Food to sample, taste and above all to share
Fripozo S.A. is the company of the Spanish holding Grupo Fuertes dedicated to the production and commercialization of deep-frozen foods. With a philosophy based on innovation, it has managed to position itself in modern distribution and catering with a wide range of ready meals. To do so, they have the most advanced technology and a committed and motivated team of people to satisfy their customers, making their lives easier.
STARTING POINT
The company was founded in 1989 and since then has been adapting to new ideas and challenges. Currently Fripozo S.A. is the largest direct supplier of frozen foods to the Spanish hotel and catering industry and has positioned its brand as the third most purchased by Spanish consumers.
Immersed in full expansion in Spain, Fripozo S.A. has set itself the goal of internationalization of the company, making the leap to the British market and with plans to establish itself in other countries in Europe and Latin America.
In 2007 Enrique Suárez Pérez (Head of Systems Administration) detected the need to monitor from a central console the growing, and increasingly heterogeneous, technological park of servers and communications of Fripozo S.A.
“We chose Pandora FMS because it is flexible and adapts to a heterogeneous architecture like ours. It was easy for us to adapt the tool to meet our needs.”
Enrique Suárez Pérez. Systems Administration Manager at Fripozo S.A.
PROJECT’S CHALLENGE
There was no centralized monitoring scheme, systems were not controlled and every time a device went down they did not know about it until someone notified them. It was necessary to find out about failures in time and correct them as soon as possible, as this resulted in a worse service from the systems department to the rest of the company.
Enrique identified two main problems that needed to be solved with a single tool:
It was necessary to monitor and control a heterogeneous infrastructure, with servers with different operating systems, devices from different manufacturers, various systems, communications, manufacturer and custom applications, web, etc.
Flexibility was a fundamental requirement, so that when the need arose to monitor something specific, it could be done in record time and with local resources, without having to hire experts.
“Pandora FMS is a good solution. It is an idea well carried out. I like it. It is not perfect, but it covers our needs perfectly. I would highlight among its features the flexibility. We discovered a range of unthinkable possibilities that have helped us to improve our internal processes.”
Enrique Suárez Pérez. Systems Administration Manager at Fripozo S.A.
WHY PANDORA FMS?
Fripozo S.A.’s Systems Department tested the Open Source version of Pandora FMS. Although it was in a premature version, with features that were not yet included in the product, Pandora FMS exceeded expectations, meeting their needs and Fripozo S.A. then contracted the Enterprise version.
The project started with a few servers and network elements. Once the solution was implemented, the results were so good that it became a project and expanded its scope of application beyond the usual for this type of tools.
One of the most remarkable aspects was the ease of implementation, start-up and management of the solution. In fact, they were carried out from Fripozo S.A.’s own IT department, with hardly any help from consultants specialized in Pandora FMS.
Enrique Suárez was able to take advantage of the implicit flexibility of Pandora FMS to perform from Fripozo S.A. customized developments that address monitoring and management with Pandora FMS not predefined, such as:
Toner control of the printers and their automatic ordering. In fact, they discarded the manufacturer’s own tool for their printers. Time clock management. Integrated with the storage cabinets, and thanks to the Pandora FMS alert system, the monitoring of the disks and the management with the technical services of different manufacturers. Control of UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supplies) and their start-up in case of power outages.
The only thing they would change would be to hire the official training to train internal staff in Pandora FMS. Although the documentation is very good, the official training is essential to know all the capabilities of the tool.
PANDORA FMS BENEFITS
Thanks to Pandora FMS, Fripozo S.A. has achieved cost savings and improved service. This is due to reduced failure detection times (so systems are down for less time), along with a reduction in the time it takes for an operator to detect such failures.
The Systems department achieved full control of Fripozo S.A.’s technological park and an increase in internal SLAs, being able to focus on systems administration without having to worry about detecting failures and anticipating what might happen.
In addition, a multitude of business processes other than pure monitoring have been discovered that could not be carried out in any other way. Thanks to them, internal processes have been considerably improved.
According to Enrique Suárez Pérez, they are considering extending the use of Pandora FMS to Grupo Fuertes’ corporate environment. It is a larger environment in which new services have to be integrated, so new adaptations will have to be made to continue covering monitoring needs.
“Thanks to Pandora FMS we have managed to improve the productivity of the IT department. It lets us sleep more peacefully, since we know the status of the devices at all times. Moreover, it has improved the operation and communication with the rest of the departments.”
Enrique Suárez Pérez. Head of Systems Administration
Doubts, suggestions or comments?
Does our proposal sound appealing?