Medco E&P Indonesia Indonesian Oil and Gas Leader Builds Data Center, Revamps IT with Services Expertise

With the help of Microsoft Services, we went from having multiple server rooms to having a tier-2 data center providing services that have dramatically changed the way we work and collaborate. M. Ageng Wiryawan, Business Relations Manager for Information Services, Medco E&P Indonesia

Business Needs

Medco E&P Indonesia is the largest privately owned oil and gas company in Indonesia, with approximately 2,000 employees. In addition to oil and gas exploration and production, the company focuses its efforts on power generation and renewable fuels.

Medco maintains a core team of 38 IT professionals. This team works with a range of outsourcing partners to carry out help-desk management, software development, and data-center operations.

When Medco made the decision to move offices in 2008, it also decided to establish a new shared-services data center at the new location—a sharp contrast to the stand-alone server rooms the company maintained in the past. Coinciding with this move, Medco aspired to undergo a far-reaching technology refresh and deploy the communication and collaboration tools that employees needed to work more effectively across locations. Helping to ensure the success of such a range of projects, Medco understood it would need to establish a cohesive IT strategy and extend its team with additional expert resources. Because the data center would continue to support critical services, risk was not an option. Says M. Ageng Wiryawan, Business Relations Manager for Information Services at Medco, “It was very important that we found a single, principal consultancy that could provide a consistent skill set and ensure the quality of delivery that we needed.”

To build a cohesive technology strategy and support the deployment of its new data center, Medco called on the expertise of Microsoft Services. Says Wiryawan, “We felt that the most cost-effective strategy would be for us to work with as few technology providers as possible. And Microsoft Services offered just that—a single organization with the broadest range of solutions that could meet our business requirements. As a result, we knew we would be able to access all the information and resources we needed as we moved forward with our new data center and other initiatives.”

Medco takes advantage of Microsoft Services Advisory Services, which provides the Medco IT team with an IT architecture and planning advisor. The advisor works across the Medco business and IT groups to architect systems and coordinate project delivery and ongoing infrastructure optimization efforts. Says Wiryawan, “Our advisor helped us build our business case and determine which solutions would best address our needs; it was advice we couldn’t get anywhere else.”

Following the initial design and planning phases and subsequent sign-off from business leaders, Medco proceeded to build its new data center. Comprising 120 servers, the new data center provides shared services spanning messaging, document management, and communication and collaboration. The data center also includes directory services; client, server, and Internet security; rights management controls; systems monitoring and management; database and analytics capabilities; and more.

Of all the services, Wiryawan notes that communication and collaboration proved to be of utmost importance. “Some employees may be at remote oil fields where we do not have all our IT services readily available,” he explains. “As a result, communication can be slow and business decisions might be delayed. We found that we could solve these issues by establishing our new data center as a shared service and then by deploying Microsoft Office Communications Server. With this software, communication and collaboration is much easier for our remote workforce, who can now receive and share information through mobile devices.”

To improve supportability of the new environment, the Medco IT team participates in Microsoft-hosted training programs and workshops. Ongoing work with the advisor and other Microsoft engineers has helped Medco further augment the skills of its IT team.

After its data center went live, Medco chose to take advantage of Microsoft Services Premier Support. With Premier Support, Medco gains a Technical Account Manager (TAM) and engages in further knowledge transfer and proactive services engagements, which help to establish the proactive IT environment and operation needed to improve performance and reduce the likelihood of downtime. In addition, the company has access to a rapid, prioritized escalation channel if any issues arise. “I think the proactive approach is what companies need nowadays,” says Wiryawan. “You cannot wait for something to happen and then look for solutions. You need to know what might happen in your environment so that you can have the proactive measure in place to mitigate that risk.”

Now with both a TAM and advisor on the Medco IT team, Wiryawan notes “Our planning is even smoother and we can resolve issues much faster.”

To continually improve its services, the Medco IT team is developing dashboards that provide regular service-level-agreement reports to management. The company also engages in early technology adoption programs to evaluate prerelease products before they are generally available.

Medco has achieved the results it sought and now looks forward to success with ongoing IT improvement projects. Says Wiryawan, “With the help of Microsoft Services, we went from having multiple server rooms to having a tier-2 data center providing services that have dramatically changed the way we work and collaborate. The effort has been a success and made a huge difference.”

Through the architecture, planning, project delivery, and optimization efforts, Medco has a data center that provides highly available services. “We’ve achieved our target of 99.5 percent availability,” says Wiryawan. “And although we couldn’t calculate this before working with Microsoft Services, I can tell you the percentage was a lot less.”

Wiryawan notes that such availability has had a personal impact as well. “With the old data center, I would receive two or three phone calls each weekend because some part of the system was down,” he says. “Now, weeks go by without such a call because the systems are up. And if any issues arise, we have the processes in place to solve them.” As a result of maintaining an optimized environment and operation, Medco has not had to expand its IT team for three straight years, despite running many new initiatives.

With expert knowledge and resources on tap, Wiryawan and the Medco IT team can accelerate decision making and stay focused on driving ongoing improvements. The team currently runs 5 large initiatives and 100 small improvement initiatives a year. “The best part of working with Microsoft Services, especially when it comes to working with the latest technologies, is that we can get the information we need right from the source,” says Wiryawan. “We don’t have to ask around.” Wiryawan points out that in the past, it could take as many as four days to engage the technical experts and resources needed to answer questions or address issues. Now, those resources are readily available on-site through Advisory Services or an e-mail or phone call away through other support channels.

By building a highly competent operation around its new data center and aligning that solution to business requirements, the Medco IT team now focuses on the future, bringing the latest products and technologies to employees’ desktops to drive ongoing improvements. “We don’t do it for technology’s sake, and our goal isn’t simply to be a technology leader,” Wiryawan points out. “Rather, we want the technologies we deploy to be a business enabler. It just so happens that as new technology comes out, it is moving in the same direction we are already heading. And for many employees, it makes them proud to work for a company that can provide them with the latest and best tools to do their jobs.”