Scalable and flexible: Systemair migrates its PIM system to the Microsoft Cloud

Whether in server rooms, hospitals, or car tunnels, Systemair’s ventilation, heating, and cooling systems offer tailored solutions for better air quality. Founded in Sweden over 50 years ago, the company is now a global group with its own sales organization in more than 50 countries and a diverse product portfolio. As Systemair has expanded over time, so have the volumes of data and product information—but these need to remain manageable. That’s why it has opted for a centralized system based on Microsoft Azure that can keep pace with the company in a flexible and scalable manner.

The challenge: Limited capacity in the on-premises landscape

The technicians are already waiting for the delivery— Systemair needs a new server, and it has to be installed flawlessly. With such important hardware, installation takes time: connections must be checked and tests carried out. Once the server is up and running, specialists have to visit the data center regularly to ensure that it’s functioning properly. This was the process Systemair had to go through in the past whenever it needed to install the hardware for new servers in its data center—and this happened frequently due to the company’s constant growth. “Our products are used almost everywhere where there is air. We’re constantly adding new innovations, which means our company and our product portfolio are growing all the time,” explains Mathias Kuhn, Product Owner PIM & Team Leader of Software Application Development at Systemair.

Technical specifications for sales staff, photos for product catalogs, and descriptions for the website—Systemair stores, maintains, and manages all this product information and much more in its central product information management (PIM) system. Data from other systems, such as the ERP system, is also integrated into this. That makes the PIM system the central data hub for the company and the basis from which various front-end applications retrieve their information. For example, it provides the markets with product information in line with their country-specific requirements.

As a result, the system has many branches and has to handle large, complex, and constantly growing volumes of data. The on-premises data center and the physical servers were reaching their limits. “To continue processing data on this scale, we would have needed additional local servers. For us, that would have meant long waiting times, lots of work for employees, and enormous costs,” Kuhn says. “At the same time, we need to be in a position to provide our product information to more and more target groups. The old on-premises solution was very restrictive in this respect, which made it no longer sustainable for us.”

For this reason, Systemair decided to work together with its long-standing partner Viamedici to migrate the PIM system to the Azure cloud platform.

The solution: More scalability and less administrative effort in the Microsoft Cloud

With the move to Microsoft Azure, the EPIM system that Viamedici has set up for Systemair comprises six virtual machines in the production environment and six virtual machines in the test environment. One virtual machine hosts the database, another runs the services, and the rest handle data transfers; together they make up the overall system. The system architecture consistently follows the MACH approach: microservices, API-first, cloud-native, and headless, meaning MACH architecture has a modular, flexible IT structure.

Ordering and providing servers, hiring specialists, and traveling to the data center in Sweden are now definitely a thing of the past. “Today, cloud services are available immediately, while updates run smoothly and don’t require any downtime. Azure services monitor the system automatically,” reports Simone Weilacher, Business Consultant at Viamedici. “This drastically minimizes costs compared to the previous local solution.”

Thanks to the high scalability of the new cloud basis, Systemair can now expand its PIM system quickly and easily. “This allows us to react flexibly to business developments such as new products in the portfolio, increased data requirements, or the integration of new markets and target groups,” Kuhn says. “As we grow as a company, now our infrastructure will simply grow with us thanks to Microsoft Azure. We can integrate new virtual machines to expand and optimize our PIM system quickly and easily—and without long waiting times.” At the same time, the higher speed of data exchange at the international level makes for better connectivity.

As part of the migration, Systemair also moved the PIM system’s many interfaces as well as connected systems and applications to the cloud. This step simplifies communication between the system and its interfaces and makes managing those interfaces easier. Local systems, such as the ERP system, will continue to be connected via hybrid solutions. “This is how we’re pursuing our company’s cloud strategy and setting the stage for future system growth,” Kuhn says.

One expansion of the system is already being implemented: in the future, a real-time engine will optimize external communication and thus eliminate delays, for example when updating product descriptions on the website. Additional virtual machines are being implemented in the environment for this purpose. Today, nobody has to sit around waiting for servers—with Microsoft Azure, new capacity is available immediately. And Systemair’s PIM system is ready for the future.