IBM helped INTTRA, a global shipping platform, build a world-class IT infrastructure to support its rapid growth and transaction volume. The solution from IBM improved scalability, performance and disaster recovery, while reducing energy costs by 30% and data center footprint by 50%. This allowed INTTRA to continue expanding while containing operational costs.

1. IBM Case Study
INTTRA supports the global supply
chain with a world-class IT
infrastructure from IBM
Overview
■ Challenge
To provide the IT performance
and scalability to support a
multi-carrier e-commerce plat-
form for the global ocean con-
Most of us don’t give much thought to “ We take advantage
tainerized shipping industry
how the products we use every day get
■ Solution of all of the latest
shipped from one side of the world to
Building a world-class
the other. At INTTRA, it’s all they think
technology to make
IT infrastructure based on absolutely certain that
about. INTTRA, short for “international
IBM BladeCenter®, IBM Power
trade,” was formed in 2000 for the each time we upgrade,
Systems™, and IBM System
purpose of providing a multi-carrier we leave less of a
Storage™ solutions, enabling
e-commerce platform for the booking
consolidation and virtualization footprint behind.”
and documentation of ocean container-
of the server, storage and net- — Ken Bloom, president and CEO,
ized shipping. Based in New Jersey but
work tiers, and facilitating a INTTRA
with sales and support offices all over
sophisticated disaster recovery
the globe, INTTRA serves 30 of the
strategy
world’s leading ocean carriers and more
■ Benefits
than 20,000 customer locations around
Reducing the data center foot-
the world.
print by 50 percent and reduc-
ing energy costs by 30 percent,
while providing the capacity to
support the company’s phe-
nomenal annual rate of growth

2. Prior to INTTRA’s founding, shipping was booked by phone, fax, and other
non-standardized processes that were time consuming and manually intensive.
INTTRA’s e-commerce portal has revolutionized the industry. “We’ve created a
global, standardized network so that the world’s shippers and the world’s carriers
can connect seamlessly to one another,” explains Ken Bloom, president and CEO
of INTTRA. After growing 1100 percent in the last seven years, the company now
accounts for 10 percent of the world’s containerized trade, originating 10.7 million
containers in 2008.
Meeting the IT needs of a dynamic business like INTTRA is a tall order. “In a high-
growth company like ours, where we’ve seen almost double growth every year,
scalability in both our processing ability and our storage capacity is critical,” says
Jeffrey Pattison, CIO of INTTRA.
“And when you’re processing over a million transactions every day, you care very
much about performance in every regard,” adds Bloom. “Our entire solution
depends completely on data, data processing, and the infrastructure that helps us
run that technology.”
A state-of-the-art IT infrastructure from IBM
“INTTRA is a Software as a Service—or SaaS—company, and, as a result,
the heart of the company is IT,” explains Anthony Costa, Managing Director of
Global Infrastructure and Corporate Systems. “IBM technology is at the core of our
architecture.”
In the past few years, INTTRA has consolidated their servers on IBM BladeCenter
LS20, BladeCenter LS21, and IBM Power® 570 servers. They’ve achieved a
95 percent virtualization rate by virtualizing at every tier. “Virtualization has been a
key driver,” says Pattison. “Not only is it good for the environment, but it’s also
good for business. It’s given us a lot more flexibility.”
To facilitate storage virtualization, upgrades, and disaster recovery, the company
relies on IBM System Storage SAN Volume Controller (SVC), which Pattison
describes as the “lynchpin” of the company’s storage strategy. It’s part of a
comprehensive storage solution which offers INTTRA the capabilities and cost-
competitiveness they require as a mid-sized company offering enterprise-class
services. With the SVC, aggregate storage utilization has risen 35 percent.
To meet the company’s burgeoning storage needs, INTTRA selected IBM System
Storage DS8100 and DS8300 enterprise disk storage systems. These systems are
part of a larger tiered storage strategy that currently provides capacity for 120 TB
of data.

