Published on 28-Aug-2007
Validated on 03 Feb 2009
"IBM System x has exceeded our expectations around reliability and performance. " - Dale Spencer, vice president of information technology and corporate services, Aviza Technology
Customer:
Aviza Technology
Industry:
Electronics
Deployment country:
United States
Solution:
Enterprise Resource Planning
Overview
Aviza Technology designs, manufactures, sells and supports advanced semiconductor equipment and technologies for the global semiconductor industry. The headquarters office in Scotts Valley, CA, provides IT services to approximately 700 employees in the U.S. and in 9 counties across Europe and Asia.
Business need:
When end-of-life issues on the company’s existing Sun hardware began impacting the availability of Oracle E-Business Suite (EBS), Aviza sought a cost-effective systems solution from IBM.
Solution:
Aviza implemented a two-tier Oracle configuration, with Oracle EBS v11.5.10 on one IBM System x3850 4-socket server and Oracle Database 10g on one IBM System x3950 16-socket server—both running Red Hat Enterprise Linux® 4. IBM System Storage N5200 provides 2.4 TB of data storage. The development environment has six test instances running on five x3850 servers, with a second N5200 providing 7.2 TB of data storage.
Benefits:
Aviza Technology achieved a multifold increase in solution performance, enabled new levels of systems scalability and flexibility across the company's global IT infrastructure, and better positioned the company to meet unforeseen IT system challenges.
Case Study
Running a global business is no small feat in today’s competitive environment. But Aviza Technology has been rising to the challenge since its founding in 2003. With approximately 700 employees worldwide, Aviza designs, manufactures, sells and supports advanced semiconductor equipment and technologies for the global semiconductor industry.
“Our biggest challenge is serving the world 24x7 with reliable hardware and software,” says Dale Spencer, vice president of information technology and corporate services at Aviza. From the company’s headquarters in Scotts Valley, CA, Aviza provides IT services to offices in 9 countries across Europe and Asia.
Aviza had been running Oracle E-Business Suite (EBS) on Sun Solaris-based systems, but end-of-life issues began affecting the company’s ability to meet its service and availability goals. “We started having some errors and unexpected failures that resulted in downtime,” Spencer explains. “When you have a worldwide business, you have to resolve these issues around the clock.”
A cost-effective solution
Aviza was looking for a cost-effective solution that would resolve the reliability issues, provide better performance and enable new levels of flexibility across the company’s global IT infrastructure. To meet those goals, the company chose an IBM solution that includes IBM System x3850 and System x3950 servers with the high-end IBM X3 chipset, and IBM System Storage N5200.
“We evaluated a number of other vendors, but we were concerned about uptime, maintenance and the need for specialized skills,” Spencer says. “We were comfortable working with IBM. They were very informed, and they did a good job of laying out the options for us.”
Aviza has a two-tier Oracle configuration, with the production application running on one x3850 4-socket server and the database running on one x3950 with 16-sockets—both driven by Intel® Xeon® dual-core processors. An N5200 provides 2.4 TB of data storage. The development environment has six test instances running on five x3850 servers, with a second N5200 providing 7.2 TB of data storage. IBM Premier Business Partner Sycomp provided installation and support services.
Exceeding expectations
Aviza saw immediate benefits from the solution; in fact, Spencer reports, “IBM System x has exceeded our expectations around reliability and performance.” Spencer and his team are also pleased with the scalability that the System x technology enables. “We may end up with three or four tiers at some point,” he explains, “and this equipment lends itself to that.”
Spencer says the migration from Sun to IBM System x went extremely well. In addition to migrating from Sun to IBM and from Solaris 6 to Red Hat Enterprise Linux® 4, Aviza upgraded from Oracle EBS 11.0.3 to 11.5.10 and from Oracle Database 8i to 10g. Aviza runs a full complement of EBS components, including all financials, manufacturing, order management and service modules.
Although the reliability and performance improvements are felt across the company, Aviza’s finance group in particular appreciates the new systems. The department’s monthly cost roll-ups used to take anywhere from eight to 18 hours to run, and now they take less than four.
“We’re getting positive comments from everyone,” Spencer says. “And with the IBM solution, we’re a lot more flexible than we were before.”
For more information
Contact your IBM sales representative or IBM Business Partner. Visit us at: ibm.com/systems/x
For more information about Aviza Technology, visit: www.aviza.com
Products and services used
IBM products and services that were used in this case study.
Hardware:
Storage: N5000, System x: System x3850, System x: System x3950
Legal Information
© Copyright IBM Corporation 2007 IBM Systems and Technology Group Route 100 Somers, New York 10589 U.S.A. Produced in the United States of America August 2007 All Rights Reserved IBM, the IBM logo, System Storage and System x are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation in the United States, other countries or both. For a complete list of IBM trademarks, see ibm.com/legal/copytrade.shtml. Intel and Intel Xeon are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation in the United States and other countries. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in the United States, other countries or both. Other company, product and service names may be trademarks or service marks of others. IBM and Sycomp are separate companies and each is responsible for its own products. Neither IBM nor Sycomp makes any warranties, express or implied, concerning the other’s products. References in this publication to IBM products, programs or services do not imply that IBM intends to make these available in all countries in which IBM operates. Any reference to an IBM product, program or service is not intended to imply that only IBM’s product, program or service may be used. Any functionally equivalent product, program or service may be used instead. Offerings are subject to change, extension or withdrawal without notice. All client examples cited represent how some clients have used IBM products and the results they may have achieved. Performance data for IBM and non-IBM products and services contained in this document was derived under specific operating and environmental conditions. The actual results obtained by any party implementing such products or services will depend on a large number of factors specific to such party’s operating environment and may vary significantly. IBM makes no representation that these results can be expected or obtained in any implementation of any such products or services. THE INFORMATION IN THIS DOCUMENT IS PROVIDED “AS-IS” WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED.