Friedhelm Loh Group bundles expertise: German Edge Cloud is formed from three start-ups

Edge Cloud has made a name for itself with its ONCITE solution. Founded within the Friedhelm Loh Group, the company offers the first turnkey edge cloud data centre for the smart analysis of production data and the networking of factories globally. With ONCITE, customers make their data available quickly, easily and securely in networked environments and use it to add value through data analytics, in a data sovereign manner that is independent of a cloud platform. This solution offers one major competitive advantage, especially for manufacturing companies: Digital transformation by edge computing in combination with secure connections to public and private clouds is just as important as constant process improvement.

With the expertise from the previous sister company iNNOVO Cloud, the company employs specialists in the automation, migration, operation and service of distributed applications in multi-cloud architectures. The range of products and services of the former iNNOVO covers everything from edge platforms such as ONCITE to its own virtual private and public cloud solutions. German Edge Cloud is now benefiting from iNNOVO’s many years of experience as a stable cloud platform service provider for the fintech and banking sector. Customers choose platform and service components from a modular system and is thus able to precisely tailor the solutions to their needs. This means that customers can also rely on professionally managed services and round-the-clock operation seven days a week, both in industry and in other sectors and business areas.

The offers are rounded off by software applications and integration services from the former IoTOS. Expertise in industry-specific IT landscapes, complex production control and in manufacturing execution systems (MESs) is available for customers. The German Edge Cloud supports them in facing the challenges in their quest to implement the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT).

All-all-in-one solutions from a single source

With this unique combination in its array of solutions, German Edge Cloud is now a full-service provider. It offers services ranging from consulting to implementation to the operation of software applications on customer-owned clouds, a hyperscaler cloud or on GEC’s own cloud or edge infrastructure, without any vendor lock-in. Dr Sebastian Ritz, Managing Director the German Edge Cloud said: “Since we offer everything from a single source, our customers receive a consolidated solution for heterogeneous data landscapes and the corresponding expertise. Previously, customers had needed several different partners, for example a system house, a service integrator and a consulting company. At the same time, we operate as a cloud automation partner for software companies.”

“We are focussing on open, rapidly deployable and data-sovereign edge and cloud solutions,” explains Dieter Meuser, who is also a Managing Director of German Edge Cloud: “German Edge Cloud’s solutions are modular and scalable. This will allow our customers to react to changing market needs at any time, in the future too.”

Data sovereignty for industry and GAIA-X

“Digitisation and creating value through data is a prerequisite for future viability and international competitiveness, especially in manufacturing industry,” says Professor Friedhelm Loh, Owner and CEO of the Friedhelm Loh Group: “When they are networking via clouds, companies want to maintain full control over their data and protect their top asset: their expertise. German Edge Cloud offers turnkey solutions for this.”

The entrepreneur recommends what is being used in the Friedhelm Loh Group: “When setting up our digitally integrated production at Rittal’s new factory in Haiger, we had the need for data analytics with full data sovereignty. No less than 18 terabytes of data are generated here every day. We want to use this data to create value. We have developed the first solution for this with German Edge Cloud, and are now also supporting our customers in this future task.”

The ONCITE edge cloud data centre is making a decisive contribution to the development of a secure European data infrastructure with its deployment at customers. With its German Edge Cloud subsidiary, the Friedhelm Loh Group is one of the founding members of GAIA-X. Professor Loh was one of the initiators of this major project, which was launched by Peter Altmaier, Germany’s Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy in autumn 2019.

GEC, which is embedded within the Friedhelm Loh Group, draws on its sister company Rittal’s knowledge of industry and the high-quality edge hardware. As a result, the solutions can also be used by customers in tough industrial environments and with the most stringent demands. Thanks to the use of ONCITE at the Rittal factory in Haiger, GEC can draw on a wealth of experience and is aware of the typical hurdles and special requirements of customers in manufacturing industry. It knows what matters.

About German Edge Cloud GmbH & Co. KG

German Edge Cloud (GEC) specialises in edge and cloud systems for data-sensitive companies. The goal of GEC’s solutions is to make data quickly, easily and securely available in networked environments and to give the customer full data sovereignty. 

In association with partners from industry and research, solutions that can be quickly and easily implemented are developed with which companies from different industries can solve digitisation challenges with greater efficiency and so achieve digital added value.

GEC acts as a developer and service integrator for flexible turnkey solutions and offers both its own and partner-related industry-specific systems with the appropriate mix of edge, private and public cloud elements.

German Edge Cloud integrates and operates hybrid private edge cloud infrastructures from Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) to Platform as a Service (PaaS) and industry-specific applications in the Software as a Service (SaaS) model. As a founding member of the “GAIA-X” project, German Edge Cloud pursues the goal of interoperable platform solutions without any vendor lock-in from the customer’s perspective.

German Edge Cloud belongs to the owner-managed Friedhelm Loh Group. The group is active worldwide, with 12 production sites and 96 international subsidiaries. It has 12,100 employees and posted revenues of €2.6 billion in fiscal 2019.

www.gec.io and www.friedhelm-loh-group.com

Friedhelm Loh Group

A global player, the Friedhelm Loh Group (F.L.G.) invents, develops, and makes made-to-measure products and integrated solutions for manufacturers, distributors, and other businesses. Member companies of the Group lead their respective industries in innovation and quality. They include the world’s leading provider of modular platforms for enclosures, power distribution, climate control and IT infrastructure (Rittal); Europe’s number one supplier of software solutions for plant engineering, general engineering, and manufacturing; and a specialist in integrated manufacturing with state-of-the-art materials – steel, aluminium, and plastics.

The family-owned enterprise maintains a worldwide presence, with 12 production sites and 96 subsidiaries. Managed by founder Prof. Friedhelm Loh himself, the Group employs 12,100 people and generated revenues of €2.6 billion in 2019. In 2020, it was named one of Germany’s leading employers by the Top Employers Institute, for the twelfth year running. Within the scope of a Germany-wide survey, Focus Money magazine identified the Friedhelm Loh Group as one of the nation’s best providers of vocational training for the fifth time in 2020.

For more information, visit www.friedhelm-loh-group.com.