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Qvest ensures smooth operation at Cologne Bonn Airport
- 22 November, 2022
GER: Everything under control, optimal resource management and resilient by design: Cologne Bonn Airport has put a new Airport Operation Control Center (AOCC) into operation with the support of Qvest. In the state-of-the-art control center, airport employees can now plan, operate, and monitor all processes relating to flight operations, passengers, and cargo in real time, from arrival to departure. Qvest designed and installed the technical infrastructure, which fulfill the most stringent requirements in terms of functionality and operational reliability.
In the new AOCC, the airport team now has all the relevant information for the optimum coordination of all operational processes at a glance at all times. In addition, the new control center enables direct communication between internal and external partners, flexible planning, and fast, process-oriented decisions even in the event of deviations from regular operations, for example, due to weather events. The AOCC features 24 workstations as well as a nearly 15-meter-wide video wall composed of 20 LED screens. All information relevant to airport operations, such as weather data or special airport apps, is displayed there. A central component of the AOCC's IT environment is the high-availability KVM system. Implemented by Qvest, this multi-level redundancy concept offers the highest level of fail-safety for continuous operation and enables rapid interaction between staff in the control center through data-loss-free switching in real time.
The project team at Cologne Bonn Airport defined very high requirements for the availability of the IT systems for these safety-critical processes in the AOCC. The Qvest experts have implemented a solution that offers maximum flexibility and ease of use in addition to redundancy. This is ensured by the spatial separation of both the server and the workstation systems. The highly available KVM solution consists of two modular matrix switches, which connect the KVM signals of the computers and sources to the monitors and peripheral devices such as keyboard and mouse at all workstations. The arrangement of the sources at the monitors of the workstations can be assigned and configured as required. Due to the diverse, essential access options to the computers at different operator workstations in the AOCC, Qvest implemented the KVM matrix with an IHSE Draco tera enterprise system. Critical components are designed for hot swap, which means that they can be changed during operation if necessary. In addition, multiple signals are supported - such as KVM, USB 3.0 and SDI - and additional media controllers can be connected via an API.
The new Airport Operation Control Center in Terminal 1 with a view of the aprons, cargo area, large runway, and landside, for example, has a total area of around 500 square meters. In addition to the control center, the AOCC also has social, office, meeting, and technical rooms for the airport team. Starting in December 2022, the Qvest team will conduct training sessions with the employees of the AOCC at Cologne Bonn Airport so that they are optimally trained for all new technical processes. Operation of the new AOCC is scheduled to start - initially in parallel with regular operations - in February 2023.
Pictures courtesy: Cologne Bonn Airport.
