OTHER SUCCESS STORIES
PORT OF BARRANQUILLA
Generalidades
PORT OF BARRANQUILLA
The entity made a technology leap with the implementation of a new world-class Datacenter, with all infrastructure, connectivity and security elements to support the challenges to come.
Entity
At the corner of the Caribbean Sea and the Magdalena river, it is located the Puerto de Barranquilla – Sociedad Portuaria, which has consolidated as the most important multi-purpose port of the Colombian Caribbean Coast. The organization has the concession of the operation of the sea and river port of the city of Barranquilla since 2003, and currently, it has a concession agreement extended until 2033.
With the purpose of becoming a logistics platform that meets its clients’ needs and those of a city willing to make the most out of its privileged geographic location, since 2015, the terminal has been implementing a Master Investments Plan consisting of 117 projects mainly focused on equipment acquisition, infrastructure improvement, security strengthening, and process automation with a $129,000 million investment until 2017.
Challenge
Amongst its investments, information technology has a significant position, taking into consideration its incidence in the continuity and reliability of the services rendered. For this reason, it was necessary to replace its old infrastructure with a more modern infrastructure adequate for the demands foreseen by the entity and the environment.
“Before, we had a machine room where we hosted the servers – initially few – but inasmuch as the business started to grow, much greater computing power was demanded, and with all the processes we were managing, we found it necessary to think of a project to significantly expand this infrastructure in accordance with the highest local and international standards”, explains Enoc Rubio, ICT Infrastructure Head of Puerto de Barranquilla – Sociedad Portuaria.
The first challenge for the entity was to find the space to build the new datacenter and it was a decision made at director level, so that the entire development was aligned with the Company’s strategic plans; all studies necessary were carried out: from the civil works to the security systems, until all conditions to be able to execute the project were met.
Solution
For the decision of the vendor that would be in charge of this important implementation, and prior to the bidding process, the entity made a call for proposals with the purpose of analyzing the different possibilities, conducting testing, and defining objectives. Finally, after the respective bidding process, Redsis was the company chosen. “We have been working with Redsis for over 15 years and being able to work with them in this project was important because of the dependability and commitment they show in everything they carry out”, explains the Engineer Rubio.
The new datacenter required an investment in servers, network infrastructure and other elements to guarantee its optimal performance. Once the datacenter space was defined, needs were established for climatization, electrical backup, power distribution, environmental monitoring, access control, closed-circuit television, autonomous and with cleaning agent fire-extinguishing and detection system.
The solution that Redsis presented had several components according to the terminal needs. Regarding climatization and electrical backup, EMERSON products were used. In turn, for the fiber-optics connectivity solution, copper, cabinets, intelligent PDUs, and isolation, SIEMON products were used; the SIEMON isolation solution was the first implementation of that brand in Latin America.
In addition, for the need to extinguish eventual fires, 3M’s NOVEC extinguishing agent was used, the most environmental-friendly agent.
Benefits
“We performed a thorough review of the company operation, its structure, processes, strategic plans, investment plans, costs and expenses plans; and the result of this analysis reiterated to us that technology is an important pillar within the management of the innovation subject; we have the challenge to contribute to the growth that the company expects according to its vision and mission”, highlights Enoc Rubio.
Within the expansion plans that the Port has envisaged for the short and medium term, technology plays a fundamental role, since it allows having more agile, secure and efficient processes that positively impact the growth of clients and the competitiveness of the city and the country.
“The objective of the entire optimization of our operations is that they are reflected in the client satisfaction”, concludes Engineer Rubio.
Thanks to this significant change, the entity has a more robust infrastructure that responds to the current and future needs of the business and makes the terminal be closer to complying with its purpose of becoming the port logistics platform of reference in the country.