The Largest Lottery in Netherlands: De Nederlandse Staatsloterij

The Dutch National Lottery

More chances, more money! Since 1726, that has been the simple explanation for the popularity of the National Lottery, the oldest and largest lottery of the Netherlands. The total turnover of the Dutch National Lottery, resulting from the joint turnover of the National Lottery, Dayzers and TicketBox, added up to approximately 699 million Euro in 2003. The Dutch National Lottery paid out almost 455 million euro of prize money (64 percent of the turnover), while always guaranteeing the anonymity of the winners.

The IT back office of the Dutch National Lottery is the backbone of the organization. To prevent a system shutdown, the organization has an alternative location.

Overtime work

Server maintenance is always planned very carefully, to make sure that the servers are always available during office hours. Once a month, eight employees work overtime in the evening to carry out maintenance tasks.

During this maintenance, the consoles for the various servers were shared in the data center, which made authorization quite difficult. Fred Meijer, System and Network Management Coordinator explains: “The system authorization was not our only challenge. Valuable time was lost because our operators had to wait for a console to be available. That’s rather annoying, especially when working overtime.” Jeroen Groeneweg, System Manager, adds: “Our operators often had to be physically present, which increases the risk of a system being down caused by a human factor. Moreover, every time the door opens, the climate control is influenced negatively.”

The Dutch National Lottery registered considerable growth over the last few years, mainly because of the strong growth of Internet activities. Fred Meijer: “We needed workplaces for our new colleagues and additional space in the data center.” 

Dutch National Lottery headquarters, The Hague

Unfortunately, there was no additional available space in the building.

The winning ticket

The Raritan CommandCenter Secure Gateway appeared to be the winning ticket. With this solution it is possible to control 4 KVM-over-IP solutions (Dominion KX216, two IP users and one local user for 16 servers).

With the CommandCenter Secure Gateway, all IT equipment is accessible, which means that the National Lottery has one access point and one user administration.

Square meters

Our employees can now access the hybrid server environment from their own workplace, so we no longer need a lot of consoles. The old console room is now the working place of three employees. Moreover, removing the consoles from the data center creates additional rack space in the server room. Fred Meijer: “In all, we have up to 25 percent additional space available.”

"Thanks to Raritan, our overtime hours have decreased significantly,which saves us valuable time"
Fred Meijer
Network Management Coordinator, Dutch National Lottery
Anytime, anywhere

The enterprise solution has a positive effect on efficiency. Fred Meijer continues: “We don’t have to wait anymore until a console becomes available. Thanks to Raritan, our overtime hours have decreased significantly, which saves us valuable time.”

The alternative location is also being managed from the workplace, which resulted in a significant decrease in travel time between two buildings. To summarize, the enterprise solution means a considerably cost reduction for the Dutch National Lottery.

Security

The Dutch National Lottery also benefits from important security advantages. The IP signal for KVM (Keyboard, Video and Mouse) is encrypted and the actions of employees are registered on the servers. The stand-alone solution works independently of an operating system, which means that the security of the management tool does not depend on the security level of an operating system.

Fred Meijer (System and Network Management Coordinator) and Jeroen Groeneweg (System Manager) of the Dutch National Lottery.

“There’s less need for us to be physically present in the server room. This is not only favorable for climate control, the risk of human errors is also reduced.” The optimal ratio price/quality eventually was the deciding factor in our decision,” said Fred Meijer.

Learn More About Raritan
Customer

“De Nederlandse Staatsloterij” - Dutch National Lottery

Challenges

Optimize usage of space and management process.

Solutions

The solution offers control over four KVM-over-IP solutions (Dominion KX216, two IP users and one local user for 16 servers). The hybrid IT equipment is accessible through the CommandCenter® Secure Gateway, which means that the National Lottery has one access point and one user administration.

Results
  • Cost-reducing
  • Less overtime work
  • Additional workspaces
  • Structured and conveniently arranged server space

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