At the start of each academic session, Technische Universität München struggled to complete its systems configuration work cost effectively, with immense pressure on time and computing resources, so, the university implemented a fully cloud-enabled infrastructure based on the IBM Power platform that automates many administration tasks and greatly accelerates.

1. IBM Systems & Technology Group Education
Smarter Computing
TU München creates a
state-of-the-art research
environment
With a smart cloud-enabled infrastructure based on
IBM Power Systems
Technische Universität München (TU München) is one of the leading
Overview technical universities in Europe, focusing on engineering sciences,
natural sciences, life sciences, medicine and economics. The university
The need employs around 7,500 academic and non-academic staff, and is
At the start of each academic session,
Technische Universität München (TU
attended by more than 26,000 students.
München) struggled to complete its
systems configuration work cost- TU München is a member of the global SAP University Alliances
effectively, with immense pressure on time Program – a global initiative covering more than 1,000 universities
and computing resources.
and educational institutions in more than 50 countries, helping to
The solution introduce students to modern software applications. As one of two
The university implemented a fully SAP University Competence Centers (UCC) in Europe, TU München
cloud-enabled infrastructure based on
the IBM Power platform that automates provides educational services, hosting, backup and recovery services
many administration tasks and greatly for about 100 SAP instances. To support the university, SAP donates
accelerates preparation for the new the latest software releases of its Business Suite 7 and organizes free
semester.
training courses.
The benefit
TU München can provision a new logical The configuration challenge
partition (LPAR) in 30 minutes – a 90
percent reduction ­ and provision a new
– At the start of every semester, TU München needs to provide more
SAP instance in less than half a day. The than 100 operating system images and associated SAP software such
university replaced 150 Sun servers with as SAP Business Suite 7 systems for student coursework and academic
two IBM Power servers and two IBM
research.
BladeCenter systems, cutting 13 full
racks to four half-racks, a saving of 85
percent, and cut energy usage by around TU München used a mixture of about 96 blades and 60 Sun servers, in
80 percent. Migration from MaxDB to DB2 combination with the MaxDB database. Each dedicated Sun server took
has delivered storage space reductions of
approximately 45 percent. up to five hours to configure, and a further three days to provision with
the relevant SAP landscape, resulting in an enormous manual workload
that had to be completed within a specific timeframe.
Dealing with blocked resources
The computing and storage systems assigned to each SAP system were
reserved for the duration of the course. In some cases, the systems were
under very high load and performance suffered as a result.
On the other hand, capacity was sitting idle when a course finished,
waiting to be released. As a result, many courses suffered from poor
infrastructure performance while other systems were not used for days.
No workload balancing was possible.

