Case study
Geberit accelerates data
analysis with SAP HANA
The company chose a TDI storage solution
based on HP 3PAR StoreServ
Industry
Sanitary products
Objective
A highly available, exible and easy to administer
storage solution for SAP HANA and VMware
Approach
Comparison of various tailored data centre
integration solutions on the market
IT matters
• Simple solution management
• Simple and exible expandability under
high performance requirements
• No training necessary for Geberit’s IT
personnel due to the knowledge transfer by
HP and MCL during the implementation
• Option to carry out backups and restores
that run in the background at any time
without causing a drop in performance
• A highly exible environment due to
HP 3PAR StoreServ systems providing both
the SAP HANA, VMware and leserver data
Business matters
• Investment protection as the HP 3PAR
StoreServ systems integrate seamlessly
into the existing IT infrastructure
• Subst antially lower life c ycle costs in
comparison to an appliance solution
• Fast avai labilit y of SAP HANA f or the busine ss
as HP and MCL were able to carry out a quick
and stringent implementation of the storage
solution in a very short period of time
• High an d very stab le availabilit y of all SAP
applications by mirroring the storage solution
“Our decision to go with the HP 3PAR StoreServ 7400
Storage solution was mainly based on its simple
management processes and technical functions, such as
controller backup and automatic, transparent failover.
All of the comparable solutions on the market were much
more complex and would therefore require greater
expenditure. Having a buer for future performance
requirements was also very important.”
– Thomas Vetter, head of IT infrastructure/CTO, Geberit Verwaltungs GmbH
Focussing on exibility and cost savings
When converting its Oracle databases to SAP HANA, the
Swiss manufacturer of sanitary products, Geberit, decided
against an appliance storage solution. To increase exibility
for SAP and VMware and to decrease costs in the long term,
the company chose a tailored data integration (TDI) solution,
using two HP 3PAR StoreServ Storage systems.
Case study | G eberit Verwaltungs G mbH
Challenge
A highly available storage
infrastructure for SAP HANA
Geberit is an expert in both new builds and
building renovations and modernisations.
The company is Europe’s market leader
in sanitary technology and provides
comprehensive systems for commercial
and trade customers as well as end-users.
Having highly exible, sustainable
products is very important to the
company and its IT infrastructure has
to meet these requirements too.
The company is growing and its data volumes
increase by an average of 20 per cent each year.
“We need a highly available IT infrastructure
that the business can use to help it react
quickly and exibly,” says Thomas Vetter,
head of IT infrastructure/CTO at Geberit.
So it’s no wonder that the Swiss manufacturer
of sanitary products wanted to migrate its SAP
environment and the Oracle database at its
heart, to SAP HANA as quickly as possible.
“With SAP HANA, calculations are carried out
directly in the storage system. This gives us
an amazing potential to increase the speed
of analyses for sales and distribution,”
explains Vetter. In the past, large analyses
had to run overnight due to their sheer
volume. The results of the data analyses
were therefore always based on the previous
day’s values. This was simply not sucient
for some parts of the company. “With
SAP HANA, sales and distribution can now
access real-time data, which means they
can act much more quickly,” says Vetter.
As well as the modernisation of the database
platform, the company also chose to renew
its existing storage infrastructure,
which consisted of two HP Enterprise
Virtual Arrays (EVA) 8400 systems, an
HP EVA 8100 system and an HP EVA 8000
system in Pfullendorf, Germany. This is
where Geberit’s largest production site is
located. The existing storage systems were
aging and the company urgently needed to
expand its capacities and performance.
The SAP HANA project was the nal, decisive
push for Geberit to completely renovate its
storage infrastructure. The company quickly
acknowledged that an appliance solution
would not be suitable for SAP HANA due
to the high administration expenditure.
The database solution would – as it had in
the past – instead need to run on the same
storage platform as the other systems
in the company. A tailored data centre
integration (TDI) approach was needed.
“The interchangeability and reutilisation
of the hardware components is very
important to us,” says Vetter. “We simply
have to use standard components to make
our operations cost-eective, as only
these guarantee us enough exibility.”
2
Case study | G eberit Verwaltungs G mbH
About Geberit
The Geberit Group is the European market
leader in the eld of sanitary technology and
operates globally. Since it was founded in
1874, the company has been considered one
of the pioneers of the sector and is constantly
developing new trends with its comprehensive
system solutions. The company is currently
represented in 41 countries worldwide,
and has 17 production sites in eight dierent
countries. Its main production sites are in
Switzerland, Germany and Austria. In 2013,
the Geberit Group generated revenues
of 2.3 billion Swiss Francs. It employs
around 6,200 people worldwide.
The Rapperswil-Jona-based company has
been listed on the Swiss stock exchange
since 1999 and in 2012, Geberit shares were
added to the SMI (Swiss Market Index).
Solution
A TDI solution with HP 3PAR
StoreServ 7400 Storage system
Geberit compared TDI solutions from a
number of providers and also consulted its
long-term infrastructure partners MCL and HP.
“We had always been very satised with the
HP EVA systems in the past because they are
very easy to congure. So the bar for the new
system was set very high,” remembers Vetter.
Based on this, MCL and HP recommended
consolidating the existing HP EVA systems
into a central HP 3PAR StoreServ 7400 system
that could then synchronise and replicate its
data onto a second system at the same site.
“Our decision to go with the HP 3PAR
StoreServ 7400 systems was mainly based
on their simple management processes and
technical functions, such as controller backup
and automatic, transparent failover. All of the
comparable solutions on the market were
much more complex and would therefore
require greater expenditure. Having a buer
for future performance requirements was
also very important to us,” says Vetter.
