It’s very quiet on the top floor of Aareon AG’s registered office in Mainz: bare walls, heavy doors, empty corridors and information signs abound. It’s no place for frequent gatherings, even though we’re at the beating heart of the Company: these lonely corridors form part of Aareon's Data Centre.

Autonomous infrastructure for emergencies
Even before the implementation of EU-GDPR, Aareon’s Data Centre provided a level of security, know-how and availability that customers would be hard-pressed to achieve on their own. It has a completely autonomous infrastructure with its own power supply, emergency power supply and ventilation systems. Vast red argon-filled cylinders are on hand to extinguish flames in the server rooms in the event of a fire. A second, mirrored Data Centre is located at the parent company Aareal Bank in Wiesbaden for backup purposes.

The two IT experts can only hazard a guess as to what the data centres of the future might look like: technological innovations in the fields of artificial intelligence, 3D storage and quantum computing, as well as topics such as regulatory systems and IT security make for an extremely dynamic market. One thing they do agree on, however: “Data centres will become smaller as processing density increases and technology becomes more powerful,” says Werner. “I joined Aareon in 1993, when this room would have been jam-packed with technology – but still had just one thousandth of the capacity it has today,” recalls Stäudel, as the door to the servers clicks shut behind him.

The loud humming noise gradually fades away and silence once again reigns in the corridors of Aareon’s Data Centre as the beating heart of the Company continues its solitary operations.