Blessed to Chill

Revolutionizing refrigeration

The next time you grab a nice cold one, whether your beverage of choice is coming out of a vending machine or a refrigeration unit at the supermarket, there’s a chance you have Rivacold to thank for it. The Italian refrigeration specialists are so adept at creating advanced cooling systems and components for those systems that one could almost imagine an Arctic iceberg calling for tips on staying frosty.

The company is a model of efficiency, advanced technologies, customized products, and reliability, making the brand a standard bearer within the industrial and commercial refrigeration market. Rivacold delivers equipment with three main product ranges: refrigeration systems, heat exchangers, and truck refrigeration.

Cool under pressure

Rivacold was originally established in 1966 as a supplier of condensing units and hermetic systems to manufacturers of refrigerated counters and cabinets. As a result, through the years the company reached an important position as a manufacturer and distributor of components to the refrigeration and air conditioning industry in general.

Rivacold is a leading company in the manufacture of plant and refrigeration equipment that consists of three main product ranges:

Refrigerating systems: This includes compressor receiver sets, open and housed condensing units, packaged and split systems, multi-compressor packs and integrated systems.

Heat exchangers: Features air cooled and compact condensers, static evaporators, unit coolers.

Truck refrigeration: Includes battery- and direct-driven refrigerating systems for trucks.

Davide Benatti has been with Rivacold for 10 years, the last three as chief information officer. When it comes to the cost of investing in the best technology and security systems for the company, cooler heads always prevail.

“I have found a company that trusts in technology tools, which is uncommon,” says Benatti. “Working in the morning in a dynamic environment that connects you with some of the best people in the technology world is very stimulating. This allows you to stay current on where the technology market is going.”

Keeping things cool

Since Rivacold’s business is primarily B2B, the most sensitive data that needs protection is mainly technological, such as project designs, technical drawings of systems, or intellectual property.

“If such information were to reach the market, it could pose a direct risk to the company’s business,” Benatti says.

In addition, Rivacold has a dedicated and certified division that conducts laboratory tests for clients who need their systems appraised.

“In this case as well,” Benatti says, “client data, tested systems, and obtained results must be safeguarded with the highest level of security.”

The cold, hard facts are that customers expect Rivacold’s products and solutions to be on point and at the best price on the market. A data security breach would certainly have a chilling effect on that earned trust.

Secure trust in security

Rivacold uses two complete on-prem data centers located a few hundred meters apart. The company does utilize cloud service, but it’s private and not stored on a public cloud.

The two data centers mirror each other so that when one has a problem, the other can back up all the activity.

Benatti reports that the company classifies about 10 terabytes of cold data (files that are not frequently accessed) and 15 terabytes of hot data (files that are accessed frequently and readily available). Rivacold relies on NetApp solutions to protect all company data.

Benatti points to two examples to illustrate the speed and accuracy of NetApp’s security interventions.

The first occurred following the failure of an uninterruptible power supply, which caused all servers connected to that UPS to go down. But NetApp’s MetroCluster solution seamlessly switched everything to the second data center within seconds.

“Users were unaware of anything that was happening,” Benatti says. “This was incredible.”

NetApp’s Data Infrastructure Insights kept things chill in the second example. The software alerted the IT team that a user was deleting a massive amount of files. Immediately, the system took a snapshot of the files and blocked that user so the team could verify exactly what was happening.

As it turns out, this was a legal user of the company who was simply cleaning out a lot of files. Benatti said the damage could be devastating if a ransomware attack happened on a weekend when nobody was working.

Keeping it cool

In recent years, data security has become an integral part of the corporate ecosystem, significantly improving security, reliability, and data management.

At Rivacold, NetApp’s new hardware platforms and software services for data protection and classification ensure greater operational continuity, reducing the risk of losing critical information and providing the ability to respond effectively to security regulations.

It all translates into increased reliability for Rivacold’s eventual end consumers, who can rely on a solid and secure infrastructure to deliver a positively chilling effect when they open a refrigeration unit — whether they’re reaching for a healthy yogurt or a tub of ice cream.

Benatti says NetApp’s intelligent data software has Rivacold situated ideally for the foreseeable future.

“Knowing that we have a partner in NetApp, who is capable of developing not only state-of-the-art hardware platforms but also software solutions that provide complete control over the data and its management, represents a crucial added value,” says Benatti. “That value forms the foundation of a trusted relationship set to last for years to come.”