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Industry: Technology & Media
Location: India
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TVS Infotech

Highlights

  • Cuts maintenance and licensing costs by 30 percent
  • Redirects time and resources to enhance customer service quality
  • Enables simple, low-cost scalability and supports business growth

Products

TVS Infotech utilizes SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications to boost performance and availability for its SAP services, cut the cost of service delivery by 30 percent and sharpen its competitive edge.

Overview

Founded in 1994 and headquartered in Chennai, India, TVS Infotech is a leading provider of managed IT services to enterprises within the manufacturing and automotive sectors. Employing more than 250 people, the company is a member of the TVS Group, a conglomerate with combined annual revenues of USD6.5 billion.

The Challenge

Many manufacturers rely on SAP applications managed by TVS Infotech to drive their business processes. To maintain its leading position in India’s managed service market, TVS Infotech aims to continually improve service delivery for SAP applications.

Panimaya Raj, Senior Support Engineer at TVS Infotech, said: “Our customers work in demanding industries, and any SAP application outage could cause costly delays. As a result, it is essential that we provide a high-quality service at all times.

“The level of SAP application service that we can provide to our customers depends heavily on the supporting infrastructure—especially the software stack. Previously, we used HP-UX software as the basis for our SAP application platform, but this approach presented challenges.

"In addition to the licensing and support fees, the HP-UX platform required costly proprietary server systems, and it was difficult to find personnel with the skillset required to manage the platform. We recognized that by moving to a vendor-neutral solution we could dramatically improve cost-efficiency and redirect resources to enhance SAP application services.”

“Increased energy efficiency, combined with a dramatic reduction in licensing and maintenance costs using the SUSE solution, has reduced our operational expenditure by 30 percent.”
PANIMAYA RAJ
Senior Support Engineer
TVS Infotech

SUSE Solution

After reviewing Linux distributions from a number of different vendors, TVS Infotech selected SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications.

Panimaya Raj, Senior Support Engineer at TVS Infotech, said: “One of the things that impressed us most about SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications was its manageability. The SUSE operating system is tightly integrated with the SAP application platform, and includes the powerful YaST® and AutoYaST configuration tools, which enable us to automate administration and reduce our workload.

“What’s more, because the SUSE solution employs intuitive graphical tools, practically anyone with experience of Linux-based operating systems can get up and running on the platform rapidly. The user-friendliness of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications makes it easy to find qualified personnel to maintain the platform—opening the door to future expansion of our managed services business.”

TVS Infotech recognized that adopting an open-source platform would offer greater cost-efficiency than a proprietary solution.

“A key challenge of using HP-UX as our SAP application platform was that it locked us into hardware that was relatively expensive,” said Panimaya Raj. “Thanks to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications, we were able to replace proprietary servers with equivalent x86 processor-based commodity systems that offer the same or better performance at a significantly lower price point.

“Moreover, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server is highly cost-efficient in contrast to equivalent Linux distributions. And because SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications includes Xen hypervisor technology built-in, we avoided the cost and complexity deploying a separate virtualization solution.”

The Results

TVS Infotech, working with a team from SUSE, is now replacing its HP server landscape with commodity x86 servers running SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications.

“We are now using SUSE solutions to deliver managed SAP application services to six of our largest manufacturing customers, and all new customers are being provisioned using the SUSE platform,” said Panimaya Raj. “High levels of performance and reliability are crucial to support our enterprise customers effectively, and the SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications solution meets our rigorous standards.”

With a cost-efficient SUSE operating system at the heart of its managed services business, TVS Infotech is achieving its goal of enhancing the quality and competitiveness of its offering.

“Thanks to Xen virtualization technology built into SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, we can maximize our utilization of compute capacity while keeping our power consumption to a minimum,” concluded Panimaya Raj. “Increased energy efficiency, combined with a dramatic reduction in licensing and maintenance costs using the SUSE solution, has reduced our expenditure by 30 percent. SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications helps us redirect time and resources to enhance service quality for our customers—an important source of competitive advantage.”