow, and HTTP, and comes with a wide range of preconfigured monitoring options and features (e.g., for email traffic, databases, VoIP, virtual servers, and more). As a customizable, all-in-one solution, PRTG ensures the IT team can quickly meet future monitoring needs. If new devices or applications are added, they’re integrated into the monitoring system with just a few clicks – regardless of the manufacturer.

Remote server monitoring

In order to determine whether PRTG was the right solution, the IT team at Rotkäppchen-Mumm in Eltville conducted a trial of the tool. During this test, everyone was extremely satisfied with the software. In particular, the testers were impressed by the tool’s intuitive design, ease of use, and comprehensive transparent overviews. An outstanding cost-performance ratio tipped the scale once and for all for PRTG.

Thanks to the help of netmon24, the tool was installed and configured in a few short hours. As can be expected, several technical questions arose immediately following the installation. Here, too, PRTG proved its value as Paessler quickly responded with expert answers to these inquiries. Since then, PRTG has been monitoring the company’s entire IT infrastructure, including servers, switches, routers, and most of the server services. The software also monitors the entire distributed server environment, which includes switches and other components. And while the company started out with a relatively small number of sensors, 2,485 of these measuring points are now in use – and that number keeps growing. Considering the company’s technical infrastructure, this number makes perfect sense: at its main data center, Rotkäppchen-Mumm has installed 11 VMware ESXi servers, upon which run a large number of virtual servers that in turn provide a variety of different services. PRTG also monitors the ESXi servers at the remote sites.

Reports help provide for long-term stability

Currently, four IT employees administer PRTG. These employees were immediately struck by the software’s ease of use, which helped them quickly get used to the tool. Another advantage: With PRTG, the company can finally create detailed reports with its monitoring data. Since installing the tool, Rotkäppchen’s IT Director Andre Birrenbach receives a monthly report on the network’s availability, which in turn provides him with valuable insight into the IT processes at the company. PRTG reports also enable the IT team to identify specific problems and problem areas, leading the way to targeted optimization measures that improve the long-term stability of the company’s IT.

“For an investment of around €13,000, we received an extremely powerful and comprehensive monitoring solution, including a two-day workshop to help us implement and become familiar with the tool,” explains Peter Sobinger, Head of System/Network Administration at Rotkäppchen-Mumm Sektkellereien GmbH. “Telephone support from netmon24 is also included. With PRTG, we can now provide our helpdesk with a detailed source of information for troubleshooting. The software also serves as an effective early warning system for bottlenecks and other server issues. PRTG is light years ahead of our previous tool. In particular, it offers a much better overview. In addition, we can finally monitor our systems according to our own specifications, and (for example) set our own threshold values for loads.”

Rainer Breidling, a member of the Technical Sales team at netmon24, concludes: “With PRTG, Rotkäppchen-Mumm benefits from flexible monitoring that can be continually customized to meet the company’s needs. What started as a software trial has quickly turned into an intricate monitoring environment with more than 2,400 sensors.”

Conclusion

The IT team at Rotkäppchen-Mumm needed a more powerful tool than its existing monitoring solution to meet the increased demands on its servers, switches, and other network components. After an extensive search and trial, the company made the switch to PRTG from Paessler AG. PRTG wowed the team with its outstanding usability and customizable setup, which among other things allowed them to set their own threshold values and create their own monitoring dashboards with comprehensive overviews.

Thanks to prompt alerts via SMS, email, or the PRTG app for smartphones, the IT team is constantly kept abreast of disruptions and failures. Where did the problem occur? How long has it been there? PRTG provides answers to questions like these, allowing the team to quickly take action to prevent or minimize damage.

With the help of PRTG reports, the IT team can also identify problem areas – and resolve them in a targeted fashion. In this way, Rotkäppchen-Mumm Sektkellereien GmbH improves the long-term stability of its network. For these reasons and more, PRTG has quickly become indispensable to the proper functioning of the company’s IT.

About netmon24

Based in Limburg an der Lahn in Germany, netmon24 has been an expert in network monitoring, management, and analysis for many years. Its portfolio includes products and services developed by a variety of different manufacturers for LAN, WLAN, and VoIP environments. netmon24 offers training courses for all its products, most of which are held directly at the sites and in the networks of its customers. In addition, the company offers seminars held over the course of several days at its own training centers throughout Germany.

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