Client story

Hoogheemraadschap van Delfland: “The data center complies with all our wants and needs”

3 min Read

About 1,2 million people live in the area managed by Hoogheemraadschap van Delfland, and roughly 40.000 businesses are situated there.

About 1,2 million people live in the area managed by Hoogheemraadschap van Delfland, and roughly 40.000 businesses are situated there. Delfland ensures security through sturdy dunes and dikes, and dry feet thanks to pumping stations and a well-functioning water system. In all this Delfland is heavily dependent on IT. When they were ready to outsource their IT environment in 2012, they found a reliable partner in NorthC.

Delfland’s water system ensures good water quality in ditches and canals and regulates the cleansing of wastewater. Well-functioning IT is essential to the business processes that ensure the water board can conduct these tasks well and securely. Delfland needs to be able to remotely control about 200 pumping stations 24/7. Delfland dike inspectors are out in the field using iPads to report on the conditions of over 700 km of dike. At the wastewater treatment plant, the purification process is monitored via smart process automation systems.

Need for new IT environment

“Delfland exists for already 725 years”, says Marc van Uunen, IT Coordinator at the Hoogheemraadschap. “That’s a respectable age, but thankfully this has never stopped us from moving with the times. So too in the area of automation and digitalization. My team regularly takes inventory of all the IT needs of the organization. In 2012 we concluded that as a result of the ambitions of the people of the primary process, we needed a brand-new IT environment.”

State-of-the-art-data center

The water board’s data center was located in the historical main office on the Oude Delft. Van Uunen: “An office building is rarely equipped to house a full-fledged, highly available data center. There are often too many risks. In a data center, cooling, floor load, power supply, emergency power, and UPS systems are all entirely attuned to one another to support the core task of the data center: housing customer’s IT environments. This is why we decided to prioritize the outsourcing of our IT environment to a professional data center.”

“The data center complies with all our wants and needs. NorthC is a reliable partner.”

Marc van Uunen, IT-coordinator Hoogheemraadschap

Sustainable relationship

Van Uunen: “Water management is a task you can never do alone. You always work closely with partners in the area. This is why we put great stock in a good collaboration and the reliability of our partners. We chose NorthC because of the location, security, availability of the data center and the identification.” The operational reliability of Delfland matters greatly to the 1,2 million inhabitants of the area. Van Uunen: “It’s terrifying to think of our pumping systems being unavailable, or the wastewater treatment plant being out of commission. The facilities provided by the data centers comply with our wants and needs. This organization really suits us.”

Outsourcing best business decision

Delfland views the outsourcing of their IT environment as their best business IT decision of 2012. Van Uunen: “We can now be at ease and leave the responsibility for power supply, fire safety, and security to NorthC.  And because our data are now housed in the data centers, the manageability and reliability have increased. In time the costs of this investment are offset by saving on maintenance, power usage, and a more efficient allocation of personnel.”

Knowledge and experience

The construction and maintenance of a data center is costly and requires expertise. Thanks to the many years of experience and economies of scale of the data centers, NorthC is able to offer its services with a very high reliability at a much lower cost.

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