voestalpine group-IT GmbH Logo
Sector: Manufacturing & Engineering
Ubicación: Austria
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voestalpine group-IT GmbH keeps mission-critical manufacturing operations running uninterrupted with SUSE

Aspectos destacados

  • Unparalleled stability and availability keep production lines rolling 24/7
  • Smooth updates ensure the group stays one step ahead
  • Easy-to-use management tools save time and shorten maintenance windows

Productos

Technology and capital goods group voestalpine produces top-quality prod­ucts and system solutions using steel and other metals. Headquartered in Linz, Austria, voestalpine is a leading partner to the automotive and consumer goods industries in Europe, and to the aero­space, oil and gas industries worldwide. voestalpine group-IT GmbH is the group­wide IT services provider, responsible for managing the group’s IT applications, data centers and networks.

At-a-Glance

To satisfy global demand for high-quality steel, voestalpine runs its production processes 24 hours a day. With SUSE® Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications, voestalpine group-IT GmbH keeps the group’s mission-critical manufacturing operations running uninterrupted. Specifically designed to support SAP workloads, the SUSE solution delivers high levels of stability, availability and performance, helping to ensure that the group’s digitized and closely integrated production lines run reliably with minimal IT management effort.

El desafío

It’s hard to imagine a world without steel. The material is used in everything from cars, planes and ships, to bridges, roads and railways, to domestic appliances such as washing machines, dishwashers and fridges.

To meet the demand for high-quality steel and other metals, voestalpine runs its global manufacturing operations 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and relies on its mission-critical SAP applications running uninterruptedly to keep produc­tion lines rolling. The group has manu­facturing sites across the world, in almost every time zone: in Australia, Brazil, Singapore, Japan and the USA, amongst others. Because voestalpine runs and manages every site’s SAP applications in its central data center, there is no room for downtime.

When voestalpine was looking to intro­duce a brand-new SAP landscape for all four divisions of the group, it was eager to streamline and optimize IT operations. The manufacturing group performed a complete architecture evaluation to ensure that the new SAP landscape would be able to run around the clock. After choosing the underlying hardware, it set out to find a suitably reliable and stable operating system.

“SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications is a tremendously stable platform with excellent availability—it just runs. And although we operate some very large SAP applications with databases in excess of 2 TB and thousands of users, performance is consistently high.”

Solución de SUSE

voestalpine selected SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) for SAP Applications as the strategic operating system for its new SAP landscape. What initially attracted it to the SUSE offering was the very close relationship between SUSE and SAP. The fact that SAP uses SLES to run both production and development workloads highlights the reliability of the product — giving voestalpine complete confidence that it was the right choice. SLES for SAP Applications is specifically optimized to support SAP software, and choosing this operating system meant voestalpine was ready for deployment of the innovative SAP HANA in-memory platform.

The manufacturing group deployed the new SAP architecture with SLES for SAP Applications running on Cisco servers virtualized using VMware technology and connected to NetApp storage arrays.

voestalpine was happy to see that SLES for SAP Applications runs extremely reli­ably. voestalpine group-IT GmbH has also had a very positive experience with the SUSE support team and appreciates the close collaboration with colleagues from SAP to resolve issues together.

Furthermore, voestalpine takes advan­tage of SUSE Manager, making regular use of the patching feature to keep its 200 SLES for SAP Applications systems up to date with minimal effort.

Los resultados

With most SAP workloads now running on SLES for SAP Applications, voestalpine benefits from high availability, stabil­ity and performance, as well as easy management. And although voestalpine operates some very large SAP applica­tions with databases in excess of 2 TB and thousands of users, performance is consistently high.

As a result of optimized update pro­cesses, voestalpine managed to shorten maintenance windows, maximizing availability of mission-critical systems while increasing security. Being able to install patches more regularly also helps the group to benefit from performance improvements more quickly.

Thanks to SLES for SAP Applications, voestalpine can make sure that its broad range of SAP applications run smoothly all day, every day — ensuring that the group can keep manufacturing on track and industry partners supplied with the steel and metal products they need to make premium cars, trains, fridges and more.

Based on its experience with SLES for SAP Applications, voestalpine recommends the platform for all new SAP solutions — leading to a level of standardization for the group could not achieve with other operating systems in the past.

voestalpine is highly satisfied with SLES for SAP Applications. SUSE has become a trusted partner. The manufacturing group is looking forward to working with the SUSE team to enhance and automate its IT infrastructure even further to stay one step ahead.