Red Hat BC322AAE Product Data Sheet

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 benets

• 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 oces, 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 dierent 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 certied 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 dierence 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 conguration from the
HP AppSystems for SAP HANA portfolio to build a
brand new SAP HANA 1.0 database system.

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