4-page Case Study - Posted 6/1/2007

Views: 181

Rate This Evidence:

Dopravní podnik Ostrava

Czech Transportation Agency Improves Efficiency with 64-Bit Enterprise System

Dopravní podnik Ostrava (DPO) is a public transportation agency serving the citizens of Ostrava in the eastern part of the Czech Republic. The IT infrastructure at DPO includes NORIS, an enterprise resource planning system used for tasks such as creating schedules and reports and managing passenger ticketing. Agency employees grew increasingly frustrated with the performance of the system, which was originally deployed in a 32-bit computing environment. The IT staff decided to migrate NORIS to a 64-bit system using the Windows Server® 2003 Enterprise x64 Edition operating system and Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2005 database software running on IBM System x3800 server hardware. The 64-bit solution has dramatically reduced the time it takes to perform daily tasks. And its stability is freeing up time for IT staff to devote to projects that will deliver more value to the agency.

Situation

We’re now able to process reports on our scheduled driver shifts in a little more than one minute. That is a reduction of more than 90 percent from the past.  Robert Bujok IT Administrator Dopravní podnik Ostrava

Ostrava is one of the few Czech cities to operate all three types of public transportation vehicles found in the Czech Republic: commuter trains (trams), buses, and electric-powered trolleybuses. DPO operates and maintains the fleet of vehicles and creates the transportation schedules that are used by a regional population of about 500,000 people, which includes about 325,000 residents of Ostrava. DPO has about 2,600 employees.

Since 2003, DPO has used a 32-bit computing environment to run its operations. This environment included the Windows Server® 2003 Enterprise Edition operating system, Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2000 database software, and the NORIS enterprise resource planning (ERP) software from LCS International. DPO uses the NORIS ERP system to create schedules, track driver performance, conduct ticket inspections, monitor ticket machines, and perform other tasks.

By 2006, the system began experiencing performance issues related to the increasing data loads being put on the 32-bit systems, says Robert Bujok, IT Administrator for DPO.

“For example, as we reprocessed schedule plans for drivers, the overall throughput in the system rapidly declined,” says Bujok. “This prevented other users from inputting data. The result is that we had to divide the workload into batches, which was inefficient. It also negatively affected the jobs of the managers, who were unable to quickly get accurate information that helps them reschedule the activities of drivers.”

Bujok says the performance backlogs created other issues that affected the productivity of the 25 members of the IT staff. “We were spending about one hour a day of staff time analyzing event logs,” Bujok says. “This had become a chore that was taking away valuable staff time that could be spent on more valuable tasks, such as upgrading our systems to run more efficiently.”

Solution

In early 2007, DPO decided to migrate its NORIS system to a 64-bit architecture running on the Windows Server 2003 Enterprise x64 Edition operating system and Microsoft SQL Server 2005 database software. The new system resides on an IBM System x3800 server equipped with four Intel Xeon processors and 14 gigabytes of RAM.

Bujok says that DPO chose to deploy a 64-bit architecture because of the performance capabilities of the 64-bit systems. The 64-bit Windows Server software can take advantage of the higher performance capabilities of 64-bit hardware by storing much more data in memory, where it can be accessed thousands of times faster than when information is on a hard disk drive. The IBM servers complement the 64-bit software with a technical architecture designed specifically to support mission-critical, data-intensive applications such as the ERP software used by DPO.

The deployment of the new 64-bit system went very smoothly, Bujok says. Testing the software on the platform took about three days, and the actual migration was accomplished in about four hours.

Benefits

Moving NORIS to the 64-bit Windows Server platform has helped DPO improve the performance of its mission-critical software. The solution provides greater throughput during periods when managers schedule drivers and perform tasks such as saving forms. The increased performance, in turn, helps DPO to plan more efficiently. The solution’s stability has also delivered time savings to the DPO IT staff.

Faster planning means less stress for us and faster, more accurate delivery of information.  Robert Bujok IT Administrator Dopravní podnik Ostrava

Faster Throughput of Data

With its new 64-bit architecture, the NORIS system operates much more efficiently for DPO employees, says Bujok. This results from the storage of data in physical memory, making it much faster to access and store than with 32-bit systems.

“We’re now able to process reports on our scheduled driver shifts in a little more than one minute,” says Bujok. “That is a reduction of more than 90 percent from the past, when it would take an average of 13 to 14 minutes to process the same reports. With the new 64-bit system, our supervisors can spend less time waiting on reports to be processed and more time doing other activities.”

Bujok adds that DPO also uses a system for planning maintenance and manufacturing of tramway cars, buses, and all of the organization’s transportation equipment.

“This system shares database resources and integrates with NORIS using distributed transactions,” he says, “and those operations are now significantly faster than before the migration to the 64-bit environment.”

More Time for Planning

Because of the improved performance of their IT system, employees of DPO now have more time for planning. For example, Bujok says that during the DPO monthly planning process, the organization’s resource manager enters data about the required number of cars, traffic closures, and other constraints.

“The system recalculates the plan and returns a proposal of drivers and other resources allocation,” he says. “The plan usually needs adjustments and the manager goes through iterative processes of plan refinement. The improved performance dramatically reduces the time it takes to repeat the process, which improves the productivity of our employees.

“There is also a deadline when supporting material for budget processes must be delivered to municipal officials,” he adds. “Faster planning means less stress for us and faster, more accurate delivery of information.”

Better Efficiency for IT Staff

The new 64-bit Windows Server system has been extremely stable since the deployment. This stability has dramatically reduced the number of IT events that the IT staff has had to evaluate and manage, says Bujok.

“We have taken the one hour a day that used to be spent evaluating event logs and redirected that IT staff time toward a more important project, which is implementing server virtualization,” says Bujok.

“The migration to the Windows Server 64-bit system has definitely helped improve our operations and will allow us to consolidate our servers,” says Bujok. “We have reduced our database servers from three to one, and our overall system performance has greatly improved, so we are more efficient.”

For More Information

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/

For more information about Dopravní podnik Ostrava services, visit the Web site at:
http://www.dpo.cz/

Windows Server 2003

The Windows Server 2003 family helps organizations do more with less. Now you can run your IT infrastructure more efficiently, build better applications faster, and deliver the best infrastructure for enhancing user productivity. And you can do all this faster, more securely, and at lower cost.

For more information about Windows Server 2003, please visit:
www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003

This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.

Document published May 2007