The Menken kitchen benefits from powerful performance thanks to Dell Technologies and IT creation

If you walk into the supermarket, you will probably encounter the products of the Menken kitchen everywhere without realizing it. The Menken kitchen is responsible for spreads, sauces, packaged meats and carpaccio under private label. The company's sales market consists of supermarkets and large retail, hospitality and catering companies in both the Netherlands and Europe.

The challenge

What started as a family business grew into a multi-million dollar company with over 350 employees. With an IBM AS400 and an outdated I-Make ERP system whose support had expired, it was time for Arno Sanberg, ICT Manager, to innovate and digitize De Menken keuken. Due to the arrival of a new ERP system, it was decided to change the entire server environment. “For us, it was important that production would be affected as little as possible by the renewal of our IT infrastructure. Production is just-in-time, so if there is IT downtime, production quickly comes to a complete standstill. The entire company relies on our automation.” The choice for an on-premise environment was quite obvious for De Menken keuken. “Our new ERP system can run on an on-premise environment as well as in the cloud. In addition, we are dependent on one fiber optic cable and a lot of industry is being built nearby, which often affects the connection. An on-premise environment therefore suited us better.”

The solution

“We started talking to Dell Technologies, and instead of thinking from the product perspective, they looked at the problems we were facing.” The most important thing for the new infrastructure at De Menken keuken was the uptime, which was also one of the problems before. In order to guarantee uptime, a mirrored setup was ultimately chosen, divided over both locations. Arno: “Our requirements, wishes and costs were mapped out and the overall picture was just right.” Dell Technologies also spoke highly of IT creation as a partner. “IT creation thought in solutions during the entire process. Because they always gave us advice on performance, capacity and backup, everything became clear.”

The new IT environment

This created a new environment in which live volume replication takes place at storage level, making the data available at both locations. The goal of the final solution chosen was to build in redundancy and reliability. With the desire to automate as much as possible, so that in the event of a disaster, as few human actions as possible are required to switch to the backup location. In order to meet this desire, in addition to using Dell EMC hardware, VMware's virtualization products were chosen to automate HA functionality. "What we find so great about this collaboration is that Dell Technologies delivers more than just its products and provides us with targeted advice.

In addition, the dedication of a 'Dell only partner' like IT creation is something we really appreciate. They helped us to transfer our entire IT infrastructure to Dell Technologies,” says Arno Sanberg.

High performance

The offered solution deals with the licenses, resources and available budget as smartly as possible, without compromising on functionality. “Our performance has increased by more than 150% and our remote desktop memory by 200%. Thanks to the structured project approach and the dedication of the employees of both project management and sales, everything runs like clockwork. We now have a truly modern and impressive IT environment!”