Commercial Real Estate Giant Hartz Mountain Simplifies Networking from Edge to Core

Hartz Mountain owns 260 properties, including offices, warehouses, data centers, hotels, parking garages, and multifamily rental units. Its real estate holdings span New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Georgia, and North Carolina.

The real estate investment giant wanted to modernize its data center to support its diverse business operations. However, the company was also exploring a headquarters relocation. As a transition plan, David Kadonaga, manager of networking and security services at Hartz Mountain wanted to refresh the disaster recovery site to serve as the primary data center, and then once the move was final, swing the users and applications over to a brand-new data center.

To execute the plan, Kadonaga needed an agile network foundation that would ensure an efficient data center refresh and, ultimately, a smooth transition to a new facility.

Having a Juniper network has simplified operations from Hartz Mountain offices to its refreshed data center. Designed for reliability, security, and flexibility, the Junos operating system powers Juniper networking and security products.

“Junos gives me incredible flexibility,” Kadonaga says.

“Change control is a lot easier with Juniper,” Kadonaga continues. “I really like the ability to commit and roll back changes with Junos. I can verify the configuration is right and that I didn’t fat-finger it.” J-Flow, a feature that allows users to collect IP traffic flow statistics, ensures that Kadonaga can deliver a consistently exceptional experience for employees.

“J-Flow gives us more visibility into our infrastructure and at the application level,” he says. “That visibility is key to delivering a great user experience.”

Kadonaga plans to continue deploying Juniper networking across Hartz Mountain corporate offices and real estate properties. The engineering simplicity and operational efficiency of a Juniper network allows Kadonaga to turn his attention to strategic technology initiatives that drive business value, rather than routine network operations and maintenance.

As technology advances and Hartz Mountain’s business priorities evolve, Kadonaga knows he can count on Juniper as a strategic network partner. “Juniper has a great team and provides fantastic resources,” Kadonaga says. “Junos gives me incredible flexibility.”