1. Om Logistics(1)
is India’s only multi-discipline logistics
business with integrated services for all elements
of supply chain management. Based in New Delhi,
this flagship of the country’s Om Group has 400
branch offices, over one million square metres of
warehousing and storage space, and a fleet of 3,000
vehicles. It pioneered the transportation, warehousing
and logistics of the Indian automobile industry by
maximising the use of air cargo.
Objective
Required a robust server solution to increase the
performance of mission-critical Enterprise Resource
Planning (ERP) software and lower reporting times to
aid executive decision making during business growth
Approach
Issued a request for proposal to several vendors,
conducted a proof-of-concept for each solution and
chose the most appropriate IT partner based on its
solution’s ability to increase application performance
and data storage
IT improvements
• Offers a reliable, high-availability platform,
supporting a mission-critical ERP application
• Incorporates highly scalable flash memory array
technology, increasing application performance
by 525 per cent
• Supports additional ERP system modules, increasing
the application’s capabilities and satisfying users’
needs
Business benefits
• Lowers report-generation times from 32 hours
to less than five hours, enhancing workflows and
communications
• Delivers more efficient logistics planning,
safeguarding business continuity across the branch
network
• Increases data storage capacity by 10 per cent and
offers high scalability, supporting growth
HP customer
case study
Om Logistics
deploys
HP servers with
VMA technology
to increase ERP
application
performance, lower
report-generation
times and enhance
workflows
Industry
Logistics
Om Logistics boosts ERP performance
five-fold with new server and Violin
Memory Array (VMA) technologies
“During the proof-of-concept, application performance with the HP
server solution was 46 per cent higher than other solutions. However,
after implementing the HP servers with VMA technology, performance
soared by 525 per cent, making this solution a scalable workhorse for
the foreseeable future.”
— Mr. S.K Goel, chief information officer, Om Logistics Ltd.
2. Under-performing servers
threaten daily operations
From a business perspective, logistics means getting
the correct item in the right quantity and condition
to the correct customer at the agreed place, time
and price. Efficient logistics are essential to satisfy
customer requirements.
“After implementing the HP servers with VMA
technology, application performance soared
by 525 per cent, making this solution a scalable
workhorse for the foreseeable future.”
Mr. S.K Goel, CIO
Om Logistics coordinated the operations of its branch
network and some 200 affiliated organisations from
a communications centre in New Delhi. For several
years, the centre’s IBM servers ran a customised
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system with
a Common Business-Oriented Language (COBOL)
database to produce documents, control daily
operations and aid planning, billing and finance. Online
Transaction Processing (OLTP) also occurs while
the Common Business-Oriented Language (COBOL)
application generates reports.
As the company grew, data volumes increased
substantially and creating large reports frequently
took up to 32 hours. These reports are critical
to logistics planning as they contain important
information about cargo movements and
vehicle locations.
“As our data volumes, user requirements and
reporting needs increased, the number of
performance-related application issues started to
rise,” explains Mr. S.K Goel, chief information officer,
Om Logistics Ltd. “As a leading logistics provider
to multinational corporations, delays to our daily
workflows are unacceptable. We required a robust
server solution to increase the performance of our
mission-critical software, lower reporting times and
satisfy each division’s user and customer needs.”
“By deploying this HP solution, we can integrate
more applications, which demonstrates our
commitment to customers. Moreover, we will
become the world’s leading logistics company
by providing our application on Android, iPhone
and BlackBerry.”
Mr. S.K Goel, CIO
Om Logistics approached several vendors, including
HP, asking each to propose an integrated server
and data storage platform for the ERP application.
MM9 Information Technologies, a local HP Preferred
Partner, helped the HP representatives and solution
architects throughout the project. Each vendor
conducted a proof-of-concept to demonstrate its
ability to increase application performance and
data storage.
“During the proof-of-concept, application
performance with the HP server solution was 46 per
cent higher than other solutions,” reveals Goel. “Tests
suggested using HP Violin Memory Arrays would
increase performance further.”
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3. Eliminating performance
bottlenecks
The HP solution involved two HP ProLiant DL980 rack-
mounted servers each with an Violin Memory Array
(VMA) on Multi-Level Cell (MLC) Hard Disk Drives. Both
servers have 80 processing cores each with 320 GB
of memory. The server environment employs a Red
Hat Enterprise Linux operating system to support the
COBOL application.
“During the proof-of-concept, application
performance with the HP server solution was 46
per cent higher than other solutions.”
Mr. S.K Goel, CIO
Specifically designed to eliminate Input-Output (I/O)
bottlenecks, the server-connected flash VMA3205
or 3210s increase capacity to 72 TB, delivers 350,000
reads and 250,000 write I/O per second and provides
a bandwidth of 1.4 GB per second. These highly
scalable, rack-mounted devices offer Om Logistics
a cost-effective alternative to more traditional
disk drive-based arrays, boosting database and
online performance. Although the VMAs connect to
HP Integrity blade and Superdome 2 servers, within
the HP ProLiant server range, only HP ProLiant DL980
servers support these devices.
High-performance scalable
workhorse
After deploying the HP server solution, Om Logistics no
longer experiences performance-related application
issues with its ERP system, safeguarding business
continuity across the branch network. Moreover, data
storage capacity has increased by 10 per cent and the
company generates reports in less than five hours,
enhancing information exchange within the business.
“As a leading logistics provider to multinational
corporations, delays to our daily workflows
are unacceptable. We required a robust server
solution to increase the performance of our
mission-critical software, lower reporting times
and satisfy each division’s user and customer
needs.”
Mr. S.K Goel, CIO
“After implementing the HP servers with VMA
technology, application performance soared by 525 per
cent, making this solution a scalable workhorse for the
foreseeable future,” says Goel.
After the solution was deployed, Goel also noted that
several modules within the ERP system which were
previously inoperable due to insufficient computing
power are now functional, and this has enhanced the
ERP’s system’s capabilities.
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