Sava d.d.

Slovenian Company Cuts Costs by 30 Per Cent over Five Years with New Solution

Sava d.d. is a leading business in Slovenia. Traditionally operating multiple business units, it focuses increasingly on tourism. Continued growth led to challenges for its critical SAP enterprise resource planning environment. The existing infrastructure needed additional data capacity and greater redundancy. Based on careful analysis, the company decided to replace the existing SAP server infrastructure with a new solution running Microsoft® software on Intel®-based servers. The company expects the total cost of ownership to be 30 per cent lower over the next five years. Administration is more efficient, helping IT workers deliver better service. And with an enterprise-wide infrastructure now standardised on Microsoft and Intel, employees gain familiar business tools, ensuring improved operations and increased potential for innovation.

Situation

Companies often go through radical change as they grow. Their product portfolios alter as they move into new markets and sell existing business units. Yet, regardless of a business’s profile at any given time, some things never change, such as the need for solutions that support individual productivity. To support growth, successful companies need infrastructures that maximise the performance of business tools and scale costeffectively.

Slovenia-based Sava d.d.—one of the country’s most successful companies—has changed its portfolio of business units. The company, which has more than 2,500 employees, has units working in rubber production, tourism, real-estate, and finance.

At the heart of the company’s infrastructure is a SAP enterprise resource planning (ERP) infrastructure. Because Sava d.d. invested more money in developing the tourism side of the business, the SAP environment faced a number of key challenges. Chief among them were data capacity and the existing design, which lacked redundancy. Roman Resek, Information Technology Officer at Sava d.d., says: “With increasing numbers of users, the environment had reached its limit. We either had to upgrade the existing solution or implement a new platform.”

Key to supporting growth is maximising operational efficiencies with flexible, low-cost environments. With the Microsoft and Intel infrastructure, we will gain a 30 per cent reduction in total cost of ownership. Roman Resek, Information Technology Officer, Sava d.d.

The company needed to find the right solution fast. Figures showed that, if the SAP environment went down for just an hour, the company could expect to lose up to €60,000 (U.S.$77,000). The alternative to upgrading the existing SAP environment seemed clear. Within its enterprise-wide infrastructure, Sava d.d. also operated an environment based on Microsoft® technology running on Intel® processors and HP servers. Delivering key business and management tools such as Windows® XP, Microsoft SQL Server™ 2000, and Active Directory® directory services, the environment had supported employees reliably, particularly in tourism operations. “The combination of Microsoft software and Intel technology proved incredibly successful,” Resek says. “We were very pleased with the performance.”

Sava d.d. then had to decide on either an upgrade of the existing SAP environment or an entirely new SAP environment running on Microsoft software with Intel processors. The company created a list of criteria for assessing the alternatives. Requirements included:

• Higher levels of reliability, availability, and performance.
• Low total cost of ownership, with reduced maintenance and support costs.
• Timely business information for individuals to make better business decisions.

Solution

An analysis of the existing solution and the environment running Microsoft software on Intel technology highlighted the business value of Microsoft and Intel infrastructures. Combined, the performance and reliability of Intel-based servers running Microsoft software ensure people can maximise operational efficiency. Workers gain the insight needed for better business decisions. “We did our research,” Resek says. “We looked at companies operating the same kind of SAP environment in Slovenia and Austria. Everyone’s experience of Microsoft and Intel was pretty good.”

With such a mission-critical environment, Sava d.d. decided to use a platform based on 64-bit dual-core Intel® Itanium® 2 processors and running 64-bit versions of Windows Server® 2003 operating system and a Microsoft SQL Server 2000 database. The platform runs on HP Integrity servers. Technicians clustered servers using available technologies in Windows Server 2003 and deployed HP StorageWorks EVA 3000 systems and HP OpenView Storage Data Protector software to ensure highly reliable backups on disk arrays or tape libraries.

Prior to the infrastructure going live, a pilot scheme tested its

performance. Resek says: “In the period of time when the new SAP infrastructure came together, we gained great support from Microsoft and Intel.” In May 2006, after tests were successful, Sava d.d. moved the infrastructure into the live, production environment. Over a single weekend, with just 26 hours planned downtime, the migration was completed. “Everything went smoothly,” Resek says. “There was great cooperation between Microsoft and Intel, and the infrastructure went live and performed well.”

Today, the new SAP environment is performing reliably, delivering a highly flexible infrastructure that can scale easily as the business grows. Employees use the same SAP-based interface as they did before, but gain the support of software and processor technology designed for business-critical systems.

Benefits

Sava d.d. will reduce the total cost of ownership for the infrastructure by 30 per cent. At the same time, the company has gained an environment that maximises the performance of employees and administrators. With the system’s reliability and simplified management, both groups can achieve business goals more effectively.

Total Cost of Ownership Reduced by 30 Per Cent
Sava d.d. has succeeded by a concerted effort to maximise efficiencies. The results have made it one of the most successful companies in Slovenia. With this in mind, it calculated the total cost of ownership for the existing environment and that based on Microsoft, Intel, and HP. With the latter, Sava d.d. estimated a 30 per cent saving over five years.

“We are a growing business with more people needing to access critical environments such as the SAP infrastructure,” Resek says. “Key to supporting growth is maximising operational efficiencies with flexible, lowcost environments. With the Microsoft and Intel infrastructure, we will gain a 30 per cent reduction in total cost of ownership.”

Over time, the standardised infrastructure will deliver additional benefits in terms of management and end-use experience. Roman Resek, Information Technology Officer, Sava d.d.

Empowered IT Workers Increase Productivity
Sava d.d. has moved toward a standardised infrastructure across the whole enterprise. For employees, the infrastructure ensures a consistent user experience that supports great operational effectiveness. In addition, it helps IT support workers maximise responsiveness in day-to-day administration. With the easy-to-use administration features and familiar tool sets, for example, they can complete routine tasks quicker and focus on more strategic roles.

New Management Solutions Promise Future Gains for Employees
With a standardised, enterprise-wide infrastructure, companies can realise operational improvements and maximise IT investments. The combination of Microsoft software running on Intel-based servers helps a more integrated IT infrastructure and improved operations. With its standardised infrastructure, Sava d.d. is set to implement new business software that will improve collaboration and administration across the company.

In 2007, the company plans to replace its existing messaging environment with Microsoft Exchange Server 2007. Furthermore, it plans to roll out Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007 for end-to-end management of the enterprise infrastructure. Resek says: “Over time, the standardised infrastructure will deliver additional management and end-user experience benefits.”

About Microsoft

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (nasdaq ‘MSFT’) is the worldwide leader in software for personal computers and business computing. The company offers a wide range of products and services designed to empower people through great software — any time, any place, and on any device.

For more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426- 9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (877) 568-2495. Customers who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234 in the United States or (905) 568-9641 in Canada. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to: http://www.microsoft.com/