PT. Excelcomindo Pratama
Simplifies its Datacenter
with Sun Servers
& Storage
Sun helps leading GSM
dual band Telco Operator
to migrate its systems
in half the scheduled
time.
"Consolidating
on a single consistent
Solaris platform
powered by Sun servers
and storage systems
made sense to us.
What made the completion
of the complex project
impressive, besides
the excellent performance
offered without any
compromise, was the
expertise and teamwork
shown by Sun and
its partners, completing
it very smoothly
in the planned schedule."
S. B. Djatnika, IT
Engineering Manager,
PT. Excelcomindo
Pratama
Company
- PT. Excelcomindo
Pratama (excelcom)
Industry/Market
Business
Issue
- Too many servers
from multiple
vendors and
performance
issues
- Floor space was
being utilized
unnecessarily
- Datacenter became
increasingly
complex to manage
- High total cost
of ownership
Business
Results
- 10 servers consolidated
into two Sun
enterprise servers
& Sun T3
StorEdge.
- Migration achieved
in half the
planned schedule
- Floor space for
datacenter and
IT support staff
reduced by half
- SAP system performance
increased fourfold
- Estimated savings
of more than
US$300,000 over
five years.
Configuration
- Sun Fire 6800
Enterprise[tm]
Server
- Sun Enterprise
10000 server[tm]
- Sun T3 StorEdge[tm]
Applications/Solutions
- SAP applications
- Sun consolidation
solutions
The management of PT.
Excelcomindo Pratama (excelcom),
a leading GSM dual band
Telco operator in Indonesia
felt that the company
had too many server and
storage systems in its
datacenter and that they
were increasingly difficult
to manage. These and other
performance issues with
its existing IBM and Compaq
servers prompted excelcom
to consolidate up to 10
servers on just two high
performance Sun Servers
ñ a Sun Fire 6800
and Sun Enterprise 10000
servers
supported by a single
T3 StorEdge system, all
of which run on a single
Solaris operating platform.
The project migration
was successfully completed
in the scheduled time.
As the result of consolidation,
excelcom has achieved
its objectives of easier
management, cost-savings
with enhanced performance
and reduced floor space
for its datacenter.
The Need to Consolidate
Excelcom was established
in November 1995, as the
third cellular telephone
operator adopting the
GSM (Global System for
Mobile Communications)
standard. It is a joint
venture between an experienced
Indonesian Telecommunications
company and several respected
foreign companies. On
October 8th, 1996, excelcom
officially launched its
mobile phone service to
the Indonesian public.
Branded as GSM-XL Langsung
Kriiing ("instant
ring"), the launch
was extremely successful
and the product was enthusiastically
received by the market
place.
Like most major organizations,
excelcom's datacenter
consisted of many servers
from multiple vendors,
accumulated through gradual
expansion as it sought
to meet business needs.
The servers include those
from Sun, IBM and Compaq-Alpha,
which powered its SAP,
billing, data warehousing
and other applications.
In time, this presented
problems to the company,
affecting the total cost
of ownership (TCO) in
running the servers and
making it more complex
to manage. The presence
of many small and large
servers within the companyís
datacenter meant that
much floor space was being
utilized unnecessarily.
Several of the existing
server and storage systems
were also giving performance
problems. In addition,
maintaining a number of
servers running on various
operating systems increased
operating and maintenance
costs.
These factors prompted
excelcom's management
to decide to consolidate
its many servers into
fewer high performance
servers with the goals
of easier manageability,
reduced maintenance and
operational costs, as
well as releasing precious
space used by the datacenter.
The Challenges of Consolidation
When Sun was asked to
bid for the project, one
of the first tasks was
to help excelcom do an
assessment of its current
IT infrastructure. In
order to prove the viability
of Sunís solutions
for consolidation, a pilot
project was done showing
how excelcom's current
applications would have
better performance when
migrated and consolidated
using the powerful combination
of Sun servers and T3
StorEdge on a single consistent
Solaris platform. When
the actual implementation
started, a formidable
challenge was to migrate
excelcom's entire storage
data, which was very huge,
to a new storage system.
This meant that downtime
of applications would
be inevitable. As such,
the migration could only
be done during weekends
to avoid affecting mission-critical
services to customers.
In addition, the scheduled
work during weekends had
to be carefully executed,
as any delays would mean
delaying the entire project
by another week.
The project
goal was to
consolidate
all its servers
and storage
into only two
high performance
Sun servers
- Sun Fire 68000
and Sun Enterprise
1000 servers
supported by
a single T3
storage system.
Due to the expected
complexity of
migration, the
actual implementation
was divided
into six systematic
phases to ensure
minimal disruption
to the business.
- Phase 1 started
with the migration
of the data
warehouse from
Digital Alpha
platform + IBM
ESS to the Sun
Enterprise E450
(which served
as a temporary
server) along
with the T3
storage system
- Phase 2 involved
the tape library
upgrade which
used two L180
tape libraries,
each with 10
DLT8000 tape
drives
- Phase 3 continued
with data warehouse
migration from
the temporary
Sun E450 to
the targeted
Sun Fire 6800
and E10K servers.
- Phase 4 proceeded
with the storage
upgrade from
the IBM system
to Sun T3 StorEdge
- Phase 5 began
with the serverless
backup implementation
- Phase 6 involved
the SAP application
migration from
Digital Alpha
to Sun Fire
6800
The project was completed
successfully with
help from Sun Enterprise
Services as well
as Sun partners.
By the end of the
project, up to 10
servers were successfully
consolidated on just
two Sun enterprise
servers. All of excelcom's
storage needs were
also consolidated
on a single T3 system
with 8.3 TB of storage
with the necessary
supporting applications
and hardware in place.
The migration had
gone smoothly with
excellent performance
offered by the systems,
resulting in excelcom's
objectives being
met. In fact, the
migration was achieved
in half the planned
schedule.
Datacenter Consolidation
is complex but necessary
for large organizations
such as excelcom
to ensure easy manageability,
conservation of floor
space and lowering
maintenance costsî,
said S.B.Djatnika,
IT Engineering Manager,
excelcom.
Consolidating on
a single consistent
Solaris platform
powered by Sun servers
and storage systems
made sense to us.
What made the completion
of the complex project
impressive, besides
the excellent performance
offered without any
compromise, was the
expertise and teamwork
shown by Sun and
its partners, completing
it very smoothly
in the planned schedule.î
Benefits to excelcom
After the consolidation,
excelcom derived
several benefits.
Its floor space and
IT support staff
were reduced by half.
As for its SAP system,
performance
increased more than
fourfold. Excelcom
estimates that it
will have saved more
than US$300,000 over
five years.
| Element |
Before
Consolidation |
After
Consolidation |
| Floor Space |
75m2 |
30m2 |
| O/S and
backup
data management |
4 staff |
2 staff |
| SAP average
response
time |
1,900 ms |
420 ms |
| EIS(data
warehouse)
average
batch process
time |
11 hours |
2 hours |
| EIS cold
backup
of 600
GB data |
Database
is down
for 30
hours |
Database
is down
for 5 minutes
(using
snapshot
technology)
|
| Savings
in maintenance
cost |
|
1st year:
US$150,000
2nd year:
US$60,000
3rd year:
US$60,000
4th year
US60,000
|
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Sun Microsystems,
Inc. All rights reserved.
Sun, Sun Microsystems,
the Sun Logo, Sun
Enterprise, Ultra,
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Gold, and SunSpectrum
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Inc. in the United
States and other
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|
