Johannesburg, 20 Jun 2001
JSE Securities Exchange-listed Faritec has scored a world-first with its upgrade of BMW South Africa`s servers and disk storage in a project worth more than R15 million.
The upgrade at BMW`s Rosslyn, Pretoria, plant was driven by the exponential growth of BMW`s export business and an upgrade to version 4.6c of the SAP R/3 enterprise resource planning system.
When Faritec upgraded BMW to IBM`s Unix-based pSeries 680, it was to be the first pSeries off the production line, and the first to be commissioned anywhere in the world. The pSeries forms part of IBM`s recently announced eSeries unified range of servers, and has superseded the RS/6000 series. In addition, Faritec has installed 6TB of IBM ESS, or Shark, storage.
The scope of the upgrade has seen BMW create a disaster-tolerant site, with a mirrored disaster recovery site running 500 metres off-site.
Immediate benefits BMW is enjoying are:
. Reduction of up to 80% in processing time for month-end;
. Reduction in SAP upgrade time from over 40 hours to 6.5 hours;
. Reduction of nightly batch processing run from over four hours to less than two;
. Uptime boosted to 99.98%;
. Near-instant failover to the disaster recovery site in the event of failure of the main systems;
. Online backup, further boosting system availability;
. Single-console management of all systems;
. Easy and seamless upgrade path through IBM`s Capacity on Demand for processors and storage; and
. Investment protection, with BMW expecting the systems to yield between three and five years` headroom for growth.
Exponential growth
"When we implemented SAP R/3 a few years ago, we anticipated less growth in the business than we are experiencing," says BMW SA IT Operations manager Willie Voges. "We have increased our vehicle exports from 500 a few years ago to over 35 000 this year, destined to over 20 countries worldwide.
"In addition, we knew our SAP R/3 upgrade would be resource-intensive, consuming between 30% and 50% more resources than the previous version. Our previous platform had simply run out of gas, and in addition it was not certified to drive R/3 in our three-tier configuration. This had overall support implications."
Faritec and BMW have deployed the six-processor pSeries 680 as the database server, running Oracle, and eight RS/6000 Winterhawks as both R/3 application servers and a disaster recovery platform. They have been configured in an IBM SP, with the system`s internal switches ensuring high-speed interoperation and reduced latency.
The pSeries 680 as part of the SP forms a virtual and logical part of the overall system, improving performance and easing management. It has been configured with 16GB RAM, and can scale to 24 processors. It can be fitted with these, and this additional capacity will be activated as BMW needs it, in line with IBM`s Capacity on Demand feature.
"This feature on its own makes the pSeries a compelling option," says Voges.
"It can reduce the time taken for system upgrades from weeks to minutes, and it allows the business to plan strategy in an unhindered and unconstrained fashion."
Performance of Sharks
The increased speed of processing business functions is partly due to the copper-silicon Power processors under the hood of the pSeries, but also due to the exceptional performance of the new disk storage systems. Codenamed the Sharks, they have been deployed in 3TB configurations, one each in production and at the disaster recovery site.
"When we bought the Sharks, they did not form part of the BMW technology blueprint," says Voges, "but we have since worked with our German head office to ensure they are approved for our site."
BMW`s SAN has been configured with IBM fibre channel switches. "By going the SAN route, we are able to manage all our storage in one virtual environment," says Voges. "This is vital for us as we have storage equipment from multiple suppliers at more than one site, embracing data storage through its lifecycle, including tape backup.
"Our storage has to be accessible from anywhere. We simultaneously write data locally and offsite to our disaster recovery site. With customers in over 20 countries, and ships in harbour waiting to transport our cars overseas, we simply cannot tolerate downtime in our environment."
BMW runs two shifts 16 hours a day, 49 weeks of the year. It produces more than 50 000 cars a year, and runs its factory on just-in-time (JIT) principles, making a smooth-functioning and efficient supply chain of paramount importance. The high availability of the overall IT environment needs to be seen against this context.
"The more we can increase our availability, the better for the business," comments Voges. "We no longer have to wait for a long weekend; instead, we can upgrade overnight and test the next day. Our ability to do backups while production is running has also had a positive impact on the business."
Initial tests have indicated that BMW can manually failover to the disaster recovery site in 30 minutes. It aims to make this a seamless process in the near future through the implementation of IBM`s HACMP (High Availability Clustered Multiprocessing).
In choosing the IBM servers from Faritec, BMW followed a rigorous tender process. It received four proposals: other platforms considered were Compaq, Hewlett-Packard and another IBM supplier, while EMC was another option for storage.
"Faritec had the best architectural proposal and the best price," comments Voges. "They had the requisite experience and were flexible and accommodating in their approach, especially when it came to the try-and-buy. The Faritec sales team were clearly empowered and able to make rapid decisions, a point which counted heavily in their favour."
The new contract is an extension of a six-year relationship, says Faritec sales executive Steve Moriarty. "During this period we have seen BMW South Africa become one of the most strategic sites for BMW worldwide. This new platform will play a crucial part in supporting the ongoing growth and strategy of the local operation."
Share