Success Story

Siemens A&D SE
Seventy to One! One Sun Enterprise10000 Server Replaces 70 NT Servers

The Automation & Drive, Systems Engineering Division at Siemens sells tailor-made automation products and solutions worldwide. These products and solutions are used in identification systems, industrial microcomputers and power supplies. Over the years,a complicated, unsuitable server landscape had developed that included more than 70 NT servers. These, however, were replaced by a single Sun Enterprise10000 server in spring 2000.

Once upon a time

The network structure and server technologies at A&D SE grew gradually over time and, by the end of 1998, the network specialists were hardly in control of the situation. The initial five Novell Netware data servers that had been installed at the Fürth computer center had grown to a total of 70 NT servers by different manufacturers that served 3500 PCs and printers for 2000 users. By 1999, the IT infrastructure had come to represent the epitome of an organically grown computer environment that had become too heterogeneous and too unstable for such modern applications and requirements as SAP clients, the division's in-house development of software, production-machine control, the in-house publishing department and order processing.

Jochen Dümmel, Head of Operations and IT Innovations at Siemens A&D SE, remembers it well, "The computer center was only performing at 90% availability. The administrators were working around the clock to correct defects and update BIOS settings. The Windows NT platform wouldn't allow us to unravel the server situation, which is why we went in search of a different solution." Once SAP R/3 had been introduced, it became necessary to restructure the eight-year-old ring topology network,which couldn t handle server consolidation. Today, data traffic is effected with a modern glassfiber network,which in a radial arrangement supplies each floor individually with a gigabit of bandwidth.

Space again at the computer center: the installation of the Sun Enterprise 10000 server.

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Production

As expected, the demands on server consolidation at Siemens A&D SE were quite high. It wasn't possible to interrupt operations and initially no changes were allowed at the users' client side. So the contents of the NT services had to be integrated. And because increased availability with reduced operating costs was the objective, it was necessary to migrate NT to UNIX® platform. It was also specified that it must be possible to extend domains during operations. Siemens A&D SE had already profited from the features of the Sun Enterprise 450 server, which was employed in the acquisition of worldwide data over the Internet. "We installed the Sun Enterprise 450 server, stood it in a corner and since then it has been running without mishap", explained Jochen Dümmel happily. We believe that the future of IT is in databases and that server loads will increase accordingly. That's why we turned to Sun again. And due to its performance, the server of choice was the Sun Enterprise 10000.

"Today we only need five administrators instead of fourteen"

Jochen Dümmel
Head of Operations and IT
Innovations, Siemens A&D SE

While two members of staff were responsible for mirroring the actual NT systems, consolidation was commenced in October 1999 on the Sun Enterprise 10000 server,which possesses 16 processors, 20 GB RAM and three Sun StorEdge A3500 arrays for two TB of data. Thus only 25% of capacity is utilized therefore helping to ensure a high degree of scalability for the future. December 1999 saw the start parallel productive operations and, in April 2000, the Sun Enterprise 10000 server - divided into three domains - finally replaced the 70 old NT servers. Solaris PC NetLink represents the key to this surprisingly simple structure. It provides all NT services such as naming, authentication, filing and printing through the failsafe and scalable Solaris Operating Environment and combines them all on one server. Except for the greater degree of availability, users and administrators notice nothing. The appearance and use of the administration tools and applications remain the same.

Sun adapted the current version of Solaris PC NetLink to the many users at Siemens A&D SE. The five remaining administrators - two of whom are responsible for managing the network - have gone through the full series of training for the Sun Enterprise 10000 server. No other manufacturer would have been able to execute the change-over so smoothly, said Jochen Dümmel looking back. "The users weren't aware of the change at all. The only thing they noticed was that the network was suddenly faster and that a new network drive had been connected to their client on which they just simply continued to work." At the same time, Siemens A&D SE took the opportunity of freeing themselves from data clutter and reorganizing the file structure. And the people at Siemens are already considering a new idea: thin clients using Sun Ray appliance are being tested.

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And the moral of the story

The computer center at Siemens A&D SE is now the central network operator for all departments and, with a new infrastructure and 200 times faster data throughput, it is well-equipped for the future -irrespective of whether storage space needs to be doubled every two months or whether it's necessary to quickly access the network from anywhere without complication. The computer center now operates as a cost center and can offer its services at 25% less cost. The cost reduction is mainly due to the greater availability and the simplified administration, which can fall back on Sun's Mission-Critical-Support (SunSpectrum Platinum) in the event of problems. "During the day,we only have to access the server to set up new users", said Jochen Dümmel. The administrators now have more time for creating new services. The team at Siemens A&D in Fürth has pioneered developments that other A&D locations will certainly follow.

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