Nongfu Spring has a positive rst
experience with SAP HANA 1.0
“By cooperating with HP on SAP HANA 1.0, we’ve proved that a
high-speed in-memory computing column-storage database product is
reliable and practical. It has fundamentally solved the problem of slow
computing and presentation of data. It also built a solid foundation for
our IT department to provide strong support for the company’s rapid
future business development.”
—Patrick Hoo, CIO, Nongfu Spring
HP customer
case study
Nongfu Spring
works with HP to
set up new SAP
HANA 1.0 database
Industry
Fast-moving
Consumer Goods
(FMCG)
Objective
Improve the overall IT system service level, allocate
resources exibly, and perform real-time sales analysis
Approach
Compared and tested the Oracle database and SAP
HANA 1.0, before opting for the latter
IT improvements
• Increased computing speeds means data is now
analysed 200-300 times faster than previous
database platform; nancial reporting times have
reduced from seven to three days
• Enhanced system performance removes
maintenance and data lag problems, meaning the
entire manufacturing environment now runs more
smoothly with more accurate data
Business benets
• Improved visibility of real-time data, allowing the
business to make decisions in a timelier and more
rational manner
There can only be a few in China who are unfamiliar
with the “Nongfu Spring Has a Little Sweetness”
slogan. As a national consumer brand, Nongfu Spring
has annual sales approaching RMB10 billion. It owns
seven production bases, dozens of factories, more
than 300 oces, and claims more than one million
customers. Its scope of operation involves production,
sales, planning, dispatching, logistics and marketing.
Understandably, the requirements for integrated
management and the overall operational ability of the
company are very high.
At the same time, the company’s senior management
needs real-time, accurate data to make accurate
judgements of the ever-changing marketplace.
In 2004, Nongfu Spring began using the SAP
ERP system for customer relationship and sales
management. In 2008, with data volumes increasing,
it separated the online analytical processing
(OLAP) system from the original system, and ran
it independently. However, with the expansion of
the company’s business and the constant additions
of new branches in dierent cities, levels of data
continued to increase. One distribution list had more
than 100 million reco rds, increasi ng a t a rate of
40-50 million records per year, as Nongfu Spring added
mobile terminal data.
At that point, the total data volume had exceeded
3TB, and the OLAP data presentation was becoming
increasingly slow.
For example, the system took about 24 hours to
calculate transport costs. In addition, when the
nance department closed its accounts at the end of
the month, the system was so slow in generating an
inventory report that the warehouse was unable to
make deliveries.
In addition, when using the traditional database
model, some reports took 30 minutes to be presented.
Worse, Nongfu Spring had more than 400 cost centres
and each calculation took 24 hours. For this reason,
the monthly nancial closing could be delayed by up to
one day.
Using the traditional ETL (data extraction, transfer,
loading) method, Nongfu Spring’s analysis system
could update its data only once a day. As a fast-moving
consumer goods business, Nongfu Spring wanted to be
able to see the data changes in real-time – and make
decisions based on those changes.
In view of this series of problems, Nongfu Spring
resolved to build a new database system platform.
After comparing and testing the Oracle database and
SAP HANA 1.0, it opted for the latter. As one of the
three SAP HANA 1.0 certied hardware manufacturers
in the world, HP won the approval of Nongfu Spring
with the stable, powerful performance of its
HP ProLiant DL980 server, and the professional
services of the HP team.
HP AppSystems for SAP HANA
SAP HANA 1.0 is an in-memory computing based
business intelligence solution introduced by SAP in
2011. Compared to solutions based on ordinary data
warehouses, its biggest dierence is its ability to
perform all data computing in the internal memory.
As such, it brings evident improvement in overall
performance. This is what is most important to
Nongfu Spring.
As the third only company in the world (and the rst in
China) to use the SAP HANA 1.0 system, Nongfu Spring
chose the combination of SAP HANA 1.0, and an
HP ProLiant DL980 server conguration from the
HP AppSystems for SAP HANA portfolio to build a
brand new SAP HANA 1.0 database system.
2
Nongfu Spring’s IT department spent less than
two months between 27 June and 20 August 2011
completing the switchover and getting the database
online. In the rst phase, it removed only the links
from the Oracle data mart to the Business Objects (BO)
and, through data service, extracted the data in the
data mart and sent it to SAP HANA 1.0 to be displayed
on the portal through B04. This process solved two
problems: (1) data is presented quickly, and (2) some
logic calculations are done in SAP HANA 1.0, thus the
problem of some logic calculations being restricted in
traditional databases ceased to exist.
