Mast & support system specialist Europoles opts for network monitoring software Paessler PRTG

“Expanding horizons – reaching new heights” is the motto of FUCHS Europoles, a global leader in the production of masts, columns, towers, and support systems. This motto also serves as a symbol for the company’s IT at its German headquarters in Neumarkt, as well as at all its locations worldwide. In order to ensure its network infrastructure could withstand increasing loads and demands in the future, the decision was made to implement a new digital pillar: the network monitoring tool PRTG Network Monitor.

Europoles had already been using network monitoring software for a number of years to safeguard the “stability” of its IT systems. However, its previously used tools, “HP Systems Insight Manager” (HP SIM) and “OpenNMS” no longer met the network’s ever-increasing needs for bandwidth and availability monitoring. The company required more in-depth and detailed monitoring of its hardware, virtual, and line-based systems. It wanted to monitor VMware, network traffic, load distributions, physical network cards, and data throughput to other locations, as well as hardware components such as routers, switches, and the telephone system. In addition, the print services, file services, and mail servers were to be monitored within the virtualized systems.

Round-the-clock monitoring

In particular, PRTG monitors all the routers, switches, ESX servers, Exchange, SQL, file services, print services, and hardware (hosts), as well as the telephone system. In total, around 3,000 sensors (primarily SNMP, WMI, Exchange, ESX, and SQL sensors) were set up to continually monitor the various components of the network. Furthermore, the IT team installed PRTG “remote probes” to monitor the external networks at the other locations. These probes stay in constant contact with the main PRTG installation, and collect all the relevant data at the various sites – even if the connection to the core server is interrupted. The monitoring data is then sent in encrypted form to the core server for evaluation. As a result, all external locations are connected to the main installation in Neumarkt. Europoles uses both the PRTG app for desktop and the web interface of PRTG. These interfaces simplify network management for the admins, who can keep an eye on the status of all devices in the network at the same time. Both interfaces display real-time and long-term data in graphs, as well as the current status of all configured sensors.

Europoles can also use PRTG to perform quality assurance on its own services, as the software checks the availability of hardware resources, bandwidth, web pages, memory, disk space, and more. In addition, PRTG automatically notifies the IT team if failures occur or a predefined threshold value is exceeded, allowing the workers to take appropriate measures immediately. Based on long-term analyses generated by PRTG, Europoles can also perform targeted optimizations – such as on the internet connections of individual sites. The software constantly monitors available bandwidth in the Europoles network on the lines of the respective location, as well as those extending outside. The IT managers at Europoles can also determine the availability and bandwidth utilization of leased lines between different locations, and monitor all network connections, routers, switches, etc. at each site.

As a result, signs of congestion can be detected before a connection breaks down. Customizable PRTG dashboards provide in-house administrators with a quick overview and keep them constantly informed on the status of the infrastructure, including all lines. What’s more, they obtain in-depth information on usage trends that allows them to identify impending bottlenecks and connection errors in the future, as well as to define threshold values that enable them to take advantage of an early warning system which immediately alerts them if these limits are exceeded.