SAP on VMware passes Checkpoint manufacturing test
1 min read
Identification, tracking and security equipment manufacturer Checkpoint Systems says moving its mission-critical SAP ERP system onto the VMware virtual infrastructure has been a huge success.
The organisation cites an eight to one server consolidation, 34% reduction in power and cooling costs and massively improved resource utilisation. It also claims that provisioning times are down from six weeks to one hour, that its ability to deliver on internal SLAs has become realistic, and that disaster recovery has been accelerated.
Michael Nogger, IT operations manager for Europe at Checkpoint, explains that its system was previously deployed on clustered servers and, although availability was not a problem, maintenance, upgrades and provisioning were a major headache.
Already a fan of virtualisation – having Lotus Notes on VMware since 2005 in a previous life – he says he wanted VMware to achieve “manageability and reliability of the platform for our SAP environment”.
The organisation has spent the last 18 months phasing in the system, moving SAP servers off their physical platforms as leases expired, before going all the way with its central database and central ERP instance shortly after SAP announced support for VMware.
“SAP’s announcement … was a really important step,” says Nogger. “We are absolutely comfortable with the VMware platform, but the support statement gave the business the extra peace of mind it required to take the final steps towards a completely virtualised SAP deployment.”
Checkpoint now has 20 SAP server modules on VMware – 13 at its primary site, of which nine are critical production servers. For disaster recovery purposes there are also three VI3 VMware ESX hosts at a secondary site, designed to restore the production SAP environment.
“Our new DR capabilities are a crucial part of our implementation and really allow us to be more responsive to the needs of our business,” says Nogger.
And he adds that the IT team is now looking at extending its use of VMware to allow for centralised management of on-site servers at its manufacturing locations. “As far as manageability is concerned, running SAP on VMware means our IT department spends far less time on mundane maintenance tasks and can focus on more strategic projects,” he says.
