Case study: How are the IT systems of Eesti Energia maintained?

Whether lights in our rooms stay on and the electricity we use is conveniently accessible no longer depends solely on the reliability of stations. The role of the IT infrastructure is equally important, as it runs systems that help to secure the generation and distribution of power and ensure the reliability of the services provided to business and private customers by the largest energy group in Estonia.

The company has over 600,000 customers. We asked Tarmo Tulva, Head of IT Infrastructure of Eesti Energia, about laying the foundations of the IT systems for one of the largest companies in Estonia, whether it is better to manage IT infrastructure yourself or to outsource it as a service, and whether customers and employees would notice the relocation of an entire data center.

Many organisations are afraid of owning IT infrastructure. In which instances is it justified, when is it not reasonable, and which path have you chosen?

In my experience, it pays to have your own infrastructure if the company is large. It is definitely reasonable for a group the size of Eesti Energia. However, in the past, I have worked in organisations where I as the IT manager had to manage outsourcing everything. If you have the capacity to hire one or two employees for IT and need ten virtual servers, there is no point in doing it yourself and relying on external partners would make sense. This way, you can focus solely on your business. However, the IT unit of Eesti Energia employs more than 300 people. At this scale, it makes sense to manage the infrastructure yourself. The systems, networks, and locations are all complex enough to require a partner to maintain an IT team of a similar size to keep it up and running. You could not just do two hours of work a week for Eesti Energia and use the rest of the time for providing services to others.

What can be gained from managing your IT infrastructure?

A peace of mind that you always have necessary technical expertise in-house. Moreover, partners will invariably claim that they have the capacity and the skills to provide all the required services, but there is no way for us to check what they know and who are providing the services. Know-how within your team means more control, faster decisions, and a quicker response. Naturally, this also entails a responsibility to deal with staff, which would not be the case with a partner. Ultimately, scale matters. For large companies, it makes sense to keep infrastructure in-house.

What kind of strategy has Eesti Energia used for building and managing IT infrastructure over the last decade?

I have been working in the IT sector for 25 years, but I have been employed by Eesti Energia only for the last two years, so I can speak mostly about this period. Our direction is clearly towards having multiple data centers with a similar capacity and enough hardware resources to cover all business needs and disaster recovery capabilities in the data centers. This is what we strive for in our daily work.

To what extent have these targets been achieved to date?

I should probably describe it more like a journey. We can never be fully ready because the world is constantly evolving. Nevertheless, we are in a much stronger position than we were two years ago. There are certainly things that continue to need attention and adaptation.

What is the overall footprint of the IT infrastructure of Eesti Energia today?

In the grand scheme of things, we keep the production-related information systems at the production site (information about power production is collected and processed at the plants for efficiency purposes – ed.) and the rest of the systems centrally in data centers.

What are your strategic objectives for the near future?

As the unit responsible for the IT infrastructure of Eesti Energia Group, which also includes Enefit Power, Enefit Green, Elektrilevi, Enefit Connect, Enefit Solutions, and subsidiaries in Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Finland in addition to Eesti Energia, we must provide a stable, high-quality, and reliable infrastructure for our business services. If we can do this and are prepared to deal with the unexpected, then our job is done. Naturally, technology changes over time with new devices, new solutions, and new platforms coming out, constantly changing the game. Still, our goals remain the same.

How will the consumer, the so-called man on the street, benefit from these developments?

Consumers have certainly benefited from improved reliability. If I look at it from my end, or from the point of view of infrastructure – the less we are noticed, the better our service.

So the golden rule of IT is – if no one talks about you, then you have done a good job?

This is not always the case for business services. If you develop a new service or software, your customers will notice. In the case of infrastructure and data centers, however, as long as everything is up and running, developers can get on with their work, and products and services are available, we tend to be invisible to the outsider. And perhaps it is a good thing that we are.

Speaking of standing out – Eesti Energia has recently garnered attention with its good financial results. Does this create opportunities for IT development and to what extent?

For as long as I have worked here, I have always been able to do what was needed. But that does not mean you can splurge. We must always keep efficiency in mind, whether we are developing infrastructure, business services, or applications.

Today, many organisations have chosen the hybrid cloud route. How have you found the balance between storing data on your own premises, in data centers, and in a public cloud?

Essentially, we are using all of these options. We do not dictate to a developer of an application or service within the group where to host their things. We will not force them onto our premises or into our cloud. It is the developer’s choice. There are pros and cons for both options, and cost certainly plays a big role.

