NetPlans and Atria
Cloud, Automated. NetPlans delivers for Germany’s SME sector using Atria.
About NetPlans
“NetPlans stands for professional cloud solutions and infrastructures specially designed for the requirements of medium-sized companies (SMEs).”
- 14 locations across Germany & Switzerland
- Founded in 1998
- Over 300 staff
- ISO-certified managed services
Founded in 1998, NetPlans is a leading IT Systems House in Germany, with a complete range of IT services delivered by 300 staff from 14 locations across Germany and Switzerland.
As the company has grown, NetPlans have transitioned many customers from on-premises servers to a range of cloud solutions.
Cloud Portfolio
- NetPlans Business Cloud: Complete IT solution delivered from NetPlans datacentres, optionally with Microsoft 365 services.
- German Cloud: Infrastructure services delivered from NetPlans cloud platform.
- Euro Cloud: Infrastructure solutions delivered via IONOS.
- Public Cloud: Solutions built on Microsoft Azure.
The Challenge
Delivering cloud IT at scale for mid-market customers
Resource-Intensive Support
Supporting many instances of infrastructure required a lot of skilled engineering resources. Multiple technologies—VMware, networking, Windows Server, Citrix—added complexity and required diverse skills.
Similar Effort, Any Size
The costs to provide IT services for a 10-user or 200-user business are similar, but smaller businesses can't justify enterprise costs. Without automation, human maintenance tasks repeat across customers—so growth can only come with headcount.
Human Error and Cost
Manual work creates risk: misplacing objects, mis-spellings, inconsistent naming, or even accidentally deleting data. Human error causes customer issues, erodes trust, and prevents true scale.
Immediate Impact on Service Desk
The onboarding of new service desk staff is now much faster – service desk staff can be immediately productive.
NetPlans
Engineering Team
The Solution
A modern automation platform for managed services and ISVs
NetPlans started with Citrix CloudPortal Services Manager in 2012 and have since upgraded to Atria, using Citrix Reference Architecture for scale.
Hundreds of customers operate across multiple Active Directory instances and Azure AD, managed via Atria. Reseller features help ISVs securely and efficiently host their apps for end customers.
Private infrastructure for each ISV, managed by Atria, lets them bring their own brand to the Atria portal while NetPlans handles backups, patching, and security.
Atria automates the process of creating new customers and users; most IT tasks are eliminated, with self-service for customers and helpdesks, not administrators.
Growth, Delivered
We do not know how we could have coped with our growth without Atria.
Daniel Schweikle
Head of Business Cloud Solutions, NetPlans
Benefit
Atria enabled NetPlans to:
With everything done the same way, mistakes are eliminated. Atria allows NetPlans to manage hundreds of customers through one portal, and shared ADs enable efficient virtual desktop delivery at scale.
Onboarding new service desk staff is now much faster—staff are productive immediately. Every customer is unique, but a quick, common onboarding process ensures a great start.
Atria’s licensing let NetPlans start small and grow without heavy upfront costs. In 10 years, the business cloud grew significantly—with minimal staff increases.
New customers can be fully set up, with all users and desktops, in under 2 hours. Bespoke onboarding and training typically completes in 1–3 weeks.
Result
Automation at scale, for NetPlans and their ISVs
Customers self-onboard new employees—with access to everything—in less than 2 minutes, without needing help from NetPlans.
ISVs use the NetPlans Business Cloud platform to manage their own customers and users, becoming a virtual cloud provider—without worrying about infrastructure or virtualization.
Technology Platform
The backbone of NetPlans' modern cloud services
Automation and delegated management for everything.
Proven, secure server foundation.
Direct CSP Partner for SaaS and hybrid services.
Powering efficient, secure virtual desktop delivery.
Scaling Efficiently
Doing more with less: the power of automation
2 engineers maintain 900+ virtual machines across 2 datacentres, delivering over 2,500 users with virtual desktops.
3 full-time staff continuously on-board new customers onto NetPlans Business Cloud.
Support cases for cloud, on-prem, and private/infrastructure customers are handled by NetPlans' shared service desk.
Thanks to high automation, NetPlans sees only 20–30 support cases per month for the entire platform.
What Makes the Difference
We don't need to know how the customer is setup, where they are located, no need to look up documentation, find passwords, log onto servers – Atria really delivers a huge time saving.
Daniel Schweikle
Head of Business Cloud Solutions, NetPlans
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