case study ikor management- und systemberatung gmbh
case study IKOR MANAGEMENT- UND SYSTEMBERATUNG GMBH
» WHEN IT COMES TO A PROJECT OF THIS MAGNITUDE, A HASTY DECISION CAN TURN OUT TO BE A BIG MISTAKE. THAT’S WHY WE APPRECIATED THE WAY FUJITSU HELPED US WORK OUT THE OPTIMAL SOLUTION. THE SUCCESSFUL OUTCOME UNDERSCORES THE BENEFITS OF A RELATIONSHIP THAT DATES BACK TEN YEARS.« Peter Kluth, Project Management, Manager Data Center Operation and Support, IKOR Management- und Systemberatung GmbH
SAP IN ALL DIRECTIONS
the customer
Located in Oberhausen, Germany, IKOR Managementund Systemberatung GmbH offers financial services providers and industry a full range of services in the SAP® environment. www.ikor.de the project
Retirement of the existing server and storage resources when maintenance agreements expire and migration to a high-performance, high-availability SAP infrastructure that can be scaled to accommodate changes in requirements. the solution
PRIMERGY Systems under Linux with VMware vSphere ESXi 4.0 virtualization technology as core components of the new SAP landscape. NetApp FAS2050 in an active cluster is used for centralized storage.
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IKOR Management- und Systemberatung GmbH is involved in many different activities that demonstrate the company’s expertise in the SAP environment. The company not only develops applications and operates its own SAP testing and development systems for various releases, but also introduced its own SAP testing and production environment in early 2010 and hosts both SAP and non-SAP systems for its customers. Obviously, it takes an excellent data center infrastructure to support a spectrum of services of such breadth and sophistication. IKOR’s business model calls for exceptionally dynamic performance, especially since the company’s customer base is constantly changing as new customers are added, which means rapid expansion of data volume. And that explains why IKOR’s management decided to adopt a new structure with new systems for its IT landscape. The fact that the maintenance agreements for the hardware in place was another compelling reason to make a major decision, the company decided to rely on the know-how and competence of Fujitsu to enhance the company’s IT resources. In close cooperation with account managers and consultants, it was possible to design a global solution that would give IKOR Management- und Systemberatung GmbH a high-availability IT infrastructure with exceptional flexibility and scalability. HIGH-QUALITY COMPONENTS ADD UP TO A HIGH PERFORMANCE
IKOR’s new IT infrastructure is ideally configured to handle extensive SAP services for both customers and the company’s own needs. The hardware for the overall solution preferred by the client and deployed by Fujitsu consists of two 19-inch racks. On the one hand, these racks contain two PRIMERGY Rack Servers from the RX300 S5 Series as a testing and production system for SAP operation on native Linux servers. On the other hand, IKOR uses VMware ESX 4.0 virtualization technology on three other servers of the same type. The system also features a NetApp FAS2050 Filer with redundant controllers for central storage. In addition, FibreCat Brocade 300 and iSCSI support two-way connectivity and capacity can be scaled up to a maximum 69 terabytes. High-performance Fujitsu NetWorker backup software and an uninterrupted power supply (USV) combine to guarantee data security and an Xprint printing system provides optimal output for SAP applications. When it comes down to the bottom line, IKOR’s decision to replace the existing SOLARIS platform and consolidate storage represented a timely move. With the new SAP infrastructure, IKOR now benefits from stable operation of SAP services and can accommodate changes in requirements at any time.
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case study ikor management- und systemberatung gmbh
benefits for the customer
hardware, software, services
Economical consolidation of company-wide IT infrastructure Modern, high-performance SAP infrastructure Highly scalable platform Greater flexibility High level of agility to permit accommodation of changes in requirements and customer scenarios Improved service quality
DYNAMIC RESPONSE TO DYNAMIC CHANGE
Located in Oberhausen, Germany, IKOR Management- und Systemberatung GmbH is a SAP provider that turned to Fujitsu for a solution to expand and reinforce its SAP-related activities. Modernization of the infrastructure had become necessary since the demands made upon the SAP platform had increased. The reason for this was that in addition to the performance and capacity that IKOR requires as a SAP developer for financial services providers and industry and as a web host company, management also wanted to be able to handle its own business processes with SAP in the future and use the software itself. The decision to invest in a new infrastructure was driven by two factors. First of all, the SAP server landscape in place had reached the limits of its capacity in the course of the past five years and could no longer be scaled upward. On the other hand, maintenance would soon no longer be available for the previous PRIMEPOWER landscape with SOLARIS and FibreCat S80. The customer defined a series of priority goals for the new data center infrastructure, which included the following: Investment in future-safe technology Modernization that would also provide benefits in terms of economy High-performance IT landscape Guaranteed high availability Improvement in terms of flexibility and dynamic response THE CUSTOMER’S CHOICE – PLAN 2A
Working together, the client and Fujitsu drew up various scenarios. The customer was also able to attend workshops to acquire hands-on familiarity with VMware, NetApp and EMC. At the same time, various migration scenarios were reviewed and the relative merits and disadvantages of SOLARIS or UNIX and Linux based platforms were discussed in detail. However, the decision-making process included not only in-depth consultancy but also practical steps such as, for example, a data center walkthrough on site. That made it possible to address concrete issues such as the ideal location for the new rack center, the power supply and air-conditioning, as well as the backup system required to meet the client’s future needs. The IKOR project team finally selected one of a
SAP systems under Linux: 2x PRIMERGY RX300-S5 V Mware systems: 3x PRIMERGY RX300-S5, including VMware Enterprise Edition and Virtual Center 2x FC switches (Brocade 300) 1x NetApp FAS2050 hard disk subsystem with a gross capacity of 48 x 300 GB = 14.4 TB Maintenance & support agreement
total of four proposals – Plan 2a. What distinguishes this scenario is its central storage concept, which consists of a NetApp FAS2050 in an active cluster. Finally, PRIMERGY Rack Servers were chosen for operation of SAP services along with VMware. AN INTELLIGENT APPROACH TO IT INVESTMENT
Peter Kluth, Manager Data Center Operation and Support, who headed this consolidation project for IKOR Management- und Systemberatung GmbH, was more than satisfied with the project outcome. He also emphasized how important he found the constant exchange with Fujitsu and the account managers and consultants involved: “ WE PUT A LOT OF THOUGHT INTO THIS INVESTMENT. AND WE ALSO RECEIVED EXTREMELY GOOD SUPPORT AND ADVICE FROM FUJITSU. OUR SAP APPLICATIONS ARE NOW RUNNING EXACTLY THE WAY WE WANTED THEM TO – THEY ARE EXTREMELY RELIABLE BUT NEVERTHELESS GIVE US THE FLEXIBILITY IT TAKES TO PERMIT EXPANSION AT ANY TIME WITHOUT THE SLIGHTEST DIFFICULTY.”
With its new high-performance SAP platform and centralized storage, IKOR is now more flexible than ever before. And that agility is exactly what IKOR needs. Of course, the company itself was the first to benefit from reliable and secure SAP operation. On the other hand, the high quality of the SAP services also had a positive effect on development work for financial services providers and industry, which reinforced the company’s standing as a reliable provider of SAP hosting services. The architecture based on Fujitsu components impressively demonstrates that such multi-layered SAP operation need not necessarily lead to an increase in complexity. Overall, IKOR has benefited in terms of increased efficiency, reliability and transparency. In addition to providing consulting and integration services at the level of project implementation, Fujitsu also assumed responsibility for the maintenance of virtually all hardware components.
Contact
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