How do I dissolve a data center? A new infrastructure for avenit AG.

As an established hoster for sensitive and complex infrastructure, we supported the agency "avenit AG" in the dissolution of their own data center and the relocation of their customers to our proServer architecture.

The proServer offers many advantages for agencies and their customers, learn more about our concept and how we support agencies with their infrastructure.

punkt.de and avenit AG, punkte builds new infrastructure for avenit AG

A new infrastructure for avenit AG - The initial situation!

The avenit AG is a digital agency with around 70 employees from Offenburg, which in the past hosted its customers in a separate area in a data center in Karlsruhe.

For a long time, the advantages of its own infrastructure prevailed. However, operating and maintaining its own data center ties up a lot of valuable resources over time, which could be put to much better use elsewhere in customer projects.

At the same time, the hosting market has developed rapidly in recent years and at some point the costs exceed the benefits of operation and maintenance, especially when the service life of critical hardware is reached and major investments in new hardware are due.

This was precisely the point at which avenit AG decided to discontinue the operation and maintenance of its own data center. This decision raised a number of questions:

Who would take over the operation and maintenance of the infrastructure in the future?
Are there any providers who have experience in running a data center and migrating existing customers?
Who can reliably take over operation and maintenance and offer a high level of service including SLAs?
What is the best architecture for your own development workflow?
Who understands the work of agencies and can also implement individual customer requirements?
Can I plan and develop my infrastructure in the long term with the new hosting provider?
Is the offer economical and in the interests of the customer in terms of stability, performance and security?

With these and many other detailed questions in mind, avenit AG set out in search of a new hosting provider.

A new hoster? Who delivers what I need as an agency?

Finding a new hosting partner to whom you can entrust your customers is not only an economic and technical question, but above all a question of trust. So it made sense to start the search in our own environment and in the community and to draw on the experience of other agencies. This is how avenit AG and punkt.de GmbH came together.

Punkt.de GmbH has over 25 years of experience in the conception and implementation of Infrastructure and hosting and has earned a reputation as a reliable partner. Especially in the TYPO3 and Neos community, the hosting of punkt.de GmbH is very popular, but also outside this community many companies have been relying on punkt.de GmbH for years when it comes to application development and individual infrastructure.

In addition to the technical know-how in the area of infrastructure, the good reputation in the community and the regional ties, the values of both agencies also match, making punkt.de GmbH the perfect match for avenit AG.

We have found a reliable partner in punkt.de Infrastructure.With the experienced team at punkt.de Infrastructure, we were able to optimally realize our goals when replacing our own infrastructure. We now combine reduced internal expenses and reduced risks with continued high flexibility and the latest hardware and software.With this setup, we are now equipped for many more exciting projects with our customers.

Sven Nußbaum, Head of Digital Business Unit avenit AG

Shutting down your own data center? No problem, we know our way around!

In the initial talks with avenit AG, punkt.de GmbH and its infrastructure team of DevOps and infrastructure specialists quickly made a convincing case. Since we had just closed down our own data center and knew exactly where avenit AG's problems lay and what concerns there were about moving the infrastructure, we were able to develop a very targeted concept and build trust.

As an established hosterwith which avenit AG can also plan for the long term and an in-house team that takes care of the hosting and infrastructure and thus not only ensures a high service level, but also SLAs for avenit AG's customers, avenit AG has gained a partner who is also able to implement the individual infrastructure requirements of its own customers.

The proServer as a game changer - full access without update worries!

In order to be able to take over the operation and maintenance of the customer systems after the move from punkt.de GmbH, it was necessary to migrate the customers to the proServer architecture.

The proServer concept was developed by punkt.de GmbH on the basis of FreeBSD and is optimized for the needs of agencies and companies looking for a less restrictive, yet secure and high-performance environment with minimal maintenance effort.

The proServer offers all the advantages of a managed server with simultaneous root access. Perfect for every developer and the development workflow of agencies and companies. True to the motto: Full access without worrying about updates!

This approach quickly convinced avenit AG and enables punkt.de GmbH to integrate customer systems into our patchday cycle.

Critical parts of the operating software are only managed by our infrastructure team (databases, web server, PHP,...) and updated once a month. Ideally, staging and production environments are set up and declared and then successively included in the update cycle every 14 days. This gives avenit AG or the customer at least 14 days after an update to identify errors. The updates include version and security updates. Hotfixes, e.g. for detected exploits, are of course installed immediately.

In addition to simple operation and maintenance, the proServer offers a number of additional features. The separate protection of the operating software eliminates a classic gateway for attacks and allows avenit AG to concentrate on development for its customers.

In addition, the proServer is specially optimized for TYPO3 and Neos and leads to noticeable performance gains not only for avenit AG customers.

Paired with the right hardware, which we have selected for avenit AG, the proServer architecture is ideal for developers and also combines performance and stability with cost-effectiveness. All in the interests of avenit AG and its customers.

The new infrastructure - server, monitoring, firewall, backup, network, rackspace

After an initial workshop with the infrastructure specialists at punkt.de GmbH, the hardware required to gradually migrate existing customers to the new servers was determined. A brief overview of the most important components can be found here:

Server:

For the migration of existing customers, we initially planned 6 dedicated proServer L with AMD Ryzen9 processors, which were to be installed in a physical rack at Hetzner Online GmbH in a physical rack.

We have been working very successfully with Hetzner for our customers in this area for many years. This means we can rely on reliable, high-quality hardware and be sure that the servers are located in Germany, meet all GDPR requirements and are subject to German law.

Monitoring:

The monitoring is based on Zabbix and runs on a dedicated VM in the Hetzner Cloud. The monitoring is continuously expanded and optimized in consultation with avenit AG.

Firewall:

Here we have been relying on the solution OPNsense. Two servers are used here to increase reliability. Of course, we take care of the setup, configuration and training for avenit AG.

Backup:

We offer 7-day backups as standard for our proServers, but we recommend using your own backup server to provide backups for up to 14 days. There are no limits here, off-site or multiple backup locations are also possible.

Network:

For maximum performance, two networks are required for each server (client, firewall, backup) and, of course, a subnet for IPv6 and a private network. For all customers who still rely on IPv4, we have of course also found a solution with avenit AG.

Rackspace reservation:

To ensure that rack space does not become a limiting factor for the growth of avenit AG, we have agreed a reservation for further server capacities in the rack at Hetzner. Long-term coordination for the further development and expansion of capacities is an integral part of the concept.

A coherent concept for a trusting collaboration at the highest professional level!

In addition to setting up and configuring the new infrastructure, we are of course also a partner, advising and jointly developing the infrastructure in the interests of avenit AG.

For example, avenit AG has used our Ansible playbooks for the proServer to the needs of their projects.

The avenit AG administrators are in close contact with our infrastructure team and are gradually migrating their own customers to the new infrastructure.

The new infrastructure concept is not only a benefit for avenit AG, but also for its customers. After an initial effort for the migration of the customers, the effort for operation and maintenance for the avenit AG administrator team is reduced and the feedback from the customers after the move is also consistently positive.

Punkt.de GmbH is looking forward to further cooperation and the expansion of the infrastructure for avenit AG and its customers.