Published on 12-Mar-2012
Customer:
Acantho
Industry:
Computer Services
Deployment country:
Italy
Solution:
Business Intelligence, Cloud Computing, MidMarket Framework, Smarter Computing, Virtualization - Storage, Optimizing IT
Overview
Part of Gruppo Hera, Acantho specializes in information and communications technology. Based in Imola, central Italy, and with a catchment area of more than 2 million people, Acantho provides business, institutional and residential clients with high-quality, personalized solutions for the transmission of data, voice, video, for security, broadband and wireless internet.
Business need:
ITC services provider Acantho wanted to be able to serve its customers with high-performance, always-on internet capabilities. Its existing infrastructure struggled to keep up with the company’s ever-increasing data volumes and data processing workload. Acantho needed to improve flexibility, reduce the total cost of ownership (TCO) and improve the resilience of its IT infrastructure.
Solution:
Acantho renewed its existing traditional IT infrastructure, transforming it into a cloud-oriented architecture running on two IBM Power 770 servers. The company also consolidated 20 databases supporting 12 SAP landscapes, with 40 SAP instances and 24 application servers into 112 logical (LPARs) and workload partitions (WPARs), all running on the two Power 770 servers.
Benefits:
Server consolidation from 17 Unix systems to two IBM systems has decreased energy consumption by around 80 percent, with an estimated annual saving of €40,000 and reduced CO2 emissions by approximately 80 percent.
Case Study
To read an Italian version of this case study, click here
Part of Gruppo Hera, Acantho specializes in information and communications technology. Based in Imola, central Italy, and with a catchment area of more than 2 million people, Acantho provides business, institutional and residential clients with high-quality, personalized solutions for the transmission of data, voice, video, for security, broadband and wireless internet.
Improving customer service and efficiency
Acantho wanted to be able to serve its customers with high-performance, always-on internet capabilities. Its existing infrastructure struggled to keep up with the company’s ever-increasing data volumes and data processing workload. Acantho wanted to improve flexibility, reduce the total cost of ownership (TCO) and enhance resilience of its IT infrastructure. Acantho focused on reducing the TCO for its computing infrastructure in order to provide more attractive service offerings at lower price points, and win more business in a highly competitive market. Additionally, the company wanted to cut its operating costs to improve its margins and profitability. The Acantho team wanted to improve systems resilience, essential for a services provider offering business-critical SAP applications to clients.
Selecting an IBM solution
IBM created a solution tailored specifically to Acantho’s needs, based on IBM Power Systems servers. IBM Global Technology Services teams managed installation and configuration, as well as system migration, training and support services. Acantho migrated its existing SAP software running on non-IBM Unix systems to two new IBM Power 770 servers running the IBM AIX operating system. IBM assisted with integrating existing storage devices with the new Power 770 servers. Each of the two Power Systems servers has 48 POWER7® core processor installed. Normal use is limited to 36 processor cores, and the remaining 12 can be activated with the Capacity on Demand feature.
Streamlining and simplifying IT infrastructure
Acantho consolidated 20 databases supporting 12 SAP landscapes, with 40 SAP instances and 24 application servers in 112 logical (LPARs) and workload partitions (WPARs). Where previously Acantho ran data backup and storage for 17 separate servers, these are now fully integrated services on just two Power 770 servers, managed by the IBM Systems Director, which greatly reduces system administration workload. Similarly, moving to a virtualized server environment has improved application performance, reliability and security.
Boosting efficiency
The Power 770 servers enable Acantho to move from a traditional IT architecture to a cloud-oriented solution, with clients acquiring SAP application services without regard for the underlying infrastructure. Acantho has consolidated 17 non-IBM systems into two IBM Power 770 servers, reducing energy consumption by some 80 percent, resulting in an estimated annual savings of €40,000, and cutting CO2 emissions by approximately 80 percent.
For more information
To learn more about Smarter Computing from IBM and how we can help you integrate, automate, protect and transform your IT, contact your IBM sales representative or IBM business partner, or visit: ibm.com/smartercomputing
Products and services used
IBM products and services that were used in this case study.
Hardware:
Power 770, Power Systems, Power Systems running AIX 6
Software:
AIX, PowerHA, PowerVM, IBM Systems Director for Power Systems
Operating system:
AIX
Service:
GTS Integrated Technology Services, GTS Technical Support Services: Hardware Maintenance, GTS Technical Support Services: Solution Support
Legal Information
© Copyright IBM Corporation 2012 IBM Italia Circonvallazione Idroscalo 20090 Segrate (MI) Italy Produced in Italy March 2012 IBM, the IBM logo, ibm.com, Power, AIX, PowerHA and PowerVM are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation, registered in many jurisdictions worldwide. A current list of other IBM trademarks is available on the Web at “Copyright and trademark information” at: ibm.com/legal/copytrade.shtml. Unix is a trademark of The Open Group, registered in the US and other countries. 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.