2. IBM Systems & Technology Group Education
Smarter Computing
Flexibility and performance improvements
Designed for Data Working closely with IBM and SAP, TU München consolidated its
• TU München made use of Active existing server landscape by replacing the previous hardware pool
Memory Expansion, a feature of the
of multiple separate servers with virtual servers hosted on two high-
IBM Power 750 servers, to compress
data in the main memory and enable performance IBM Power 750 Express servers with 32 POWER7 cores
the optimal utilization of physical each, and with two IBM BladeCenter H systems.
resources.
Tuned to the Task Although the summed-up total capacity of all the former Sun servers
• Server virtualization has enabled TU was higher than the total capacity of the new IBM servers, the flexibility
München to replace 150 Sun servers of the virtualized landscape means that the new solution can be used
with just two IBM servers combined
with two IBM BladeCenter systems,
much more effectively. Using IBM virtualization technology, TU
cutting 13 full racks to just four half-full München will map more than 100 SAP systems to individual logical
racks. TU München extensively uses partitions (LPARs) on the IBM systems. At times of peak workload,
IBM Power VMs’ Live Partition Mobility
any individual LPAR can be assigned much more processing power,
feature to dynamically move workloads
between servers without any downtime memory and storage capacity than would have been available from a
to the end-users. single Sun server, and scaled back when no longer needed.
Managed in the Cloud
• IBM implemented an advanced end- Each BladeCenter is equipped with two POWER processor-based IBM
to-end virtualization solution at TU BladeCenter PS701 Express, one PS700 Express, as well as two HX5
München, replacing the university’s blade servers powered by Intel Xeon series processors.
existing server landscape with a fully
virtualized IBM POWER landscape.
TU München has also taken steps to IBM XIV Storage System
deliver cloud solutions for applications The advanced end-to-end virtualization solution implemented at TU
such as SAP on the IBM Power
platform.
München includes two IBM XIV storage systems, each equipped with
43 TB of hard disk capacity. Data was migrated to the XIV storage
Driving Innovation systems, resulting in balanced performance and capacity utilization as
• The new IBM and SAP infrastructure
well as simplified management.
will enable TU München to expand
research opportunities in business
and information systems engineering. All servers now have access to the new IBM XIV storage system, which
Students at the university will be able intelligently manages data access to increase overall performance.
to conduct ambitious projects in the
competitive field of cloud computing
research, providing the university TU München has optimized its storage environment by replacing
with the most cutting-edge technical thirteen full racks and cabling with just four half-full racks. The
research environment in Germany.
university estimates that it has cut energy consumption for the SAP
hardware pool by 80 percent, resulting in significant cost savings as well
as leveraging the idea of Green IT.
Benefits of Active Memory Expansion
TU München also exploits the Active Memory Expansion (AME)
feature of the POWER7 processors in the IBM Power 750 servers.
AME compresses the data in main memory, allowing better utilization
of physical resources and, in many cases, increasing the processing
performance by enabling faster access to data.
By using AME a partition of 13 GB may reside in 10 GB of main
memory. AME runs transparently in the background, and typically
offers time and resource savings of about 30 percent.
TU München completed the migration of the SAP databases from
MaxDB to IBM DB2 smoothly and easily without any disruption
to their end-users. DB2 offered storage space reductions of about
one-third as it handles Unicode data very efficiently by using highly
advanced compression algorithms.

3. IBM Systems & Technology Group Education
Smarter Computing
Automated systems cut manual work
With the virtualized landscape in place on the Power Systems, TU
Solution Components
München developed script-controlled mechanisms for automated
Software installation of complete virtual machines, including operating systems,
• IBM® Tivoli® Storage Manager
storage access, and databases. Based on the new process, TU München
• IBM Tivoli Monitoring
• IBM Tivoli Service Automation Manager is able to provision a new, fully-configured server in a separate LPAR in
• IBM PowerVM® just 30 minutes, a 90 percent reduction.
• IBM DB2®
• IBM AIX®
• SAP Business Suite 7
TU München also uses IBM PowerVM Live Partition Mobility (LPM)
to increase overall availability and manage workload distribution. With
Servers LPM it is possible to move individual virtual systems from one physical
• IBM BladeCenter® H Chassis
server to another during runtime, without any interruption for users.
• IBM BladeCenter HX5
• IBM BladeCenter PS700 Express TU München uses LPM extensively to reduce the time needed for the
• IBM BladeCenter PS701 Express installation of fresh duplicate systems by around 80 percent.
• IBM Power® 750
• IBM XIV® Storage System
SAP Business Suite 7 cloud-ready on IBM POWER
platform
Requiring a means of providing complete SAP installations on Power7
“This innovative and processor-based servers as fast as possible with little or no manual
highly efficient IBM intervention, TU München decided to implement Tivoli Service
Automation Manager.
and SAP infrastructure
offers a great opportunity The automation and management capabilities offered by Tivoli Service
for TU München to Automation Manager are essential for delivering cloud solutions
conduct ambitious projects for applications like SAP. Tivoli Service Automation Manager is
able to handle the workflows and user dialogs of an unattended SAP
in the important and installation, and directly enables a largely automated SAP installation
competitive field of cloud process for the majority of applications, dramatically reducing the
computing research. manual workload.
With a focus on enterprise Having taken the first steps towards full cloud-enablement of SAP
systems we can offer Business Suite 7, it is now easier for TU München to deliver on its
an attractive research educational commitments and drive future educational innovation.
environment unlike Dr. Holger Wittges, UCC Manager, TU München concludes, “This
any other university in innovative and highly efficient IBM and SAP infrastructure offers a
Germany.” great opportunity for TU München to conduct ambitious projects
in the important and competitive field of cloud computing research.
With a focus on enterprise systems we can offer an attractive research
— Dr. Holger Wittges, UCC Manager, TU
München environment unlike any other university in Germany.”
For more information
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help you integrate, automate, protect and transform your IT, contact
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Produced in Germany
October 2011
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