3. “As INTTRA has grown exponentially, so have our storage requirements,” says
Solution Components
Costa. “We chose the IBM DS8000 storage platform because of reliability,
scalability, and performance.” Hardware
● IBM BladeCenter® E
To help implement and support these solutions, INTTRA looks not only to IBM but ● IBM BladeCenter LS20
also to IBM Premier Business Partner VSS, Inc. “VSS has been a trusted partner of
● IBM BladeCenter LS21
INTTRA since its inception,” recalls Costa. “VSS has brought skills and capabilities
● IBM Power® 570
to the table that INTTRA otherwise would not have had access to.”
● IBM System Storage™ DS8100
Protecting the global supply chain ● IBM System Storage DS8300
For INTTRA, the ability to provide disaster recovery is an integral part of the service ● IBM System Storage SAN Volume
offering. By leveraging SVC Global Mirror technology from IBM, INTTRA was able Controller
to implement an industry-leading disaster recovery strategy that reduced their
Software
recovery time objective (RTO) from 72 hours to only four, with a data recovery
● IBM Tivoli® Productivity Center
point objective (RPO) of 15 minutes or less.
● IBM PowerVM™
“Our being down not only affects our carriers, shippers, and freight forwarders, Business Partner
but it literally can cause disruption to a large part of the global supply chain,” ● VSS, Inc.
explains Pattison.
“The industry now depends on us,” echoes Bloom. “We can’t let the industry down
by having anything less than the most dependable data center. And we deliver that
with IBM technology.”
Leaving less of a footprint
INTTRA has seen significant benefits from their IBM infrastructure, especially given
their continuing drive to consolidate and virtualize. For example, the company has
reduced its data center footprint by 50 percent, despite doubling its growth each
year. And this reduced footprint has contributed to new levels of energy efficiency,
resulting in a 30 percent savings on energy costs.
CEO Bloom says these savings are particularly important in an industry like global
ocean shipping, which has come under great scrutiny for its carbon footprint and
power consumption. “We take advantage of all of the latest technology to make
absolutely certain that each time we upgrade, we leave less of a footprint behind.”

4. “Phenomenal ROI” © Copyright IBM Corporation 2009
IBM Systems and Technology Group
The IBM solutions continue to deliver the reliability, performance, and scalability that
Route 100
INTTRA has come to rely on, at a cost that fits their budget. Just ask INTTRA CFO Somers, New York 10589
U.S.A.
Valerie Rainey. “The IBM solution has great value-based pricing for small and
Produced in the United States of America
medium-sized business,” she says. “And the ROI for us has been phenomenal.” August 2009
All Rights Reserved
“Having one single vendor for servers and storage was key to having the lowest IBM, the IBM logo, ibm.com, BladeCenter,
Power Systems, PowerVM, System Storage,
total cost of ownership,” adds Pattison. and Tivoli are trademarks or registered
trademarks of International Business Machines
Corporation in the United States, other
In addition to saving on capital costs, INTTRA has saved on operational costs by countries, or both. If these and other
keeping staffing levels constant despite the growth of the company. As Costa IBM trademarked terms are marked on their first
occurrence in this information with a trademark
points out, “A true measure of the business benefit of technology is the ability for it symbol (® or ™), these symbols indicate U.S.
to scale while containing costs. The IBM solutions and management tools have registered or common law trademarks owned
by IBM at the time this information was
enabled us to maintain the technology staff at a static number for the past published. Such trademarks may also be
three years.” registered or common law trademarks in other
countries. A current list of IBM trademarks is
available on the Web at “Copyright and
Positioned for an ambitious future trademark information” at ibm.com/legal/
copytrade.shtml
Costa says the beauty of INTTRA’s IT infrastructure lies in its ability to provide the
Other product, company or service names may
performance and scalability they require but at a price point that makes sense for a be trademarks or service marks of others.
company of their size. “We are a mid-sized business playing in an arena which IBM and VSS, Inc. are separate companies and
each is responsible for its own products. Neither
requires a Fortune 100-style technology implementation,” he explains. “With IBM nor VSS, Inc. makes any warranties,
IBM and our partner VSS, we’ve been able to take class-one, Fortune 100 solu- express or implied, concerning the other’s
products.
tions and architect them to fit in INTTRA’s space and budget.”
References in this publication to IBM products,
programs or services do not imply that
IBM intends to make these available in all
INTTRA plans to leverage these IBM solutions for the foreseeable future as the
countries in which IBM operates. Any reference
company makes strides toward their long-term goals. “We plan to serve 25 percent to an IBM product, program or service is not
intended to imply that only IBM’s product,
of the world’s containerized trade by the year 2014,” says Pattison. “And we
program or service may be used. Any
expect IBM to be there by our side.” functionally equivalent product, program or
service may be used instead. Offerings are
subject to change, extension or withdrawal
For more information without notice.
Contact your IBM sales representative or IBM Business Partner. Visit us at: All client examples cited represent how some
clients have used IBM products and the results
ibm.com/systems they may have achieved. Performance data for
IBM and non-IBM products and services
contained in this document was derived under
For more information about INTTRA, visit: www.inttra.com specific operating and environmental conditions.
The actual results obtained by any party
implementing such products or services will
For more information about VSS, Inc., visit: www.vss-inc.com depend on a large number of factors specific to
such party’s operating environment and may
vary significantly. IBM makes no representation
that these results can be expected or obtained
in any implementation of any such products or
services.
THE INFORMATION IN THIS DOCUMENT IS
PROVIDED “AS-IS” WITHOUT ANY
WARRANTY, EITHER EXPRESSED OR
IMPLIED.
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