This way, Nongfu Spring was able to perform data
computing much faster. However, there was still no
real-time data analysis. As such, in the second phase,
Nongfu Spring extended the structure. It replaced its
traditional data mart with SAP HANA 1.0 and used it
as the database of its analysis system. This solved
the problem of not being able to perform real-time
data update and analysis. SAP HANA 1.0 supports only
certied products from HP, IBM and Fujitsu. As HP had
devised ve special server conguration solutions
(x-small, small, medium, medium+ and large) after the
introduction of SAP HANA 1.0 by SAP, Nongfu Spring
selected HP’s medium+ conguration as the hardware
platform. This decision was based both on the scale
of its business and its input-output ratio, and their
positive long-term relationship with HP. The company
also chose the HP ProLiant DL980 server with four
high-performance CPUs and 512GB internal memory
for the SAP HANA 1.0 hardware platform.
The HP ProLiant DL980 server has very powerful
scale-up capabilities. Even with higher business
volume in the future, Nongfu Spring will be able to
scale up to the large conguration. At the same time,
as a high-end x86 server, DL980 also uses HP’s unique
PREMA structure that comes with smart CPU caching
and redundant system fabric, giving it signicantly
higher performance. In addition, with DL980 being an
eight-socket server for mission-critical operations,
HP has, to a considerable extent, provided both the
manageability and recoverability of a small computer.
If the machine malfunctions, it is able to locate and
repair the fault quickly.
At the same time, HP has also added the Linux
operating system to the DL980 server to give Nongfu
Spring unparalleled system security and operability.
The Linux operating system is able to integrate
well with SAP HANA 1.0. Of note, the DL980 can be
congured with an input/output (I/O) acceleration
card independently, to load the data inside the hard
disk faster into the internal memory and signicantly
expand the I/O bus width between the hard disk
and internal memory. These characteristics make
HP ProLiant DL980 very suitable for large databases
such as SAP HANA 1.0, as well as virtualisation
and applications.
3
Faster operations, strong support
for corporate decision-making
By getting rid of the traditional IT operation,
maintenance and data lag problems, the entire
manufacturing environment now runs more smoothly.
Based on Nongfu Spring testing, the same report
returns 200-300 times faster with SAP HANA 1.0,
as compared to a traditional database platform.
As the following examples highlight: SQL takes only
2.113 seconds to write to the SAP HANA 1.0 platform,
but it needs 215.063 seconds on a traditional database
platform. On the other hand, SAP HANA 1.0 needs
only 37 seconds to execute the storage process and
function that takes a traditional database platform
24 hours to execute. Thus, SAP HANA 1.0 helps
Nongfu Spring cut down the time spent on the
reconciliation process by one full day.
After SAP HANA 1.0 went online, problems such as the
slow presentation of OLAP that had plagued Nongfu
Spring previously were completely resolved. At the
same time, nancial reporting became signicantly
faster. Previously, for the company’s nancial
statements, there would be a gap of seven days
between the account closing at the end of every month,
and the generation of data to do calculation and
analysis. Now, with the SAP HANA 1.0 system, nancial
data can be generated in less than three days. Nongfu
Spring is now able to see its business performance and
that of its competitors instantly, in turn allowing the
company to be able to make decisions in a timelier and
more rational manner.
“The market today is changing constantly, and
companies and the market environment have more
new IT requirements,” says Nongfu Spring CIO Patrick
Hoo. “HP is doing its best to help us make informed
decisions about our IT requirements in terms of
software, hardware and services. By cooperating with
HP on SAP HANA 1.0, we have proven that HANA is a
high-speed in-memory computing column-storage
database product that is mature and practical. It
fundamentally solved the problem of slow computing
and presentation of data caused by having too much
data, which had aected our business. It also built
a solid foundation for our IT department to provide
strong support for the company’s rapid future
business development.”
Customer solution
at a glance
Primary applications
• SAP HANA 1.0 SP3
• SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP2
Primary hardware
• HP ProLiant DL980 conguration from the portfolio of
HP AppSystems for SAP HANA
For more information
To read more about HP SAP HANA 1.0, go to
hp.com/go/sap
Get connected
hp.com/go/getconnected
© Copyr ight 2012 Hewlet t-Pac kard Develo pment Company, L.P. The inform ation conta ined herei n is subject to change witho ut notice.
The only warrantie s for HP produ cts and ser vices are se t forth in the express war ranty stat ements acco mpanying s uch produc ts and
serv ices. Nothing her ein should be construed as constituti ng an additi onal warranty. HP sh all not be liable for techni cal or editorial er rors
or omissions contained herein.
Oracle is a registered trad emark of Oracle and /or its a liates.
4AA 4-2450EEW, Created September 2012
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