Luxembourg’s leading retail group, Cactus, relies upon Optical Networking and Telindus Luxembourg expertise for datacenter connectivity

Cactus Group, the leading retailer in Luxembourg, has deployed with the engineering team of Telindus Luxembourg the ADVA FSP 3000 to provide optical datacenter connectivity in order to roll-out a new fully redundant data center infrastructure. The ADVA FSP 3000 will be the foundation for the Cactus Group’s business continuity applications, ensuring that its operations are always online and running. The solution was deployed by ADVA Optical Networking’s long-standing partner, Telindus.

Cactus operates a large production and point-of-sale network that interconnects malls, more than 30 food stores, a catering service, a coffee-roasting facility and a major food-products factory. With some 4,000 employees, the Cactus Group ranks as Luxembourg’s third-largest private employer. The company opened its first store in 1967 and pioneered the shopping center concept in Luxembourg, making it one of the nation’s most famous brands.

Windhof and Bertrange at speed of light

“With such a large and public brand as ours, it’s critical that we effectively manage our IT systems and operations,” said Jean Gavroy, IT director, Cactus Group. “We cannot afford any downtime, any lost revenues, any lost customer confidence. This is why we’re working with Telindus and ADVA Optical Networking. They know how to keep your networks running every second of every day of every week. What’s more, they know how to scale. We’re continually growing and we expect our network to do the same.”

Replacing an array of individual point-to-point connections provided by local network operators, the new connectivity solution based on WDM technology utilizes two distinct paths to interconnect Cactus Group sites through the company’s new main data center in Windhof and backup data center in Bertrange. The ADVA FSP 3000 installation supports 40 wavelengths of 1Gbit/s and 10Gbit/s Ethernet and also 8Gbit/s Fibre Channel over a network that leverages Cactus Group’s own dark fiber.

“It’s difficult to quantify the impact on a business that network downtime can cause, especially on a consumer-focused business,” commented Yann Evain, sales director Benelux, ADVA Optical Networking. “Cactus Group understands this and together with Telindus, we’ve developed an incredibly robust solution. One that was built to Cactus Group’s specific requirements, not only for today’s business demands but also tomorrow’s. In this respect, Cactus Group’s optical network has become a key competitive edge.”

“Given how much business is being conducted across its network at any given moment, Cactus Group’s recovery-point and recovery-time objectives are very challenging – transactions must be continually backed up and, in the event of an interruption, service must be re-established quickly,” said Jacques Ruckert, director products and solutions, Telindus. “The ADVA FSP 3000 has repeatedly proven itself in precisely this type of networking environment and its industry-leading Storage Area Networking (SAN) qualification program extends terrific flexibility in deploying multi-vendor Fibre Channel technologies.”