Offset Printing
VPN Tunnel through the Atlantic
Tuesday 12. January 2010 - Periphery in New York newspaper printing press reactivated via remote maintenance
A failure in the control unit of their dampening solution circulator disrupted the process stability of the New York “Daily News”. Rapid deployment of a KBA technician led to the short-term replacement of the component. It “only” needed to be reconfigured.
Time is money – the old adage applies to newsprint in particular. A halt in production or even downtime goes well beyond the attribute of “aggravating”. “In the past, an employee could not be on-site fast enough to restore operational readiness,” explains technotrans Service technician Michael Krämer. “In the case of the Daily News, telephone support would have also helped, but even this is often quite difficult – specifically in terms of the complexity of the issue, telephone support can take up to 2 hours – and unfortunately, sometimes involves sources of error as a result of misunderstandings.” Thanks to the advanced configuration of the system concerned, however, he was able to use a high-speed Internet connection from his place of work in Sassenberg, Westphalia, to repair the unit on the American East Coast. “Remote control is a service for our customers when errors arise in the printing process. To this point, KBA has primarily availed themselves to this special service,” explains Krämer. “In such cases, technotrans is able to check certain parameters and investigate the cause of such problems from any computer with an Internet connection in any corner of the world. We can use a so-called VPN tunnel from KBA in Würzburg to access their network. In terms of a data link, a Virtual Private Network is very secure.”
The program flow of the control unit was unstable on the dampening solution circulator of the “Daily Press” machine. Hardware damage was identified as the cause. “The close cooperation with our customers, printing press manufacturers, proves itself here,” continues Michael Krämer. “The ongoing mutual training and continuing education ensure the know-how in the technotrans service, as well in this case, for the KBA technicians.” Thorsten Finger, Chief Installer at KBA in the US, carried out the installation of the new multicom computer in the unit cabinet. Spare parts were quickly delivered via technotrans USA in Chicago, avoiding additional costs as a result of intercontinental express shipments and wait time in customs. Finger then assigned an IP address for access via VPN tunnel in the network of König & Bauer by technotrans Service in Sassenberg. The tunnel significantly restricts the online activities of the technician. He/she can no longer access his/her own resources and can only focus on the actual problem for security reasons. “This solution is very low risk, and also offers clearly noticeable relief for the printing press manufacturer and the people on-site, of course. And as annoying as a breakdown in the system is, we are at least a little happy that the functionality of our solution could be best demonstrated in this emergency,” smiles Krämer contently.