the HTI Group at the Peak of Hyperconvergence with HPE Simplivity

The High Technology Industries (HTI) group includes LEITNER ropeways and POMA with cable-hauled transportation systems, AGUDIO for material transport; PRINOTH snow groomers and tracked utility vehicles; Minimetro urban transport systems; LEITWIND wind turbines; and DEMACLENKO snow making systems. The group is one of the world’s leading companies in the cable-hauled transportation system industry, its core business, alongside snow-grooming and snow making systems. The company was founded by the mechanic Gabriel Leitner, from Vipiteno, South Tyrol, who opened a workshop specialising in farm machinery, ropeways for material transportation and waterwheels in Vipiteno in 1888. With winter sports tourism growing after the Second World War, the company started to develop cableway systems for passengers. In 1970 snow groomers began to be manufactured instead of agricultural machinery. The 1990s saw the first subsidiaries established abroad. The export ratio is now almost 90%. The company’s headquarters in Vipiteno (BZ), Italy, is not only where the management is based, but also a production facility. Other production sites are located in France, Austria, USA, Canada, India, China, Slovakia and Germany. Customer service and sales across the world are guaranteed by a network of 65 branches and 132 sales and service centres. Turnover in 2018 came to 1.21 billion euros. Particular importance is attached to investment, which in 2018 reached 49.2 million euros (including spending on research & development, new buildings and production equipment). With its pooled competence between LEITNER ropeways/POMA, PRINOTH and DEMACLENKO, the group has been the world’s only all-round provider of winter sports technologies since 2011. That means customers benefit from the know-how and expertise of the specialists in ropeways systems, snow groomers and snow making system in one place.

High Technology Industries (HTI) needed a modern and homogeneous IT infrastructure in order to standardise the systems of the group companies in the different countries. The infrastructure was both to meet the business needs of the next few years and to conform to the enhanced data privacy requirements. The various businesses had already come to the realisation that their rapid growth and geographical distances had created huge differences between the individual IT infrastructures in place at the miscellaneous IT locations of the group. This was presenting an obstacle to internal collaboration, since projects are delivered by the group across sites and a full range of winter sports technologies is covered.

In the course of 2018 the IT team at HTI under Claudio Borri, Head of IT Infrastructure and Help Desk at the Vipiteno hub, began to plan the enhancement of the IT infrastructure. They needed to find a solution that would meet the business requirements of the next five years while at the same time offering simplicity, data security and the right price/performance ratio. Information Consulting then developed a spectrum of technology solutions, some of which were more traditional, others software defined, and still others hyperconvergent. Once the team from HTI had screened a variety of solutions, they decided to consult the other companies in the group. As it turned out, the various businesses had already come to the realisation that their rapid growth and geographical distances had created huge differences between the individual IT infrastructures in place at the miscellaneous IT locations of the group. This was presenting an obstacle to internal collaboration, since projects are delivered by the group across sites and a full range of winter sports technologies is covered. With a preference for the hyperconvergent solutions having crystallised, the company’s IT team requested a specific quotation based on HPE SimpliVity. The specialists at HPE then got together with the IT teams of the various IT locations of the group on the company’s premises in order to explore the possibilities offered by the SimpliVity infrastructure in detail, extending from differentiation vis-à-vis other hyperconvergent solutions on the market to better management, data protection, efficiency, scalability and performance of the workload.

• Improved performance and business continuity as well as reduction in downtime to zero
• Homogeneous, easy-to-manage infrastructure
• Immediately ready to support future requirements
• Ease of management and data security
• Optimisation of resources through a common infrastructure across the group

• Turnover in 2018 came to 1.21 billion euros
• Investment in 2018 reached 49.2 million euros