Headquartered in Redlands, California, USA, Esri specializes in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software. Esri products are used by more than 350,000 organizations worldwide, including most U.S. federal agencies and national mapping agencies, 45 of the top 50 petroleum companies, all 50 U.S. state health departments, most forestry companies, and many others in dozens of industries.

1. Overview
Esri maps out large-scale
growth with SAP and IBM As ESRI added new applications
and data volumes grew, system
response started to slow down.
Headquartered in Redlands, California, Oracle, SAP, SAS and others, providing The existing infrastructure could
USA, Esri specializes in Geographic integrated mapping and location data not be extended, and Esri took
Information Systems (GIS) software. services. the opportunity to review its IT
Esri products are used by more than strategy.
350,000 organizations worldwide, The company relies on SAP software
including most U.S. federal agencies for many of its core business The company migrated its SAP
and national mapping agencies, 45 of management processes, such as solutions to IBM Power 750
the top 50 petroleum companies, all financials, human resources and servers, and maintained its
50 U.S. state health departments, most materials management. As further SAP data on the existing IBM DB2
forestry companies, and many others in applications were added and data footprint, with assistance from
dozens of industries. volumes grew, system response started the IBM Migration Factory. Esri
to slow down. Batch processes were consolidated from 16 to two
Esri software is used by more than taking longer to complete, and there physical servers, and replaced its
24,000 state and local governments, was a danger that these would over-run multiple storage systems with two
including Paris, France; Los Angeles, into production time. IBM XIV Storage Systems.
California, USA; Beijing, China; and
Kuwait City, Kuwait. The existing infrastructure was based Esri created a scalable, high-
on another vendor’s older technology performance architecture for
Esri has ten U.S. offices, 80 distributors that could not be easily extended to more rapid services delivery.
worldwide and 2,200 business cope with the increased workload Esri has cut energy costs by
partners. The company employs 2,800 and meet the service level needs of its around 85 percent, while XIV
people, generating annual revenues customers. automated storage management
of $794 million, posting consistent and provisioning have cut
yearly revenue growth. Esri works In common with practice at the administration costs by one full-
closely with major technology leaders time, the SAP applications and their time employee equivalent.
such as AT&T, Citrix, IBM, Microsoft, corresponding non-production
Case study

2. environments were each implemented
on separate servers. The result was
that Esri operated 16 servers and three “We were impressed
main storage devices, with a complex, with IBM’s PowerVM
tiered storage architecture. Collectively environment which
Business Challenge
the infrastructure was not keeping pace basically replaces
with demand from internal users and our physical systems.
Geographic Information Systems
from customers placing orders directly We were amazed
(GIS) specialist Esri relies on
over the internet. Esri spent most of its that, for example, we
SAP software for core business
time on operations, with little time left could replace all 16
management. As new applications
for business investment. systems with just two
were added and data volumes grew, physical systems,
system response started to slow
Ricardo Davis, Systems Administrator and we could run
down. Batch processes were taking
at Esri, comments, “We could not these systems in a
longer to complete, and there was
depend on the system with regards virtual environment
a danger that these would over-run
to performance. If a customer clicked that is reliable and
into production time.
on a web button to make a purchase, redundant.”
and the database was experiencing
Ricardo Davis
a problem at that particular time, the
The existing infrastructure based on Systems Administrator
customer would see an ‘unknown
another vendor’s older technology Esri
error’ message, and we would lose the
could not be extended. With 16
sale. Our only feedback would be from
separate servers to manage and a
complaints to the webmaster.”
series of data storage devices to
take three or four seconds, and users
maintain, system maintenance was a
To attempt to cure some of the issues, experienced intermittent application
constant challenge.
Esri rebooted its core servers every hangs.
six to eight weeks, incurring 15 to 20
minutes of downtime. Gradually, the Selecting IBM for efficiency
benefits of the reboot would fade and Esri arranged for several vendors
service delivery to end users would to propose solutions, including the
drop. incumbent. While other vendors
suggested the same basic scale-
Users began to complain that their out, physical architecture albeit with
reports were not running successfully. newer technology, the IBM team,
Moving from one tab to another within working with IBM Premier Business
an SAP application window might Partner thinkASG, proposed advanced
2

