10/24/2008
WIFAG Maschinenfabrik AG - a Success Story from Switzerland
 | This case shows you, how Addon supports a client which was planning a change to a virtualized SAP system landscape infrastructure. The results of this project proofs, virtualization technology makes IT infrastructure high available, safer, easier to administer, and helps to reduce costs.
Management Summary
This case shows you, how Addon supports a client which was planning a change to a virtualized SAP system landscape infrastructure. The results of this project proofs, virtualization technology makes IT infrastructure easier to administer, high available and helps to reduce costs.
The Customer: WIFAG Maschinenfabrik AG
(sector:engine and plant construction)
Short profile
WIFAG looks back on a more than 100 year old history. Since its foundation internationally active in graphic industry and publishing houses, WIFAG products have rapidly gained an excellent reputation. In the field of printing machine construction WIFAG Maschinenfabrik AG in Bern is one of the global market leaders.
WIFAG products stand for Swiss quality, efficiency, reliability, security and innovation. With the newest product generation “evolution” in digital offset newspaper printing, WIFAG is one of the leading companies worldwide.
Definition of the project
The replacement of Legacy Hardware was the initial point for thinking about a fundamental reconception of the IT landscape at WIFAG. The announcement by SAP AG in 2007 to ensure support for their solutions also on VMware Virtual Infrastructure has created new opportunities. After a detailed checkup the decision was made: the SAP system landscape will be virtualized comprehensively. Two redundant data centers should ensure the high operational ability in the future. The integration of an IBM storage solution, connected with a new LUN design, should guarantee a high system performance. Due to the special relevance of the SAP system it was very important for the IT management to collaborate during virtualization with a SAP and VMware certified partner, which has experience in comparable projects. Therefore, WIFAG Maschinenfabrik AG decided to implement this SAP virtualization project together with AddOn (Schweiz) AG.
Project goals
Supreme goal of this investment was to improve capability and reliability of IT comprehensively. Therefore, the SAP systems and their interconnected databases should be converted into a virtualized infrastructure. Besides the project improvements, high operational ability, and simplification of the IT landscape, the responsible officers at WIFAG expect a noticeable cost reduction concerning investments and energy consumption.
Solutions
As a project preparation, the employees responsible for SAP at WIFAG visited the workshop AD310 „VMware Infrastructure 3.5: Install & Configure for SAP System Administration“. The acquired knowledge has built the basis for the realization of the company’s strategic decision to virtualize its SAP system landscape with VMware products. In Workshops with the customer, AddOn consultants discussed and designed the concept for a redundant data center and planned the migration of the SAP systems and the database into a virtual infrastructure. The choice of the best strategy (SAP or VMware) and the use of project-conform tools were decisive for later success. Significant for the achievement of the project was also the experience of the AddOn consultants in designing LUN for the virtual infrastructure and for the IBM SAN.
Success
The installation of a virtual infrastructure and the migration of the SAP systems into the new system world were developed in close collaboration with the customer. The SAP systems (developing, test and production system) and the database were migrated into a virtual infrastructure. Within the migration the database was reorganized. Together with the new LUN design, this leads to a considerable increase of performance. The transfer from a 32-bit into a 64-bit environment ensures the broad use of the capability of the new hardware. The virtualization and the subsequent reduction of the physical server landscape, reduced costs for electricity and data center air conditioning considerably. The redundant data center guarantees high availability for the SAP system. The whole project was terminated in time.
Customer assessment
Nurtekin Tugal, responsible for the WIFAG SAP Customer Competence Center: “We used to know AddOn from former joint SAP projects. At that time the AddOn SAP consultants gave us tremendous advice. As the current project is about the virtualization of business critical SAP applications, it was very important to have a partner that possesses the knowledge at first hand. Our choice was AddOn – it is both accredited SAP Service Partner and VMware Certified Consulting and Training Partner. Retrospectively, I can say that this consideration was fully correct.
Together with the AddOn consultants, we developed a solution which matches perfectly with our conceptions and the aim of the company. We could implement the project fast and on schedule. The cooperation was exactly as expected: open, efficient and customer-oriented. The professional work of the consultants was excellent.
Another plus was the direct and open communication and the broad knowledge transfer
within the project. We reached our project goals to the full extent. With our redundant data center the applications are highly available now, performance is very good (not least because of the successful LUN design), and with the new virtualized
infrastructure we did a step forward towards “Green IT”. We are very satisfied with this solution. Our courage to virtualize the SAP production system was worhtwhile. From the beginning, the application has been running robustly and with a good performance in the virtualized environment.”
“I highly recommend AddOn as a partner for any organization planning a
virtualization project of the SAP landscape.”
WIFAG Maschinenfabrik AG - Efficiency with a fully virtualized SAP system - just download the success story. |