Before the project could begin, there was one
more challenge to overcome: At the time, the
HP 3PAR StoreServ system was not certied
for SAP HANA TDI. But both SAP and HP
agreed and an exception was made, so there
was nothing left blocking the implementation.
First, MCL and HP worked closely with Geberit
to dene the requirements and design of the
solution: There would be two mirrored
HP 3PAR StoreServ 7400 systems,
each with four nodes per system and
a total of 320 hard drives. The size of the
solution was calculated using the current
data volumes with an upwards buer.
“It was important to us that the solution could
handle storage and performance growth
of 20 per cent per year. With the HP 3PAR
StoreServ system, this is not a problem at
all as we can expand it at any time by adding
more hard drives,” says Vetter, happily.
MCL and HP then worked together to tackle
the installation and conguration of the
storage system. HP was responsible for
managing the project. At this stage, another
challenge arose: As other IT projects were
being carried out at Geberit, there was a
window of just a few short weeks during
which the migration had to take place.
“The teamwork on this project was excellent.
The project coordination was fantastic and the
implementation went faster than expected,
even though we had already had a loose
schedule at the planning stage. This was
only possible due to good coordination
and professional collaboration between
all of the parties involved,” says Vetter.
“MCL’s consulting services were also excellent.
This is absolutely critical to help build the
trusting relationship you need when working
on a project like this. Our IT specialists were
also able to benet from MCL and HP’s
expertise during the implementation, and so
were able to manage the systems straight
away without any additional training.”
3
Case study | G eberit Verwaltungs G mbH
Customer solution
at a glance
Application
SAP ERP 6.0
Lotus Notes
Hardware
• HP 3PAR StoreServ 7400 Storage system
Software
• SAP HANA
• VMware vSphere
• HP 3PAR Reporting Software Suite
• HP 3PAR Application Software
Suite for VMware
• HP 3PAR Replication Suite
• HP 3PAR Data Optimization Suite
• HP 3PAR Service Processor Software
• HP 3PAR Thin Provisioning Software
HP services
• Installation
• Consulting
• HP Support Plus 24
Our solution partners
About MCL
MCL Computer & Zubehör GmbH is based in
Böblingen and has seven sites and over
100 employees across Germany. As an
HP Platinum Partner, MCL provides system
solutions based on HP server, storage and
network products, as well as services in the
elds of virtualisation, consolidation, storage
management and system monitoring.
As well as its solutions business, MCL is
the largest HP Renew partner in the EMEA,
which means it can provide optimum
purchasing conditions and excellent product
availability with its own storage site.
Advantages
Greater exibility, lower costs
The rst step was to install two HP 3PAR
StoreServ 7400 systems in Pfullendorf.
In the coming year, the data centre in
Rapperswil-Jona will also be tted with two
HP 3PAR StoreServ systems so that the
company can benet from asynchronous
mirroring between the two sites.
Replication and transparent failover are two of
the basic software functionalities at the heart
of Geberit’s HP 3PAR StoreServ 7400 systems:
“If one data centre goes down, the second
data centre at the site can completely assume
all of its functions in a very short amount
of time,” says Vetter. “With our VMware
environment, this was absolutely essential.”
“ The teamwork on this project
was excellent. The project
coordination was fantastic
and the implementation went
faster than expected, even
though we had already had
a loose schedule at the
planning stage. This was
only possible due to good
coordination and professional
collaboration between all of
the parties involved.”
– Thomas Vetter, head of IT infrastructure/CTO,
Geberit Verwaltungs GmbH
The manufacturer also uses other software
functions: The reporting function, for
example, which provides transparency in
case of an emergency and for performance
planning. The thin technologies improve the
cost-eectiveness of the storage system.
This functionality provides opportunities
for cost savings when expanding the
storage capacities: When a new volume
is added, storage resources are assigned,
but only used by the storage system when
it is actually requested by the host. With
the tiering function, Geberit has the option
to meet performance requirements with
ecient storage types of dierent speeds
in the future: The HP 3PAR StoreServ
7400 decides automatically to which
storage type the data should be written.
“With the HP 3PAR StoreServ system,
we have much greater exibility as compared
to an appliance solution. And the costs
are also much lower,” states Vetter.
“The migration was easy and ran smoothly.
The solution is also very performant and
stable. Before going live, all of the functions
were tested intensively and approved during
the project phase. And we could see the
benets even then - we could hardly believe
it. The management of the HP 3PAR StoreServ
system is also incredibly simple. We can
now carry out backups and restores that
run in the background at any time,
without seeing any drops in performance.
The multi-controller architecture gives us high
availability and optimum performance for our
business-critical SAP HANA environment.”
As a result, the success of this project has
paved the way for Geberit to migrate all
of its SAP instances – over 20 – to SAP
HANA within the next three years.
Learn more at
hp.com/go/storage
Sign up for updates
hp.com/go/getupdated
© Copyr ight 2014 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The info rmation contained herein is subject to change w ithout notice. Th e only
warranties for HP products and se rvices are set for th in the express warranty s tatements accomp anying suc h products and services. N othing herein
should be constru ed as constit uting an add itional warranty. HP shall not be liable fo r technical or editorial errors or o missions contained herein.
© 2014 SAP AG or a n SAP aliate company. All rights reserved.
4AA5-4114EEW, October 2014
Rate this documentShare with colleagues
Loading...