CASE STUDY Intel® Xeon® processor 7500 series Enterprise Server Performance: Data-Intensive Computing CHALLENGES •Business flexibility. NCH’s European operation needed to implement new business functionality in the company’s mission-critical Oracle database without affecting the global business logic. •High cost of RISC infrastructure. The project team decided to create a new instance of the database, but didn’t like the high costs of replicating its 16-processor, dual-core IBM P5 AIX* system. SOLUTION •Intel Xeon processor 7500 series for new platform and future growth. NCH’s IT team created the new database instance on a Dell PowerEdge* 810 server running Linux* and the Intel® Xeon® processor 7540. When the global instance needs new capacity in two years, the team plans to migrate it to the Intel® architecture as well. IMPACT •USD 5.5 million in hard savings. NCH calculates it will save USD 5.5 million over five years in hard costs for the total solution. Soft costs will contribute further savings. •A more responsive business. Business reports and applications are running an average of three to four times faster, providing faster insights into critical business processes. The second instance also reduces contention during peak periods. •Improved supply chain management. NCH’s European operation is adding functionality that helps optimize its supply chain and respond to a changing business climate. •Lower risks. With two database instances, IT can schedule planned downtime more easily and mitigate the consequences of unplanned downtime. Five Years, USD 5.5 Million Saved Database migration from RISC platform to Intel® Xeon® processor 7540 nets savings and speedup for NCH NCH Corporation, a leading global provider of industrial maintenance solutions, needed to establish a new instance of its global Oracle* database. A key decision: maintain consistency with the current IBM AIX* RISC-based platform, or deploy the new instance on the Intel® Xeon® processor 7500 series? NCH chose the Intel® processor-based solution, and says the decision will save the company USD 5.5 million over five years in hard costs. The project also triples performance, reduces risk, and delivers critical business functionality. Cost Benefit: “Huge” What happens when an expensive RISC database platform collides with business demands for greater flexibility? “As part of an IT strategy overhaul, our European operation wants to do some customization that we didn’t want to put into the global instance where it might affect the business logic of the existing system,” explains David Kennedy, IT director for NCH. “Working with our business, the decision was made to create a separate instance for Europe. We then started looking at what it would cost to duplicate our database environment.” Kennedy’s team experienced the sticker shock that’s familiar to many who deploy RISC-based platforms. “Just to “When I can tell our CFO the company will avoid spending more than USD 5 million, and show a return of less than 12 months, it makes the decision obvious. The value proposition was attractive; it almost seemed too good to be true.” – David Kennedy IT Director NCH Corporation
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case studyIntel® Xeon® processor 7500 series Enterprise Server Performance: Data-Intensive Computing
challenges
•Businessflexibility.NCH’s European operation needed to implement new business functionality in the company’s mission-critical Oracle database without affecting the global business logic.
•HighcostofRISCinfrastructure.The project team decided to create a new instance of the database, but didn’t like the high costs of replicating its 16-processor, dual-core IBM P5 AIX* system.
solutIon
•IntelXeonprocessor7500seriesfornewplatformandfuturegrowth.NCH’s IT team created the new database instance on a Dell PowerEdge* 810 server running Linux* and the Intel® Xeon® processor 7540. When the global instance needs new capacity in two years, the team plans to migrate it to the Intel® architecture as well.
Impact
•USD5.5millioninhardsavings.NCH calculates it will save USD 5.5 million over five years in hard costs for the total solution. Soft costs will contribute further savings.
•Amoreresponsivebusiness.Business reports and applications are running an average of three to four times faster, providing faster insights into critical business processes. The second instance also reduces contention during peak periods.
•Improvedsupplychainmanagement.NCH’s European operation is adding functionality that helps optimize its supply chain and respond to a changing business climate.
•Lowerrisks.With two database instances, IT can schedule planned downtime more easily and mitigate the consequences of unplanned downtime.
Five Years, USD 5.5 Million Saved DatabasemigrationfromRISCplatformtoIntel®Xeon®processor7540netssavingsandspeedupforNCH
NCH Corporation, a leading global provider of industrial maintenance solutions, needed to establish a new instance of its global Oracle* database. A key decision: maintain consistency with the current IBM AIX* RISC-based platform, or deploy the new instance on the Intel® Xeon® processor 7500 series? NCH chose the Intel® processor-based solution, and says the decision will save the company USD 5.5 million over five years in hard costs. The project also triples performance, reduces risk, and delivers critical business functionality.
CostBenefit:“Huge”What happens when an expensive RISC database platform collides with business demands for greater flexibility? “As part of an IT strategy overhaul, our European operation wants to do some customization that we didn’t want to put into the global instance where it might affect the business logic of the existing system,” explains David Kennedy,
IT director for NCH. “Working with our business, the decision was made to create a separate instance for Europe. We then started looking at what it would cost to duplicate our database environment.”
Kennedy’s team experienced the sticker shock that’s familiar to many who deploy RISC-based platforms. “Just to
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purchase the hardware would have been over a million dollars, and the ongoing maintenance and support costs would have been high as well, because you’re locked in,” he says. “Purchasing brand-new equipment from Dell with the Intel Xeon processor was much less expensive than even buying used IBM P5 equipment. In fact, the Dell-Intel system was almost the same price as what the maintenance would have been on new IBM P5 equipment.”
Besides undertaking what he calls “a massive project” to split the database while maintaining consistency, Kennedy also examined the growth path for NCH’s corporate database. “After migrating to the European instance, we anticipate that we’ll need a new database platform for the corporate system within two years,” he says. “We worked through a decision tree to develop our platform strategy going forward, and the cost benefit of moving to Intel was huge.”
StrategicMove
Choosing the Intel Xeon processor 7540 with four six-core processors, NCH’s IT team created the new instance of the database—replicating what ran on the 16-processor AIX-based IBM P5—on a Dell PowerEdge 810 server running Linux. When the corporate instance is ready for a refresh in 2012, NCH will move it to the Intel® platform as well.
In addition to USD 5.5 million in total system savings, NCH expects to save on a range of soft costs. “We’re primarily a Windows* shop, and now I won’t need people here who are only IBM RISC experts,” Kennedy says. “We’re also consolidating on a single hardware supplier and will see further savings there.”
Kennedy views the move as a strategic one for the company. “We’re enabling our operations in Europe to implement a very robust and well-planned solution that will streamline manufacturing and tie it to sales and customer relationship management,” he states. “We’re doing it on systems which are faster than the RISC platform. The hardware we are using has been proven in our business, and has more flexible and convenient support. The total solution is far more cost-effective, and we’re better aligned with Oracle. Oracle develops new software on Linux first. It makes sense for us to be there.”
Performance:Data-intensivecomputing.Support the most demanding business data processing and computationally intense graphics.
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The total cost of the new solution was less than NCH was spending to maintain its RISC platform.
SPotLIgHtoNNCHCoRPoRAtIoN
A vertically integrated company, NCH develops, manufactures, distributes, sells, and services its products, which are concentrated in the areas of industrial cleaning and maintenance, water treatment and remediation, plumbing, pet care, and specialty industrial supplies. NCH operates in over 50 countries on five continents, and has over 8,500 employees and technical representatives, including more than 60 experts devoted to R&D. NCH was established in 1919 and is based in Irving, Texas.
