Data center

HARDWARE OF OUR DATA MANUFACTORY

To maintain absolute control over our customers' data, we work exclusively on our own hardware and manage all systems ourselves. The sky above the cloud-free zone is blue...

Since December 2017, our IT platform has been hosted at the Telehouse data center in Frankfurt's Gallus district.

Since the summer of 2025 (relocation within the data center), a half rack has provided more space. At the end of 2025, the two newest machines moved in:

• energy and network technology (ATS, firewalls, a router) are located at the top
• six servers for workstations, applications, and backup occupy the middle
• drawers make materials and tools disappear

The server with the IBM logo is a ‘System x3650 M4’ – it's mxben's very first machine. It went into operation in February 2014 and has undergone numerous upgrades to date. We are so grateful for its reliability over many years that we will continue to use this server for meaningful tasks until it can no longer do so. Bless you, Methuselah!

At the top rear are two switches, including the Internet uplink, below power distribution, various small devices, and the reasonably tamed cable clutter...

Here is the inside of a server: you see the copper heat pipes, which transfer the heat from the processors - up to 360 watts - to the air flow. Are you thinking of a toy steam engine now, too?

IT and sustainability

are not necessarily contradictory: preserving value and avoiding waste go hand in hand for us. This works because we have invested in high-quality, durable, powerful, and expandable components from the outset, which remain technically sound and economically viable even after a long period of use. In order to reduce power consumption while maintaining the same functionality, we replaced a device for the first time in July 2025.

In addition, Moore's law has lost its magic on closer inspection: It is true that the density of integrated circuits in commercially available chips continues to double every 18-24 months. But because conventional manufacturing techniques have long since approached physical limits, density and computing speed are no longer in constant proportion. Today, performance enhancement in hardware is mainly achieved by parallelization rather than by increasing speed. To oversimplify, it's like adding a second or third engine under the hood to increase the top speed of a car.

We are therefore following the research results on quantum computers with great interest ;-)

Energy consumption

All of this is powered by renewable electricity. Currently (12/2025), our machines consume between 1.4 and 2.0 kW (peak load) of electrical power. This corresponds to around one megawatt hour (1,000 kWh) of electricity per month. However, a modern wind turbine (onshore) produces this amount of energy in less than 10 minutes.

In addition, there are costs for the redundant power supply as well as the removal of the resulting heat. All in all, this adds up to a considerable sum. We are all the more pleased that our data center operator (Telehouse) is pursuing innovative concepts for waste heat utilization together with Mainova AG.