Case Studies

Furniture company requiring a server refresh

Our client was looking for a refresh of their IBM POWER server and at the same time wanted to take the opportunity to implement a better plan for resilience. After gaining a complete understanding of their infrastructure and business requirements, Applied Technologies proposed and then implemented a new IBM POWER 8 with MIMIX High Availability.

Manufacturing company with IBM POWER 5 waiting to move to SAP

Our client was told by their German parent company that it would be some time before the planned move to SAP would happen so had to look at upgrading the existing infrastructure and improve resilience in the meantime.

After investigating several possible options, the client chose Applied Technologies to supply a pair of IBM POWER 6 machines, MIMIX Professional software for High Availability and all the services to implement the solution. By looking at POWER 6, Applied Technologies met budget and Operating System requirements, delivering the solution at a price the client had considered unachievable.

Media and Hardware provider

As a complete Disaster Recovery provider to this UK systems specialist – with hundreds of sales people in the field – Applied Technologies and Covenco Recovery Services delivered an upgraded IBM POWER solution with MIMIX High Availability services.

Alongside a comprehensive off site vaulting solution for their Intel data at our Disaster Recovery facilities in Banbury and Langley, the MIMIX solution will protect their POWER environment data. In the event of a complete site loss, our specialists can rebuild the Intel systems, provide workplace at our 150-desk facility, and give support for the MIMIX solution to keep their business up and running.

Designer and manufacturer of high end wallpaper and fabrics, with a history stretching back more than a century

The client required a cost-effective replacement for their existing Power7 environment that would provide room for anticipated growth. Applied Technologies worked with IBM and the customer’s ISV to fully evaluate options both technically and commercially, leveraging all available discounts through various IBM programmes.

The infrastructure refresh replaced the existing IBM POWER 740 (directly connected to an 8Gb Fibre Channel IBM DS5020) with a 20-Core IBM POWER E850C and a 16Gb IBM V5010 with Flash Tier, along with a new LTO Tape Library. In addition to designing and supplying the hardware configurations, providing integration services, the Applied Technologies technical team transferred IBM StorWize skills to enable the client to comfortably manage their storage on a day-to-day basis.

International sweet manufacturer moving to SAP

It was important to our client that they enhance the high availability plan already in place. Applied Technologies proposed uplifting their high availability Recover Now software to MIMIX Professional and supplied an additional IBM POWER server to mirror the existing production machine, along with complete installation services. The new POWER server was supplied with Disaster Recovery OS and keys, making the solution very cost effective.

UK Logistics Specialist

As a 24×7 operation handling thousands of items daily, the client’s ERP solution changes thousands of records hourly. Being such a busy environment required a powerful, partitioned IBM POWER i System with a highly performant V7000 disk infrastructure. Keeping the systems synchronised, maintenance of the MIMIX High Availability and ongoing system monitoring is all part of the Applied Technologies support services.

Large Regional Banking Client

Banking operations clearly need constant availability – and if your regions include the Middle East and all of Europe, there is no weekend downtime. Having provided the Bank with a resilient POWER7 AIX environment in 2014, Applied Technologies were delighted to be asked to refresh the environment in 2017 with a larger POWER8 platform. The final solution comprised of 4 x Production systems in a multiple POWER HA configuration, with an SSD ‘heavy’ V7000 providing the powerful disk solution. The final design utilises Flash Copy to provide multiple points of roll back, and SKLM to encrypt the backups for GDPR/Security reasons.

Fabrics design and manufacturing company needing improved business resilience

Applied Technologies replaced an ageing disaster recovery machine with an IBM POWER 8 Capacity Back Up (CBU) System and provided all the expertise and services to implement the solution with no disruption to the business.

Paint manufacturer looking to refresh their infrastructure

The client was overdue a system refresh, utilising ageing equipment with a lack of performance. By going through a consultation process to analyse the software and maintenance costs, Applied Technologies were able to provide a technology refresh to a pair of new IBM POWER 8 servers with MIMIX High Availability software that was cost neutral over 3 years.

National retail giant supports growing store network

A retail success story opening new stores weekly can put a strain on existing infrastructure, and if your ERP solution has you locked in at a particular IBM i OS, your options might initially seem limited. Working with Applied Technologies, our solution architects utilised IBM POWER technology to provide two new systems while meeting the business demands for a change freeze during an upcoming peak season and literally no downtime due to 24-hour warehouse operations.

Applied Technologies designed a ‘dual target’ solution, setting up the new systems as a MIMIX target and replica from the existing live box. All systems were brought in sync and the upgrades were delivered with the shortest of outages, just to swap the communications.

US clothing behemoth

With 32,000 employees globally, large warehouses and manufacturing plants all reliant on their IT infrastructure, system resilience and change processes are always a priority. Managing the migration of the client’s older Power systems on to a pair of POWER8s, with a MIMIX High Availability solution, was a substantial project with meticulous planning. As much of the work needed to be completed out of hours, and to minimise cut-over disruption to minutes, Applied Technologies designed a multiple replication MIMIX solution to keep production running as the new solution developed.

Internationally recognised music and entertainment retailer

The client has been using IBM i as the cornerstone of their business since the 1990s. Consequently, they had a number of important development platforms on multiple IBM i systems. Working with Applied Technologies, we were able to reduce the footprint to just one system, with guest partitions hosting the individual workloads. The client was able to remove more than a dozen system units and expansions, replacing them all with a single 4U CEC – and yet, each environment has more resources than previous. The space and power saving alone was justification for the project, with the reduction in SWMA by moving to a P05 band being the icing on the cake.

National steel stockholding specialist and supplier of steel tube and pipelines throughout the UK and Ireland

Following growing concerns around system performance on ageing Power hardware, Applied Technologies worked in conjunction with IBM to provide the client with a loan Power8 Server for a proof-of-concept. The successful testing resulted in Applied Technologies supplying and implementing a pair of IBM Power8 S822s, resilient IBM SAN24B-5 Switches and a sizeable IBM V7000 Gen3 Storage environment, comprising two tiers of disk.