I remember that a few years ago, there was a popular tendency in the wider tech world to move everything to the cloud. For a company the size of ours, it does not make sense, financially or otherwise. Data centers are an indispensable part of the infrastructure. In addition, there is a whole range of applications that must be on site, for example by power production units in power plants, that cannot be moved elsewhere. In other words, you have to have your own infrastructure.

Tarmo Tulva. Foto: Eesti Energia.

What could be the breakdown in three or five years’ time? Is consolidation an important direction for you?

Yes, definitely. I’ve been in the industry for a long time, and over time, you can see how network connections are getting ever better and keeping things spread all over Estonia is no longer technologically necessary. This makes it easier to manage the whole system, more accessible, more cost-effective, and we can create different disaster recovery plans. Consolidation has many advantages.

What do you look for and value most in a data center?

A data center must be built to standards and designed from the ground up as a data center. It has to be completed to a high standard – otherwise, we cannot be sure that our systems will function properly.

This is why we have decided not to build data centers ourselves, although it might seem like a logical idea to a casual observer. After all, Eesti Energia owns large power plants and it would make a lot of sense to construct a building next to it and fill it with servers. Moreover, power would be nearly free of charge. However, a data center for us means more than a building with electricity. It entails so many nuances ranging from power, cooling, and security to communication systems. This is not part of our business and therefore not worth building ourselves.

The second aspect is the size of our infrastructure, which is getting smaller over time. Servers are constantly getting more powerful while fitting into ever smaller shells. The number of units requiring accommodation keeps dropping. Eesti Energia had quite a few rows of servers six or seven years ago, but today, we can manage with much less, and looking ahead, our footprint will shrink even further.

What were your reasons for your recent search for a new data center?

We had several data centers before moving to GDC. Unfortunately, one of them was in an inconvenient location for us. Although all the conditions were in place for a data center, the distance from Tallinn and the speed and cost of data connection limited our technical possibilities. As mentioned before, the amount and size of equipment changes over time, but in our previous location, we had a fixed amount of space for the data center in terms of price and square metres. We value the flexibility of our new data center to add or give away space as needed.

In the end, what was the most important criterion for choosing a data center?

Ultimately, it was the communication link between our two data centers, its cost, capacity, and quality. The final solution between GDC and our other locations turned out brilliantly, giving us a lot of additional technical possibilities. In addition, we wanted to mitigate risks and use different service providers.

Eesti Energia provides critical services across Estonia. Was the relocation of equipment smooth?

We made quite a thorough plan. We started making detailed preparations for the move nearly half a year before we finally switched off the units and loaded them on vehicles. The most challenging part of the move was reconfiguring our networks and services to ensure that everything kept running when a part of the system was relocated and set up in the new location. Some of the functions also had to be temporarily halted for the move. There were a lot of technical details.

However, the whole process went beautifully. Over the weekend, we took down all the equipment in one place and set it up at GDC. When people came to work on Monday, they essentially failed to notice any difference.

Based on this experience, what would you recommend others in a similar situation?

I have been involved in a number of relocations. My first suggestion is to plan as far in advance as possible to avoid unexpected disruption and downtime. Of course, you cannot rule out the unexpected, but you can minimise it. If you do not have any previous experience in relocation, you should ask for advice. Naturally, the whole process also depends on the complexity of the systems, the structure of applications, and business requirements. There is a big difference between a business saying apps not being available at the weekend is no problem versus a business stating that the maximum downtime is 10 seconds and not a millisecond more. That it is not our business how you manage the move. In this case, the entire process must be planned differently.

We were able to move the data and applications digitally off the servers we were relocating. When it came to transporting physical items, we shut down empty servers and took them with us. This way, it was much easier.

What changed for you with the move to GDC?

The overall reliability improved significantly. We gained new disaster recovery capabilities that were not available before. For us, this is the most important thing. We now have equal hardware capabilities across our data centers, and if something should happen in one, we would be able to recover much faster. Risks are lower.

In addition, our response speed improved. It used to take several hours to drive to the location of the previous data center and transport spare parts or even specialists, for example. Today, we can do it much faster. Should a failure or major issue occur, the time it takes to resolve it is critical.

What is your opinion of GDC so far?

They have been splendid. We have wonderful contact persons whom we can call immediately with any issues to sort things out. They are extremely cooperative, and so far, there have been no issues. They have a well-constructed building with the best capacity that is nearly unparalleled in Estonia.