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Objective
Logistics service provider
TRANSPOREON Group is a growing
company. Its data centre requires
easy-to-manage, scalable IT resources
Approach
HPE 3PAR Storage in the data centres
and development department at
TRANSPOREON Group ensures a
high-performance, transaction-oriented
provision of transportation services
Case Study
TRANSPOREON Group
increases eiciency by
optimising storage
HPE 3PAR oers flexibility and optimum
load balancing across storage media max
IT Matters
• High availability
• Automatic load balancing to ensure
optimum distribution of storage
Business Matters
• Excellent value for money
• Service available everywhere
• Fewer IT sta required in data centre
thanks to automatic load balancing
Challenge
High-performance platform for
logistics services
Founded in 2000, Transporeon Group,
an SME from Ulm, Germany, links
manufacturers, retailers and wholesalers
with logistics service providers through its
TRANSPOREON platform for transportation
management, TICONTRACT platform for
e-sourcing, procurement and freight bill
auditing and its MERCAREON platform
for retail specific dock scheduling. These
three platforms currently link over 1000
shippers, 55000 carriers and 100000
users in over 80 countries. Users rely on
the web-based Software as a Service (SaaS)
to process tenders and award contracts,
post time slots for the loading and unloading
of goods and also to track their shipments.
Billing for contracted services is performed
on a transaction basis.
In view of this, system performance and IT
infrastructure reliability are business critical,
which is why Paul Lendrates, infrastructure
development manager at Transporeon
Group, opted for 3PAR Storage from Hewlett
Packard Enterprise (HPE). He purchased
the first three systems three years ago and
was so happy that he has now purchased
an additional three 3PARs. “What particularly
impressed me was the innovation of the
HPE storage systems, particularly the
all-flash arrays; however, the value for
money is there too of course,” he adds.
Other advantages for Lendrates include
the scalability and performance of the
HPE systems. The performance reliability
that Lendrates enjoys when using
proprietary Transporeon hardware
was one reason behind the decision
to move away from the use of
computing power from the cloud.
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Case study
Transporeon Group
Industry
IT (logistics)
Customer at a glance
Application
Transporeon runs three platforms on
which business can book transportation
services, which are billed on a
transactional basis. A fail-safe
platform is therefore business critical.
Hardware
• 3x HPE 3PAR 7200c with
96x SSD All-Flash, each with
400 GB for cloud developers
HPE services
• HPE Proactive Care Support
When using cloud computing power,
although it was possible to also include
service definitions in contracts, there
was ultimately no way of knowing
which applications were running on
the same infrastructure simultaneously.
For development of the company, it was
important to Lendrates to personally
have control over how long the dierent
queries took.
Solution
Automatic balancing a major plus
For Lendrates, one of the most important
technological advantages that swung the
decision for the HPE solution was the
auto-tiering automatic storage allocation:
“We don’t have to do it manually. We install
SSDs and slower storage disks and the
system takes over performance distribution.”
Not having to do this manually, Lendrates
adds, saves him half a headcount in the
data centre. The data volume to be stored
is between 150 and 200 terabytes. Should
storage requirements increase, 3PAR is very
easy to extend.
A further advantage, and integral to the
success of the IT service provider’s business
model, is the oered service contracts.
Lendrates: “Should an incident occur, it is
guaranteed to be resolved within six hours.”
TRANSPOREON Group also uses predictive
care; the system automatically monitors
error messages, analyses which parts could
have failed and initiates appropriate action.
For infrastructure manager Lendrates, this
automation of repairs thanks to predictive
care oers the decisive advantage that he
no longer has to worry about component
monitoring: “It’s a great product,” he
enthuses, “because it means that we
don’t have to invest as much time and
money into monitoring”. Lendrates’ second
investment in 3PAR was also prompted
by its excellent value for money. Added
to that is the fact that HPE is represented
worldwide, which fits well with the expansion
plans of the Ulm-based company that was
founded just 16 years ago.
Benefit
Flexibility helps to secure
company growth
“The bottom line is that the solution
oers us the flexibility to grow faster,”
Lendrates continues. The simple scalability
of the 3PARs was another reason behind
Lendrates’ decision to purchase three
new systems: “I set up a new shelf with
more drives,” he explains, “and in a little
over an hour, a further 24 drives are up
and running!”
On account of the high reliability and
maintenance contracts, there is no need
to design the hardware with a particularly
large (and capital draining) buer to meet
future growth requirements. As Lendrates
explains, “Our IT sizing includes planning
for one year.” His confidence in HPE is so
great that he has now decided on a single
vendor strategy. This holds a number of
advantages for him. Firstly, he no longer
has to train his data centre team on dierent
systems. And the systems they do manage
can be understood in greater depth and
the knowledge transferred internally.
“We also only have to deal with one type of
software on our management platforms,” he
continues. He will shortly be able to address
the issue of high availability across both data
centres. To date, this has only been possible
within one data centre. It currently takes
15 minutes to switch to the second data
centre. High availability is another topic
that Lendrates is of course also discussing
with HPE: “With HPE, it’s very easy as the
fail-over strategies are exemplary,” he adds.
Learn more at
hpe.com/go/justrightit
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© Copyright 2016 Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP. The information contained herein is subject to change without
notice. The only warranties for Hewlett Packard Enterprise products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements
accompanying such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein.
4AA6-7611EEW, September 2016
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