Bahrain Mercantile and Maritime International (BMMI)

Story Details

Nearly everything has changed since Bahrain Mercantile and Maritime International (BMMI) was founded in 1865, but customer service and business expansion are as important as ever to the international trading company. For example, BMMI needed to ensure continuous system availability to deliver its services. It also sought a platform with scalable architecture to support business growth and new solutions such as its enterprise resource management (ERP) system from Oracle and the Oracle Database 10g.

BMMI decided to implement the Oracle E-Business Suite in 2006 to strengthen its supply chain management processes. Next, the company looked for a UNIX platform to support the high-performance solution's three-tier architecture.

The company chose a line of Sun Fire servers with UltraSPARC processors from Sun Microsystems. It selected the Solaris 10 Operating System because it could delivers the performance capabilities and scalability BMMI needed. The company was also confident that Sun systems and Oracle applications together would provide a strong business foundation.

BMMI installed several Sun systems with the Solaris 10 Operating System, including the Sun Fire V890, V490, V240, and T2000 servers. The Solaris-powered UltraSPARC architecture easily accommodated the high-performance ERP applications for reliable, around-the-clock service delivery. In addition, server virtualization and consolidation with Solaris Containers technology helped BBMI improve compute density and cut costs.

The Sun Fire servers' UltraSPARC processors with CoolThreads technology also helped BMMI save space and consume less energy. For example, the Sun Fire T2000 server runs up to 32 compute threads concurrently and has 64 GB memory, yet needs only 2RU of rack space and 275 watts of power. By consolidating Windows and UNIX systems on the Sun Fire servers, BMMI has reduced its data center size by 50 percent.

With help from Sun partner ALMOAYYED Computers and Sun StorageTek Implementation Services, BMMI also installed a storage area network (SAN) based on a Sun StorageTek 6140 array and a StorageTek L500 tape library with LT03 tape drives. The Sun StorageTek SAN solution is helping BMMI meet its tiered storage needs and growing archiving requirements.

The Sun storage solution will also help BMMI continuously stream data-intense applications, including email and database software. Furthermore, BMMI will be able to take advantage of the solution's modular design to expand capacity as business grows.

In addition, ALMOAYYED Computers and BMMI implemented a Solaris Cluster solution that includes database nodes for failover protection. If an active node fails, the services switch automatically to the next available node. Supporting a variety of application needs with x64 servers, the team also installed Microsoft Office software and Windows-based applications on Sun Fire X2100 M2 and X4200 servers.

BMMI plans to complete its transition to the Solaris 10 Operating System by the end of 2008. Deployment will have little impact on productivity because BMMI will continue to run its Windows-based applications on Sun server infrastructure while implementing the new ERP system. The company ultimately plans to replace its Windows environment with the Solaris 10 Operating System.

BMMI expects that its new infrastructure from Sun Microsystems will help it increase productivity and use its resources more effectively. As a result, the company will be able to offer better customer service and build a stronger competitive advantage. BMMI also anticipates return-on-investment within a year of full implementation.