3. that actually runs in the hardware itself.
And that’s it. We were amazed that,
“In the old storage for example, we could replace all 16
array technology systems with just two physical systems,
we were required to and we could run these systems in a
spread our database virtual environment that is reliable and
Solution
over multiple spindles redundant.”
to achieve sufficient To create the kind of flexible, high-
performance. The XIV “As far as the storage was concerned,
performance solution that would
manages the data we ran about 8 or 10 disk trays. In our
serve Esri’s existing needs and
layout across multiple production system we have to lay the
support future needs, the company
drives automatically, data out in such a way that we get the
migrated its SAP solutions to IBM
and delivers great best performance. It takes time to do
Power 750 servers, maintained
performance.” that on a standard storage array.
its data on the existing IBM DB2
Paul Blatchley software, and consolidated its data
“With XIV storage array all that work
SAP Manager storage to IBM XIV Storage Systems.
went away. All the work going into
Esri
carving up disks, creating volumes, we
By enabling IBM DB2 compression,
didn’t have to go through any more with
core production database volumes
the XIV.”
were reduced by 40 percent, online
PowerVM virtualization capabilities
backup time was cut by 30 percent,
to transform the Esri infrastructure. Migrating to POWER7 for
and offline backup time was cut by
The Power Systems solution, based performance
79 percent.
on IBM Power 750 servers with Esri migrated its SAP applications to
POWER7 processors running IBM the IBM AIX environment on the Power
In the process, Esri reduced its
AIX and PowerVM virtualization 750 platform, and both applications and
server footprint from 16 to two
technology, combined with IBM XIV data were moved to the XIV platform. In
physical servers, using PowerVM
Storage System, offered Esri a smarter the process, Esri maintained IBM DB2
virtualization to provide independent
approach enabling improved business as its database software for its SAP
virtual servers for its SAP
performance. applications, enabling them to take full
applications.
advantage of the IBM technology and
Ricardo Davis says, “We were software stack.
impressed with IBM’s PowerVM
environment which basically replaces During the migration Esri took
our physical systems. With the advantage of DB2 compression
PowerVM you have a virtual system features to reduce its data volumes. The
3

4. production database of 750 GB was
cut to 450 GB, a 40 percent saving.
With reduced data volumes and other “The Migration Factory
technical enhancements, online back was great. They
has reduced from 18 hours to 12 hours, essentially were on
Key Solution Components
a 30 percent improvement. Offline top of everything they
backup has been cut from four hours to were going to do, and
Industry
50 minutes, a 79 percent improvement. they explained all of
Software what they were going
The company operates two data to do, and I found
Applications centers, each with one Power 750 and them to be very
SAP® ERP including financials, SAP XIV device. Using PowerVM, the servers professional and very
eRecruiting, part of SAP ERP Human support multiple logical partitions knowledgeable.”
Capital Management (LPARs), running each SAP application
Paul Blatchley
in its own separate virtual server.
SAP Manager
Hardware PowerVM enables Esri to allocate
Esri
IBM Power® 750 servers, IBM XIV® processor capacity, memory and
Storage System bandwidth resources dynamically to the
servers, to ensure that the applications
Software always have sufficient resources to automatically adjusts according to
IBM DB2 version 9.7 deliver fast response and meet service requirements, further reducing the need
level objectives. This arrangement for manual monitoring and intervention.
Services is considerably more efficient than
IBM Premier Business Partner running physical servers, as capacity Choosing the IBM Migration
thinkASG, IBM Migration Factory can be allocated according to demand Factory
and released to the pool when available. Esri runs a lean IT department, focused
on providing operational value to the
Each of the two XIV devices provides business. A significant application
27 TB of storage, expandable to 79 and data migration project would be
TB. The XIV storage architecture and beyond the team’s resources, and the
automated self-management removes company invited systems integrators
the need for manual storage tiering and and business partners to present their
storage allocation. The XIV includes a proposals.
technique known as ‘thin provisioning,’
which enables the Esri team to set up Reviewing presentations with thinkASG,
a storage volume, which the XIV then Esri selected the IBM Migration Factory
4

5. “The IBM Migration Factory provided
an excellent service and outstanding
“The IBM platform is support for the migration.”
an excellent hardware
platform to run SAP The core SAP application landscape
on. It is very reliable. contains around 600 GB of production
Business Benefits
A migration to the data, replicated for test and
IBM hardware is development purposes. Esri also uses
• Esri’s new scalable, high-
an easy process, SAP eRecruiting, which adds a further
performance architecture enables
made so by the IBM 80 GB. The production system was
it to deliver business services faster
Migration Factory migrated to the Power 750 and XIV
and improves its IT economics,
and the work that infrastructure in 10 hours.
supporting investment in the
they do.” business through cost savings.
Paul Blatchley, SAP Manager, adds,
Paul Blatchley
“The Migration Factory was great. They
SAP Manager • The new solution occupies a
essentially were on top of everything
Esri smaller physical footprint, and with
they were going to do, and they
reduced software licenses (based
explained all of what they were going
on the reduced number of servers),
to do, and I found them to be very
Esri has a much lower total cost of
service, as Ricardo Davis explains: “You professional and very knowledgeable.
ownership.
take a deep breath when you know They were familiar with the IBM
you have to migrate because in a big equipment that we were moving to, the
• XIV automated storage
move like that it is important to mitigate storage system we were moving to,
management and provisioning have
the risks that are involved. How are we they were familiar with SAP and how it
cut administration costs by one
going to do this? What are the risks that functioned, and they led us through that
full-time employee equivalent.
are out there that we don’t see right process without an issue.”
now? That’s the first thing that comes
• Projected energy use by the new
to mind. Gaining the business benefits
IBM server hardware is 89,702
The new IBM infrastructure has
kWh/year, a saving of 33,726 kWh/
“My concerns were alleviated when we transformed system response through
year, some 27 percent.
had our kick-off meeting with the IBM rapid service delivery and eliminated
Migration Factory. I was impressed by the frustrations of its staff and
how they had things planned from the customers. The Power solution also
very beginning. There was no hesitation has embedded scalability in the system
on their part, which gave me a sense of architecture supporting new business
confidence. investment for Esri.
5

