Thomas Group is an international group of companies with eight locations covering Europe, North America, South America and Asia. Over the years, the Thomas Group has established a global manufacturing presence to serve its growing customer base with products for the aerosol, cosmetics, perfume and pharmaceutical industries. With more than 400 employees worldwide and annual revenues of 100 million euros, Thomas Group has become a recognized world leader in the production of metal components.
The challenge
Thomas Group has developed a modular production system with standardized stamping tools and presses throughout its global production network, which allows the company to respond quickly and flexibly to customer requirements around the world. The stamping and processing technologies are designed and built in-house and the continuous improvement programs are integrated in all operational areas. From functional design to product engineering, the Thomas Group works with the latest computer design (CAD), computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) and collaborative design software to quickly transform customers’ ideas and concepts into real-world products.
Since 2002, the Thomas Group has been managing a Citrix® server-based computing environment from a mirrored data center located at its headquarters in Langenselbold, Germany. This server architecture allows the company to deliver web applications, including enterprise resource planning (ERP), supply chain management, CAD / CAM, group software and Microsoft® Office systems, to its eight international locations quickly, easily and with little administration. efforts. At the same time, running these business-critical applications from centralized servers means that system outages can affect performance in locations around the world, potentially leading to delayed orders, customer dissatisfaction, and even loss of revenue.
The solution
In 2008, the Thomas Group implemented Stratus® everRun® Enterprise software on IBM® and Dell® x86 servers to keep its virtualized Windows® and Linux® applications running. With everRun, one application lives on two virtual machines. If one machine fails, the application continues to run on the other machine without interruption or data loss. If a component fails, it is replaced with the robust component of the second system and the I / O is automatically affected by the backup server. The memory checkpoint ensures that all in-flight transactions, as well as memory and cache data, are retained – without restarting the machine.
Stratus everRun Enterprise software was easy and affordable to install without application modifications or the need for specialized IT skills. Stratus Support Center constantly monitors all components of the application environment and automatically sends proactive failure signals via SNMP when a problem occurs so that company employees can take immediate action to prevent system outages.
In 2012, the Thomas Group implemented everRun SplitSite® to prevent interruptions between campuses in its main and backup data center locations. SplitSite provides application resiliency to both data center sites using synchronous replication for additional protection against major outages due to localized disasters such as floods and power outages.
“Preventing interruptions between everRun SplitSite campuses provides synchronous replication between the primary and secondary data center at our Langenselbold headquarters. This additional protection protects our applications and data against localized disasters to help ensure business continuity and global production. “
Arno Fronert
Head of IT, Thomas Group
The results
Following the deployment of everRun Enterprise, the Thomas Group enjoys the continued availability of its critical applications to support seamless operations 24/7/365 in its global locations. EverRun’s anti-downtime software helps the company achieve business continuity, maintain data integrity and meet compliance requirements by keeping critical office, design, manufacturing and supply chain applications running – across the board. time – easy and affordable.
Connected
