Published on 30-Oct-2006
Validated on 05 Jan 2009
"Consolidation to the IBM System x platform has put us in a strong position for further growth, while simultaneously reducing the complexity of our infrastructure and cutting our operational costs. With this solution from IBM and Triangle, we now have an IT environment fit to handle today’s business challenges." - Bora Beykont, CIO, Oxford Instruments
Customer:
Oxford Instruments plc
Industry:
Electronics, Life Sciences
Deployment country:
United Kingdom
Solution:
Infrastructure Simplification, Optimizing IT, Server Consolidation
IBM Business Partner:
Triangle
Overview
Oxford Instruments (www.oxinst.com) aims to be the leading provider of tools and systems for the emerging nanotechnology and bioscience markets. The company records annual sales of around £160 million and runs four UK operations, four in the US, and has further sites in China, Finland, France, Germany, Japan and Singapore.
Business need:
To meet its strategic objectives, Oxford Instruments wanted to shift from a federated approach to business and IT management towards an integrated, ‘single view’ approach. With almost 100 servers from multiple vendors, the challenge was to conclude a cost-effective consolidation, optimisation and standardisation programme.
Solution:
Oxford Instruments selected the IBM System x platform, and worked with Triangle, an IBM Premier Business Partner, to consolidate to just 40 rack-mounted x336, x346, x366 and x460 servers.
Benefits:
Consolidating to the IBM System x platform has helped Oxford Instruments cut its total IT operating costs by around 20 per cent through reduced maintenance, administration and floorspace, and created an optimised, flexible infrastructure that can support the globally integrated business strategy.
Case Study
Oxford Instruments (www.oxinst.com) aims to be the leading provider of tools and systems for the emerging nanotechnology and bioscience markets. The company records annual sales of around £160 million and runs four UK operations, four in the US, and has further sites in China, Finland, France, Germany, Japan and Singapore.
Formerly operating as independent business units, each location had acquired its own IT systems. A change of corporate strategy, to treat the business as an integrated whole in order to maximise the economies of scale and to penetrate global markets, required a correspondingly integrated IT infrastructure.
Bora Beykont, Chief Information Officer at Oxford Instruments, reports, “There were almost 100 different PC servers, from every possible vendor and with a wide variety of specifications. There were numerous corporate Intranets, twelve separate email servers and multiple separate ERP application instances. If we were to enable single-company business management, the first step was to resolve this expensive and complicated federated approach by consolidating, optimising and standardising the IT infrastructure.”
System x sets the standard
The consolidation criteria were that the new servers would all be rack-mounted, share common drive and peripheral technologies, and would be sourced from a single vendor that could offer a variety of models to suit a wide range of application workloads.
Oxford Instruments chose to standardise on the IBM System x platform, opting for models x336, x346, x366 and x460 servers, implemented by Triangle (www.triangle-group.com), an IBM Premier Business Partner. Triangle is recognised as a leading organisation in pioneering business-changing solutions, and is dedicated to providing cutting-edge support for the IBM server platforms.
“Consolidating to the IBM System x family enabled us to fit with the corporate strategy of integrated business operations – while helping us reduce our total costs of operation by around 20 per cent,” says Bora Beykont.
“The IBM System x platform offers exactly the kind of standardisation and flexibility we need. The build quality enables very high mean time between failure, and using IBM Director software to manage the servers allows us to learn the skills once for the entire infrastructure without additional training workload.”
Unified with WebSphere
Part of transforming the business from a federated to an integrated structure involved creating a single company Intranet – previously each location had a standalone solution, which made information sharing patchy and difficult to control.
To create a group-wide Intranet to carry shared HR, company policy and business management information, Oxford Instruments has implemented IBM WebSphere Portal Server, running on an x460 server and supporting about 1,200 corporate users.
“With the IBM and Triangle solution we are able to manage the company as a single entity rather than multiple independent enterprises,” says Bora Beykont. “WebSphere delivers both our corporate Intranet and external Web site, allowing us to present a unified brand image both internally and externally.
“Triangle’s expertise with both the IBM System x hardware and the WebSphere Portal software was key to the success of this project,” he adds. “Their whole attitude, from presales through implementation to support has been excellent, offering a true end-to-end service to meet our business needs.”
The right platform for growth
Oxford Instruments is now ready to continue its global expansion, supported by the new IBM System x infrastructure. Adding servers is a standardised procedure – and even the maintenance contract has been consolidated to IBM Global Technology Services.
The next step will be to implement IBM System Storage DS4300 storage systems, with 2TB capacity, to provide centralised database and file serving for all users. The aim is to reduce complexity, and provide the scalability the business will undoubtedly need.
Bora Beykont concludes, “Consolidation to the IBM System x platform has put us in a strong position for further growth, while simultaneously reducing the complexity of our infrastructure and cutting our operational costs. With this solution from IBM and Triangle, we now have an IT environment fit to handle today’s business challenges.”
Products and services used
IBM products and services that were used in this case study.
Hardware:
Storage: DS4300 Express, System x
Software:
WebSphere Portal Server
Legal Information
PO Box 41 North Harbour Portsmouth Hampshire PO6 3AU The IBM home page can be found at ibm.com IBM, the IBM logoSystem x, WebSphere, System Storage and System Storage DS are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation in the United States, other countries, or both. Microsoft, Windows, Windows NT, and the Windows logo are trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States, other countries, or both. Intel, Intel Inside (logos), MMX and Pentium are trademarks of Intel Corporation in the United States, other countries, or both. Other company, product or service names may be trademarks, or service marks of others. IBM and Triangle are separate companies and each is responsible for its own products. Neither IBM nor Triangle 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. All customer examples cited represent how some customers have used IBM products and the results they may have achieved. Actual environmental costs and performance characteristics will vary depending on individual customer configurations and conditions. IBM hardware products are manufactured from new parts,or new and used parts. In some cases, the hardware product may not be new and may have been previously installed. Regardless, IBM warranty terms apply. This publication is for general guidance only. Photographs may show design models. © Copyright IBM Corp. 2006 All Rights Reserved.