6. Ricardo Davis comments, “With systems and two storage arrays. Now,
our data on the old storage array, basically, that says it right there. As far
in DB2 we were averaging around as electricity is concerned, we do not IBM Deutschland GmbH
D-70548 Stuttgart
11-15 milliseconds response time have to power 16 systems. We’re just ibm.com/solutions/sap
on asynchronous I/O reads. With powering two systems, two storage IBM, the IBM logo, and ibm.com are trademarks of
International Business Machines Corporation,
our data on the XIV, the DB2 arrays, not to mention the storage registered in many jurisdictions worldwide. A
current list of other IBM trademarks is available on
average asynchronous I/O reads arrays that we had before – we had the Web at “Copyright and trademark information”
at http://www.ibm.com/legal/copytrade.shtml
is 3-5 milliseconds, a 66 percent three separate storage systems that
Intel, the Intel logo, Intel Xeon and the Intel Xeon
improvement. The average electrical were supporting our old environment, logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of
Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United
energy used by the server hardware so that in itself is a big saving. Having to States and other countries. UNIX is a registered
trademark of The Open Group in the United States
is 123,428 kWh/year. The projected provide electrical power for 16 systems and other countries. Linux is a trademark of Linus
Torvalds in the United States, other countries, or
energy use by the new IBM server and three storage arrays down to two
both. Microsoft, Windows, Windows NT, and the
hardware is 89,702 kWh/year, a saving systems and two storage arrays, and Windows logo are trademarks of Microsoft
Corporation in the United States, other countries,
of 33,726 kWh/year, some 27 percent. of course, not to mention the support or both.
costs.” Other company, product or service names may be
trademarks, or service marks of others.
Paul Blatchley says, “In the old This case study illustrates how one IBM customer
uses IBM and/or IBM Business Partner
storage array technology we were Esri is currently running the Power 750
technologies/services. Many factors have
required to spread our database over servers with five CPUs, expandable contributed to the results and benefits described.
IBM does not guarantee comparable results. All
multiple spindles to achieve sufficient up to 24 CPUs, and the XIV arrays information contained herein was provided by the
featured customer and/or IBM Business Partner.
performance. The XIV manages the can grow from 27 to 79 TB. Ricardo IBM does not attest to its accuracy. All customer
examples cited represent how some customers
data layout across multiple drives Davis estimates that this headroom have used IBM products and the results they may
have achieved. Actual environmental costs and
automatically, and delivers great means that Esri has at least ten years’
performance characteristics will vary depending
performance.” headroom. on individual customer configurations and
conditions.
This publication is for general guidance only.
Esri formerly allocated time purely to Paul Blatchley comments, “Here at Photographs may show design models.
© Copyright IBM Corp. 2011. All rights reserved.
storage allocation and management, Esri, we are running SAP to run the
which is now handled automatically business, something that executives
by the XIV systems, saving the costs at the company do not want to have
of one full-time employee equivalent. to worry about. The company is in the
The team has seen improvements for business of selling its software and
batch processing, too, as Ricardo Davis achieving its mission. So we want SAP © Copyright 2011 SAP AG
SAP AG
explains: “One batch job used to take to be running in an environment that is Dietmar-Hopp-Allee 16
D-69190 Walldorf
30 minutes, for example, now it is taking reliable so those folks in the company
SAP, the SAP logo, SAP and all other SAP products
10 minutes, a 66 percent improvement. that never have to concern themselves and services mentioned herein are trademarks or
registered trademarks of SAP AG in Germany and
We’ve seen others that, it just varies. We with it. In the past, we were regularly several other countries.
have seen 10 times the improvement, asked for approval for downtime, and
or 50 percent improvement, it just now with the IBM technologies we don’t
depends.” worry about that. The IBM platform is
an excellent hardware platform to run
Esri has also cut its core operational SAP on. It is very reliable. A migration to
costs, including support, energy and the IBM hardware is an easy process,
data room space. Ricardo Davis says, made so by the IBM Migration Factory SPC03376-WWEN-00 (December 2011)
“We have gone from 16 systems to two and the work that they do.”