IBM Case Studies Kronopol Improves data management and cuts IT costs with SAP and IBM DB2 outsourcing solution

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	Kronopol Improves data management and cuts IT costs with SAP and IBM DB2 outsourcing solution IBM

Kronopol Improves data management and cuts IT costs with SAP and IBM DB2 outsourcing solution

IBM

Technology Category	Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) - Cloud Computing Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) - Cloud Databases
Applicable Functions	Discrete Manufacturing Maintenance
Use Cases	Manufacturing System Automation Predictive Maintenance
Services	Cloud Planning, Design & Implementation Services System Integration
Challenge	Kronopol, a subsidiary of the Swiss Krono Holding AG and a world leader in the wood-based products industry, was facing a challenge with its growing databases that supported the company’s SAP applications. The IT team was spending increasing amounts of time maintaining and administering these databases. The growing data volumes were also affecting business-critical functions such as daily backups. Kronopol needed a solution that would support the data explosion resulting from business growth, while keeping IT spending lean. The company was looking for a solution that would not only address its immediate data management needs and cut storage costs, but also offer a strategic solution to help manage long-term data growth. Read More
About Customer	Founded in 1994 and based in Zary, Poland, Kronopol Sp. z o. o. operates as a subsidiary of the Swiss Krono Holding AG – a world leader in the wood-based products industry. With the most modern production lines, and more than a hundred years of experience of the Krono Group, the company delivers products of the highest quality and esthetic parameters. Currently, Kronopol manufactures more than 1.5 million cubic meters of wood-based panels annually. Read More
Solution	Kronopol signed a five-year outsourcing contract with IBM, which included migrating the company’s critical SAP applications to IBM® DB2®. The project was carried out over a period of 10 months, with no interruption to business processes. IBM DB2 was implemented on IBM Power Systems™ servers linked to IBM System Storage DS®, managed by IBM System Storage® SAN Volume Controller software. The solution was configured for high availability with IBM PowerHA® and Enqueue Replication Server technology. Backup and recovery have been handled using IBM Tivoli® Storage Manager software. In total, Kronopol has migrated almost 20 SAP systems to DB2, including five production instances and two legacy systems. All operations were done using standard SAP migration tools, such as heterogeneous system copy. Most planned database outages to support the upgrade from MaxDB to DB2 lasted significantly less than 48 hours, keeping business disruption to a minimum. Read More Log in to view content
Contents

Technology Category

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) - Cloud Computing

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) - Cloud Databases

Applicable Functions

Discrete Manufacturing

Maintenance

Use Cases

Manufacturing System Automation

Predictive Maintenance

Services

Cloud Planning, Design & Implementation Services

System Integration

Challenge

Kronopol, a subsidiary of the Swiss Krono Holding AG and a world leader in the wood-based products industry, was facing a challenge with its growing databases that supported the company’s SAP applications. The IT team was spending increasing amounts of time maintaining and administering these databases. The growing data volumes were also affecting business-critical functions such as daily backups. Kronopol needed a solution that would support the data explosion resulting from business growth, while keeping IT spending lean. The company was looking for a solution that would not only address its immediate data management needs and cut storage costs, but also offer a strategic solution to help manage long-term data growth.

About Customer

Founded in 1994 and based in Zary, Poland, Kronopol Sp. z o. o. operates as a subsidiary of the Swiss Krono Holding AG – a world leader in the wood-based products industry. With the most modern production lines, and more than a hundred years of experience of the Krono Group, the company delivers products of the highest quality and esthetic parameters. Currently, Kronopol manufactures more than 1.5 million cubic meters of wood-based panels annually.

Solution

Kronopol signed a five-year outsourcing contract with IBM, which included migrating the company’s critical SAP applications to IBM® DB2®. The project was carried out over a period of 10 months, with no interruption to business processes. IBM DB2 was implemented on IBM Power Systems™ servers linked to IBM System Storage DS®, managed by IBM System Storage® SAN Volume Controller software. The solution was configured for high availability with IBM PowerHA® and Enqueue Replication Server technology. Backup and recovery have been handled using IBM Tivoli® Storage Manager software. In total, Kronopol has migrated almost 20 SAP systems to DB2, including five production instances and two legacy systems. All operations were done using standard SAP migration tools, such as heterogeneous system copy. Most planned database outages to support the upgrade from MaxDB to DB2 lasted significantly less than 48 hours, keeping business disruption to a minimum.

Impact #1	By implementing IBM DB2, Kronopol has achieved its business goal of cutting the cost and complexity of its SAP database management.
Impact #2	The reduced complexity of DB2 has allowed Kronopol IT to respond more rapidly to demands from its application development group to create required test systems.
Impact #3	IBM DB2 used by Kronopol today provides a reliable, robust and easily manageable database platform.

Impact #1

By implementing IBM DB2, Kronopol has achieved its business goal of cutting the cost and complexity of its SAP database management.

Impact #2

The reduced complexity of DB2 has allowed Kronopol IT to respond more rapidly to demands from its application development group to create required test systems.

Impact #3

IBM DB2 used by Kronopol today provides a reliable, robust and easily manageable database platform.

Benefit #1	The largest SAP system was originally 2.5 TB; after migration to DB2 and compression, the database size was reduced to 0.9 TB, which corresponds to a compression rate of 64 percent.
Benefit #2	The response time for dialog steps was reduced from 1500 milliseconds to 500 milliseconds, which was three times faster than before.
Benefit #3	Kronopol expects to keep its IT spending stable for five years by delaying the need for additional processor and disk storage capacity, thanks to the IBM outsourcing solution.

Benefit #1

The largest SAP system was originally 2.5 TB; after migration to DB2 and compression, the database size was reduced to 0.9 TB, which corresponds to a compression rate of 64 percent.

Benefit #2

The response time for dialog steps was reduced from 1500 milliseconds to 500 milliseconds, which was three times faster than before.

Benefit #3

Kronopol expects to keep its IT spending stable for five years by delaying the need for additional processor and disk storage capacity, thanks to the IBM outsourcing solution.

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Overview

Kronopol Improves data management and cuts IT costs with SAP and IBM DB2 outsourcing solution

Operational Impact

Quantitative Benefit