Scandlines operates two of Denmark's most essential and busiest ferry routes, which requires particular demands - not only for the sailing equipment and the crew but also for the entire IT infrastructure. The ferries sail 24/7, 365 days a year, which means there are no actual service windows for updates.
Sentia is responsible for hosting, operations, and technical counsel. If problems occur, they must be resolved immediately to avoid interference with the ferry operation. This requires flexibility and close collaboration between Scandlines and Sentia.
The collaboration includes a two-center operation with Metro Clustered SAN Infrastructure-as-a-Service with a total of approx. 250 (Windows Server, Entra ID, file/print, MS SQL). In addition to this, is the operation of the Northern European Cisco-based network, anti-virus solutions, and operational reporting with Service Delivery Manager.
Sentia takes ownership
"Sentia is responsible for the primary most business-critical, while we run the services that are located locally at our locations. Sentia is responsible for our IT operations up to the application layer – we operate the systems ourselves," says Morten Irve, Chief IT Architect at Scandlines. He continues: "We experience Sentia as being very dedicated, and they steer our attention towards potential problems very well. Also, they are doing well to engage with our company and identify our needs. They take ownership. In this way, we have a little downtime on an annual basis."
Despite the complex set-up, Scandlines has a small IT organization and, therefore, flexible collaboration is essential:
"Because Sentia and Scandlines have worked together for a long time, we know each other very well, so we are not just in a distributor/supplier relationship. We also have weekly physical meetings where we can see eye to eye and together prevent minor problems before they grow big," states Jan Valbak, Head of IT Infrastructure.