Customer Case Study
Kimball International
4/6/2009
Manufacturer Gets Lower Total Cost of Owner-ship Moving SAP from Oracle to SQL Server
Furniture and electronics manufacturer Kimball International wanted to reduce the total cost of ownership of its 10-terabyte SAP production infrastructure. By switching from the Oracle/UNIX stack to a Microsoft® Application Platform, Kimball now enjoys a lower total cost of ownership while experiencing 30 to 50 percent faster processing.
Industry: High Tech and Electronics Manufacturing
Size: Large, 8000 employees
Country: US  US

Customer Profile
http://www.kimball.com
Based in Jasper, Indiana, Kimball International is a diversified manufacturer of furniture and electronics.
Business Situation
Kimball wanted to achieve a lower total cost of ownership of its 10-terabyte SAP production infrastructure while enhancing performance.
Solution
Kimball worked with Microsoft® Gold Certified partner RealTech to migrate its SAP BW and SAP ECC 5.0 ERP systems from the Oracle/UNIX stack to the Microsoft Application Platform including SQL Server® 2005 Enterprise Edition (64-bit) database software.
Benefit
  • Lower total cost of ownership
  • Greater processing power
  • Easier systems management
  • Ease of migration
  • Enterprise ready
Software
  • Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Enterprise x64 Edition
  • Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Enterprise X64 Edition
  • SAP on Microsoft Technologies
Quote
"The savings from moving from Oracle to SQL Server were so significant—exceeding $500,000 a year and providing an ROI of less than 12 months—that at first the numbers weren't believed."
Ken Kemker, Director of Enterprise Architecture, Kimball International