Embasa improves data flows with SAP and IBM

Empresa Baiana de Água e Saneamento S/A (Embasa) is a water supplier and water treatment utility operating in the Brazilian state of Bahia. Embasa manages one of the largest water treatment services in Brazil. Embasa provides drinking water for more than 94 percent of the population in its coverage area.

Embasa is a public-private partnership with the Government of Bahia as its majority shareholder. Founded in 1971, the company has annual revenue of more than US$ 900 million and employs around 8,000 people.

In common with many large utilities, Embasa ran multiple legacy systems to manage both operational services and its back-office business management. In general, each back-office application was run separately, with no shared financial or customer data. Suelene Diniz, IT Leader for the SAP implementation project, explains. “There was no integration between systems. Some data was replicated or redundant, and there was little or no validation of data integrity. We passed information from the existing operational systems to the management systems manually, a slow and inefficient process that could easily introduce errors.”

Embasa was running its legacy solutions on the IBM System z® platform, with IBM DB2®. Long experience with System z had demonstrated its scalability, reliability and security. The ability to run the Linux operating system alongside IBM z/OS® made the platform a strong candidate for the new applications.

Selecting SAP ERP for optimal business management

“The challenge was to find the best ERP solution for business management,” says Denise Britto, Embasa’s CIO. “Additionally, our experience of DB2 on z/OS had shown that it is a highly reliable solution for managing our information, and close integration between DB2 and the business management software was essential.”

Following a public tender, Consórcio Porto Seguro was selected to implement SAP ERP, its recommended business management solution. SAP offers a very wide range of components, many of which are specifically available for the utilities sector. Embasa deployed asset management, business process control, cost controlling, financials, materials management, production planning, project systems, and sales and distribution among others.

Embasa also implemented SAP NetWeaver Portal for connectivity services, SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse for data warehousing, and SAP BusinessObjects for analytics and SAP NetWeaver Process Integration.

Working with Consórcio Porto Seguro and IBM, Embasa followed the SAP implementation methodology, starting with unit and integration tests, and moving to a full business assessment of the impact of the new solution across the company. There will be around 500 users initially, which may rise to 1,300.

To support the new workload, Embasa upgraded its IT environment to an IBM System z196™ server with seven central processors (CPs) to run z/OS workload, two IBM System z Integrated information Processors (zIIPs) to run specific DB2 transactions, and six integrated Facility for Linux (IFL) processors to support the SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 operating system hosted on z/VM, the System z virtualization layer.

The SAP software environment uses five CPs, one zIIP and six IFL processors. DB2 runs natively in z/OS with the load distributed between the CPs and zIIPs, providing excellent price-performance for database workload and legacy applications.

Embasa operates four logical partitions (LPARs), two running z/OS with DB2, and two z/VM environments containing Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Server to support SAP applications.

Networking between the virtual servers is handled by HiperSockets, the high-speed virtual networking technology built into System z, which removes the requirement for external switches while providing increased data throughput.

IBM offered a complete solution package, which included infrastructure and architecture consulting, system sizing and workshops run by a specialist IBM SAP team. This commercially attractive “Solution Edition” approach gave Embasa the confidence to go ahead with the first implementation in Brazil of SAP applications on Linux on the IBM System z platform.

High-performance data storage

With the SAP applications consolidated to the System z196, Embasa considered its data storage options. On the same principle of centralization and simplification, Embasa selected an IBM System Storage® DS8800 fibre channel disk array, with 29 TB of raw capacity.

Humberto Sampaio, DB2 and z/OS Administration Manager, reports, “The company employs today just two system support analyst for both the z196 and DS8800, who is responsible for maintaining the operating system (z/OS and z/VM), the database (DB2), security (RACF), and network (VTAM, TCP/IP).

The z196 and DS8800 can be doubled in capacity within the same physical footprint, ensuring that Embasa has plenty of room for growth. The z196 offers a powerful and highly scalable solution.”

Massive business scalability

By implementing SAP in Linux partitions on the z196, with DB2 on z/OS providing high-performance shared information management, Embasa has created a simple, unified IT infrastructure capable of enormous growth.

Consolidating multiple workloads to the z196 has enabled Embasa to avoid the need to add smaller systems to the data center, making space available while cutting energy and cooling requirements.

Because the applications and database are connected internally within the z196 environment, Embasa has been able to eliminate external cabling, network switches and power supplies, further simplifying the system landscape, which is now easier to understand and maintain. Embasa has reduced its carbon footprint as a means of achieving green data center targets.

“Embasa is building a cost-effective, highly scalable business management solution with SAP ERP and the z196, DS8800 and IBM DB2,” says Suelene Diniz. “With the consolidation to z196, Embasa is ready for the next phase of growth.”