Enterprise Case Studies

Lockheed Martin Unit Moves SAP from UNIX to Windows, Cuts Technology Cost 41 Percent

SAP software is mission critical to the Missiles and Fire Control unit of global aerospace manufacturer Lockheed Martin, who wanted to significantly reduce the costs of SAP deployment while improving performance. The solution: migrate the SAP infrastructure from Reduced Instruction Set Computing (RISC) platforms running UNIX to the Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition operating system and Microsoft SQL Server 2005 on Intel technologies. The company expects to save up to 41 percent of SAP hardware (server and storage), software, and maintenance costs over the next five years—while exceeding the performance it saw on the RISC-based UNIX solution. That, in turn, contributes to the company’s business agility and competitiveness, helping it to continue to lead in a highly competitive market.

London Stock Exchange Looks to Increase Revenue with New Data Delivery System Based on Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition

The London Stock Exchange plc (the Exchange) is Europe’s largest exchange and operates the world’s biggest market for listing and trading international securities. It wanted to invest in a new market information and data access services system to deliver better and richer real-time price and value-added information to the market. The Exchange is a leader in financial technology but adopts a considered approach to investment projects because it needs total reliability in its data distribution. In seeking a partnership with world-class companies, the Exchange turned to Accenture for delivery capability and chose technology based on the Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1 and Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition

Packaging Supplier Deploys Scalable 64-bit Solution, Sees Improved IT Service Availability.

The RPC Group, a packaging supplier with almost 30 plants in continental Europe, wanted to consolidate IT operations across multiple facilities. To streamline financial reporting and provide high availability, RPC decided to virtualize its environment by running several virtual machines on each physical server. For this purpose, RPC chose Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 Enterprise Edition software, running on the Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise x64 Edition and Windows Server 2003 R2 x64 Datacenter Edition operating systems. With the x64 operating system, RPC gains better access to more memory and takes full advantage of hardware performance. Older 32-bit software applications can run flawlessly on virtual machines set up to run them, and the 64-bit technology provides long-term, big-picture scalability. RPC looks forward to expanding its x64-driven virtual environment to consolidate IT at additional factories.

Furthermore, RPC saves money on licensing, because Windows Server 2003 R2 x64 Datacenter Edition comes with unlimited virtualization rights. “The HP Blade servers still have plenty of power left,” RPC representatives say. “In fact, one blade could most likely run all of our current virtual machines without the users noticing it. So we will attach Windows Server 2003 R2 Datacenter Edition licenses to the Virtual Server blade servers, allowing us to run an unlimited number of virtual machines on the blades without having to worry about licensing.”

Jih Sun Financial Holding Develops Innovative IT Strategy with Windows Server 2003 Datacenter Platform

Jih Sun Financial Holding Company, one of the leading financial service firms, adopted a new core banking system to make its processing faster, more stable, and more accurate. What it did was to implement the first core banking system to run on Windows Server 2003 Datacenter Edition. This core banking system has successfully gone online, creating many advantages in terms of efficiency, stability, and cost saving. The new solution has given the firm competitive advantages in the areas of flexibility and resilience.

Unilever Gains Lower TCO Supporting SAP with SQL Server 2005 and Windows Server

Unilever, the global consumer products giant that sells some 400 brands in 100 countries, generating 2005 revenue of U.S. $50.6 billion, needed to upgrade its SAP R\3 supply chain infrastructure that was hosted on an Oracle\UNIX solution. Seeking a lower total cost of ownership (TCO), Unilever tested Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Enterprise Edition (64-bit) using 1.5 terabytes of data and double the transaction loads of its U.S. operations. The company was so impressed by the results that it is deploying Microsoft SQL Server 2005 running on the Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition for Itanium-based Systems operating system, hosted on an HP Superdome computer, to deploy SAP ERP to support its North American operations. Unilever expects a 15 percent reduction in TCO, and the scalability, agility, and reliability its operations require.

Sony Ericsson Migrates SAP from UNIX to Windows Server, Boosts Reliability, Cuts Cost

Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications, one of the world’s leading mobile phone providers, was running its SAP enterprise resource planning software on a UNIX and Oracle platform—and wanted to improve reliability, get batch jobs completed during available time slots, and avoid hitting memory and performance limits. After considering a UNIX and Oracle upgrade, the company decided to migrate its SAP system to Windows-based enterprise edition servers running on Intel Itanium 2–based computers. As a result, reliability is up, with the company saving a day per year in unplanned downtime. Batch jobs are processed faster, database costs are reduced, and the company expects to gain tremendous flexibility to integrate the infrastructure with—and, thus, utilize its investment in—its existing Windows-based environment.

Rayovac Chooses Windows over Linux for Lower Cost of Ownership, Less Risk

After deciding to run its SAP Advanced Planner and Optimizer (APO) solution on an Intel Itanium 2–based Unisys ES7000 server computer, Rayovac had to choose between the Windows Server 2003 and Red Hat Linux operating systems. Rayovac chose Windows Server based on advice from Microsoft Certified Partner Bedrock. Rayovac also chose Windows Server because it offered the required performance and scalability at a much lower cost of ownership—an estimated U.S. $185,000 less in one-time costs and $185,000 less in annual recurring costs, or nearly $1 million in savings over the first four years. In addition, Rayovac can support its new SAP APO solution with existing processes, skill sets, and technology partners, all of which will help ensure that the solution remains reliable and secure as the company rolls it out across a global supply chain. (Note: Since the solution was deployed, Rayovac Corporation has changed its name to Spectrum Brands.)