¦
The Challenge
rku.it provides outsourced computing
services to mid-market customers,
and continually aims to drive down
costs to meet their budgetary
constraints. At the same time as
cutting costs, the company aims to
deliver better service levels and
performance to its cu stomers
¦
The Solution
rku.it determined that IBM DB2
Universal Database (DB2 UDB)
V8.2.2 optimised for SAP would offer
better performan ce and 40 per cent
lower costs than its existing database
software. The company e ngaged IBM
Global Services to handle the
migration to DB2 Universal Database
rku.it optimises business performance for
SAP with IBM DB2
Overview
we know
they know
¦
The Benefits
rku.it cut 40 per cent from the
total cost of ownership for its
database and achieved a d ramatic
increase in performance for its SAP
systems. Better than 30 per cent
improveme nt in reso urce utilization
through virtualization; faster SAP
response times
¦
Key Solution Components
Industry: Computing Services,
Utilities
Applications: mySAP™ ERP, MM,
FI/CO, HR, BW, PS, CRM
Hardware : IBM ^™ p5-570
and pSeries
®
servers, IBM
^
OpenPower™ servers,
IBM TotalStorage
®
DS4400 storag e
server
Software: IBM DB2
®
Universal
Database™ (DB2 UDB), IBM AIX
®
5L V5.3, IBM HACMP™, IBM
Tivoli
®
Storag e Manager
Services: IBM Glo bal Services
Based in Herne, Germany, rku.it
GmbH provides IT outsourcing and
datacentre services to mid-market
utility companies. The co mpany was
founded in 1961, employs around
175 people, and turns over more than
€20 million annually. rku-it specialises
in providing SAP software solutions,
and currently has around 6 0
customers in the energy and
water sectors.
To meet the budgetary constraints of
its mid-market customers, rku.it
constantly strives to offer outstanding
technology services at highly
competitive pricing. T he company
frequently reviews new hardware and
software offerings, aiming to adapt its
infrastructure and deliver the latest
technology at an ever-decreasing cost
of ownership.
As part of a migration from SAP R/3
software to mySAP ERP software,
rku.it analysed the costs of running the
database – and determined that IBM
DB2 Universal Database offered the
best solution.
pg_0002
a gigabit backbone, each with a
number of pSeries 630 servers, IBM
tape libraries and IBM TotalStorage
DS4 400 disk storage systems. To this
infrastructure, rku.it recently added
two IBM ^
p5 570 systems,
powered by the most current IBM
POWER5 microprocessors.
Says Ulrich Klenke, “As part of our
ongoing drive to offer better value to
our customers, and to achieve greater
operational flexibility, we are focusing
on server virtualization. The new p5
systems are helping us to achieve this
goal – in our opinion, they bring
mainframe -quality virtualization
capabilities to the world of AIX.”
He continues, “The p5 -570 syste ms
have proved to be an excellent choice:
“We concluded that DB2
UDB would cost 40 per
cent less over five years,
including licensing,
maintenance and
migration.”
Ulrich Klenke, CIO of rku.it
Ulrich Klenke, CIO of rku.it, explains:
“ We identified three main cost
elements: licensing, maintenance
and the migration cost including the
training of employees to use a
new database.
"We then compared the offering from
our existing vendor – Oracle – with the
DB2 UDB solution. We concluded that
DB2 UDB would cost 4 0 per cent less
over five years, including licensing,
maintenance and migration.”
Focus on virtualization
rku.it runs aro und 60 instances of SAP
for its customers, on IBM ^
pSeries servers running AIX with High
Availability Cluster Multi-Processing
(HACMP). The company has two fully
redundant data centres, connected by
pg_0003
our high expectations were even
exceeded by the new hardware.
We had expected a 30 per cent
improvement in resource utilization
through the use of virtualization under
AIX V5R3. In fact, we have achieved
more than this, so the p5 systems
have even more spare capacity for
the future.”
Transparent licensing
The goal of server virtualization was an
important factor in the choice of a new
database. rku.it wanted co mplete
flexibility in its licensing agreement,
and found only IBM could offer this.
Ulrich Klenke comments: “We wanted
to be able to use our hardware
resources in whatever way made the
best sense technically – and not to be
restricted by licensing agreements.
IBM has provided a very transparent
licensing model, which will enable us
to respond more flexibly as our
business requirements change.”
Skilful migration
To ensure a smooth, low-risk
transition from Oracle to IBM DB2,
rku.it engaged a specialist technical
team from IBM Global Services. Ulrich
Klenke states that he is “very satisfied
with the migration work carried out by
IBM. The IBM consultants are
highly competent, and their
availability is excellent.”
The migration is now proceeding on a
system-by-system basis – and rku.it
expects better performance in
additio n to significant cost-savings.
The company has measured faster
response times for SAP with DB2 UDB,
going from 0.6 seconds to 0.4 seconds
on average, and an increase in the
speed of processing batch jobs.
Multiplied by thousands of external
rku.it customer users, this
performance increase is a significant
productivity boost, and also delays the
ne ed for a server refresh.
Outstanding results
A core ele ment of rku.it’s SAP
infrastructure is the high-availability
data storage from IBM. The company
uses IBM T ivo li Storage Manager to
automate backup and recovery
functions across both data centres,
helping to save administration costs
and increase resilience.
By gradually consolidating to
virtualized servers on the new IBM
^
p5 systems, rku.it expects to
greatly simplify its physical
infrastructure and make better use of
its investment in computing resources.
Ulrich Klenke explains: “ Rather than
having to upgrade individual servers,
and run the risk of over-provisioning,
with virtualized servers we can
upgrade just one physical server, and
share the new power as needed.
"If requirements change, we can
simply move storage capacity or CPU
from a less-used system to one that
ne eds more power. In the long-term,
this will translate into reduced total
cost of ownership.”
He concludes: “Running mySAP ERP
with DB2 UDB on IBM ^
p5
systems will help rku.it offer
outstanding service levels to our
customers, with very competitive
pricing.”
“Running mySAP ERP
with DB2 UDB on IBM
^
p5 systems will
help rku.it offer
outstanding service levels
to our customers, with
very competitive pricing.”
Ulrich Klenke, CIO of rku.it
pg_0004
IBM Form GK12-4083-00 (12-05)
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