NetApp Frees up Capacity for Innovation

Service 7000 AG specializes in the repair, sales, and installation of large household appliances of all brands, such as washing machines, cooking range hoods, and dishwashers. Its employees carry out almost 100,000 field service calls per year — i.e., serving property owners who are in charge of maintaining these devices for their tenants. To optimize the efficiency and sustainability of their services, NetApp’s stable and fast infrastructure provides the basis for the continuous optimization of IT processes.

Service 7000’s proprietary ERP system — which includes numerous APIs to third-party systems — is hosted entirely in-house. Customized processes ensure that everything always runs smoothly and quickly for customers and their tenants, from repair requests by property management in the customer portal to appointment scheduling in the tenant portal, sales, status tracking, route planning for all on-site assignments, and repair decisions based on AI forecasts.

Marco Cathomas, member of the management board at Service 7000 as well as its IT manager and head of risk management for 19 years, is passionate about individually designed processes for efficient and successful customer relationships. One risk associated with high technical demands? The high level of complexity when a maintenance-intensive system depends on highly specialized employees. If the infrastructure is unstable and maintenance-intensive, employees lack the capacity for process engineering. “In our daily business, we need the performance and storage that NetApp offers,” explains Marco Cathomas. “All backups must be completed overnight. Otherwise there will be problems for our teams the next day.”

For several years now, every household appliance repaired or newly installed by Service 7000 receives a QR code that bundles all relevant device, repair and customer data. These data simplify communication with tenants, speed up the procurement of the correct spare parts and make it easier to decide whether a replacement device is necessary or a more sustainable repair would suffice.

Since January 2025, an AI engine has been statistically analyzing the linked appliance and repair data from 30 years of company history. The AI software runs on one of a total of 70 virtualized servers hosted by NetApp storage. It predicts with a high degree of reliability whether an appliance can be repaired or needs to be replaced. The continued high repair rate of two-thirds of all devices is a success for sustainability, efficiency and speed of service.

Plus, with automatic route planning, Service 7000 can handle more jobs in less time, giving employees more time to work with customers. All data required for the complex calculations are provided by NetApp storage.

The more innovative ways there are to use your own company data to increase efficiency, the more important it becomes to protect that data. NetApp offers best practice solutions here too.

Data security has many layers at Service 7000, including scanning all SSL traffic, geo-redundancy with a second fire protection zone, backup locations, and bank safes for data stores. Now, NetApp provides additional protection at the highest level through ransomware protection with SnapLock and WORM features.

A hack or ransomware attack could leave the company unable to access its data, which would be extremely critical for productivity, and families could be left without working appliances. Even the mere theft of customer data would be a huge blow to the company’s reputation. That’s why Marco Cathomas would never consider cutting back on maintenance or security. NetApp offers a low-maintenance solution that frees up capacity rather than tying it up.

Service 7000 was looking for a solution that offered additional cybersecurity and maximum performance at an attractive price.

NetApp solutions for this have been in use since the autumn of 2023:

• ONTAP with AFF A250 unified storage: File shares (CIFS) are available directly on the NetApp storage system and no longer on separate virtual servers, reducing infrastructure complexity, risk, maintenance time, and costs.
• Ransomware protection: WORM features with NetApp ARP, tamper-proof snapshots, and SnapLock compliance. Snapshots every six hours are possible thanks to the fast performance of the storage. They ensure rapid rollback of the entire virtual infrastructure in the event of a ransomware attack — for data availability within hours instead of days.

For Service 7000 AG, one thing was clear: Without an in-house storage team, you need support from external experts who can teach you something new, no matter how good your own IT staff is. NetApp setup and support were provided by LSC-certified NetApp partner Aptic GmbH. “Our specialists provide support in all areas related to the NetApp system,” explains Thomas Diethelm, managing director of Aptic. “Service 7000’s IT department works very independently and professionally, so there are no irrelevant questions and they quickly adopt our recommended best practices.”

After a year and a half of working with Aptic, Marco Cathomas is enthusiastic: “So competent and friendly, such good response times — it couldn’t be better. We’ve designated Aptic as Service Provider of the Year.”

As a result, Service 7000’s IT department is delighted with NetApp’s reliable infrastructure, which offers state-of-the-art performance and security, enabling faster response times, better day-to-day performance for employees, and improved security for ERP and customer data.

Service 7000 also appreciates the low and clearly manageable operating costs of the ONTAP license model, which includes important features such as WORM at no additional implementation effort or cost. Integration with Veeam and VMware is also provided and can be implemented using best practices. This frees up capacity in the IT team to design efficient processes for customers and employees.

Thanks to NetApp, Service 7000 AG has a fast, stable, 100% available system that reduces complexity and increases security. The IT team is using the freed-up capacity to develop new process ideas.

Next up is the launch of express deployment planning. This will enable real-time scheduling for emergencies, allowing the employee with the shortest travel time from the originally planned route to deviate from it and provide rapid assistance if, for example, a washing machine in an apartment building breaks down at short notice. In the future, adjusting the dispatch regions—i.e., areas of operation—to the employees’ places of residence will also help reduce response times. Service 7000 AG continues to rely on NetApp’s stable infrastructure and data security for all of its plans.