Caritas in Soest moves to a sovereign cloud with Proact

Infrastructure flexibility motivates the move to the cloud.

Until a year ago, the Caritas Association in the Soest district operated its entire IT infrastructure on-premises in its own data center. All essential applications were hosted locally. Mirrored backup systems were located on another floor to ensure redundancy and reliability. In addition to its own association, the IT team from Soest also supported the Caritas Association of Bochum-Wattenscheid and a small hospice service. The former has since migrated to the cloud, while the latter continues to receive support.

As the lifespan of its server systems approached its end, Caritas Soest also decided to move to the cloud. “We’ve always designed our server hardware for a five-year lifespan. However, we reached our limits in the last cycle. Planning for the next five years would have been even more difficult,” explains Harald Wege, Head of IT at the Caritas Association in the Soest district. “In a cloud environment, where we’re not dependent on our own hardware, we’re simply more flexible. A new server can be added quickly as needed, or removed again when it’s no longer required.”

Sovereign cloud hosting with unrestricted control over operations

Planning for the move to the cloud began in the summer of 2024. “We looked at several providers and then decided on Proact,” says Wege. “Regional proximity was important to us. We also wanted to retain complete control over our systems. Not every cloud provider offers that in the way we were able to agree with Proact.” Based on this premise, the project plan and operating model were developed collaboratively, step by step.

“In several discussions, we analysed the requirements, outlined solutions, and realised that the service package fits very well with our portfolio,” says Christian Tausch, the IT Solution Architect at Proact who oversaw the cloud project. “We provide the necessary cloud infrastructure, from hardware to basic services. The Caritas IT team continues to be responsible for all operations, including patch management and application administration. We are also available to provide support and assistance whenever needed.”

Gradual relocation – migration and targeted rebuilding to improve the systems

Following detailed planning, operational implementation began in November 2024. First, a new environment was set up for the Caritas Association in the Soest district at Proact’s data center. This involved, among other things, setting up virtual servers and a VPN connection, as well as testing access and the stability of the setup. Instead of migrating all systems one-to-one, the Caritas IT team took the opportunity to rebuild some systems to significantly improve them. For example, the care server was further enhanced by segmenting it into two zones.

To migrate the servers, Proact provided the IT team with a temporary storage solution to synchronise the on-premises environment with the new cloud environment. “We were able to simply place our servers on the storage device and then synchronise them automatically. We really liked this approach. We didn’t have to lug external hard drives or anything like that from one data center to the other by car,” Harald Wege says with a smile.

In November 2025 – one year after the project’s launch – the migration is largely complete. Only four systems remain on-premises. These will also be migrated to the new environment in the coming months. “Since we continue to manage operations ourselves, the workload hasn’t changed,” says Wege. “Nevertheless, we can now sleep a little better knowing that our infrastructure is well protected in the Proact Cloud – whether by the firewall or the secure physical environment. For example, we no longer have to worry about our air conditioning systems getting a bit old.”

Employees benefit from higher performance and a new tool landscape.

The advantages of the new setup are also noticeable for employees: “I’ve been hearing a lot of positive feedback since the move,” Wege summarises. “We’re seeing significant performance improvements. For example, the financial accounting server feels twice as fast as before, despite the same resource allocation.” Furthermore, employees now have access to new tools from the Microsoft ecosystem. As part of a sub-project, the login process via Citrix was switched to an Azure Virtual Desktop and thus to an MS365-based licensing model.

Both within the project and in its interactions with users, the IT department of the Caritas Association of Soest prioritises a people-centric approach. “During the project phase and in the discussions beforehand, we experienced a very open, collaborative, and solution-oriented atmosphere where we treated each other as equals,” summarises Christian Tausch. “We fundamentally work with a people-centric approach,” says Harald Wege. Thus, despite all the digital collaboration options, even in the cloud age, the motto remains: “If someone in the building needs IT support, I go to them, and we solve the problem together on-site.”