IBM DB2 is optimized for your SAP software
SAP AG in Walldorf, Germany, is one of the world’s leading business software providers. With more than 45,000 employees serving international enterprises of every conceivable type, SAP AG has people and offices on every continent, operating in multiple languages.
SAP IT (the IT department of SAP AG) wanted to be able to take advantage of new SAP software functionalities while reducing the complexity and operational costs of its IT landscape. The company also wanted to move to a new database platform to deliver optimal performance.
In three separate projects, SAP IT upgraded its Human Capital Management (HCM), ERP and Business Intelligence applications, simultaneously performing Unicode conversion and migrating databases from Oracle to IBM DB2.
Simultaneous upgrade/conversion/migration reduces business disruption without significantly increasing project complexity. Response times in the HCM environment improved by around 40 per cent. Archiving and database reorganization reduced the size of the ERP database by 22 per cent. Conversion to Unicode has helped SAP IT introduce multiple-language applications, facilitating international operations. SAP’s Business Intelligence system is now positioned for nearly unlimited scalability with DB2.
IBM's long-term roadmap for DB2 was a significant factor in SAP IT’s strategic decision to adopt it as its standard database platform. IBM develops DB2 in close partnership with the SAP development division, and Peter Boegler, Solution Architect at SAP IT, reports that the relationship between the two teams is very good. "The IBM DB2 engineers were fully engaged on the project, and helped us bring it to a highly successful conclusion."