Fraport AG, the property owners of Frankfurt Airport, recently completed an installation of IHSE’s KVM (keyboard, video, mouse) switch and extender products in their Airside Coordination and Data Center (ACDC).
- The system is being used to manage and control the demanding 24/7 operations of the airport complex. After detailed collaboration between IHSE and Fraport, the decision was made to install four Draco tera compact matrix switches to distribute data to the control center and three tera compact matrix switches to be used in the companies training rooms for apron simulation.
- Frankfurt Airport is the largest airport in Germany and the third largest in Europe handling approximately 58 million passengers per year. The complex itself covers 23 square kilometers and houses over 500 companies and institutions with approximately 78,000 employees. Fraport AG provides facilities to major airline companies as well as the German Air Navigation Services, public authorities and airport terminal concessions.
- “What we appreciate most about IHSE, besides their perfect technology, is the personal contact and constant availability for customer support,” said Jorg Schulewski, Control Center Expert at Fraport. “In a collegial atmosphere, we were able to develop an excellent KVM concept together. Our specific needs and requirements for customization were swiftly and efficiently implemented.”
- The IHSE KVM solution gave Fraport the ability to reduce and manage the environmental conditions within the control center’s operational rooms while optimizing the center’s working conditions. By remotely locating the equipment room away from the operation center’s work area the KVM signals were transferred by the Draco vario and Draco compact extenders using existing Cat7 infrastructure. Additionally, with IHSE’s mix & match technology for Cat-X and Fiber Optic cabling, part of the KVM signals were transmitted via fiber optics to other locations throughout the complex without any degradation or latency in signal integrity. This provided control room operation managers the confidence that display resolutions and data distribution world be quick and complication-free throughout.
- The complete system utilizes four Draco tera compact 64 port Cat7 KVM switchers for the ACDC, three 48 port Cat7 switchers for the apron simulations and an assortment of point-to-point fiber extenders to the large display monitors located in the apron simulation rooms. Single Link DVI high definition video extenders (1920 x 1200) were used to transfer optimum image quality while also offering near zero delay. Multi-screen control allowed switching between different monitors by simply moving the mouse cursor.
- Each workstation provided the configuration of up to four virtual clients allowing control center operators access to HD video and its necessary data at any location any time. Apron trainee controllers were also able to concentrate on controlling simulations without distraction or interruption to the live system.
- “As a proven leader in the KVM market, we are committed to providing the highest quality technologies so that companies like Fraport can continue to push boundaries with high resolution video control and data management,” said Manny Patel, president of IHSE USA. “The deployment of our Draco tera compact and vario products will allow Fraport to create a smooth workflow and trouble-free operations center while reducing their operational staff’s exposure to noise and heat pollution of computer CPUs.”
