Intelligent CIO Middle East Issue 33 | Page 68

CASE STUDY its SAP HAN Applications, all within just 30 minutes. How did the new system integrate with your existing infrastructure? After consulting with SAP, as well as evaluating a number of hardware options, El Ezaby Pharmacy decided to adopt the latest version of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications, running on HPE hardware. With SAP’s recommendation we really had our homework done for us, and HPE provided robust hardware that integrated well with our existing infrastructure. EL EZABY PHARMACY ALSO SAW OPPORTUNITIES FOR FURTHER EFFICIENCY IN SERVER VIRTUALISATION, KNOWING THE SUSE SOLUTION WAS COMPATIBLE WITH VMWARE TECHNOLOGY. stable platform for our core SAP HANA Applications, and since we made the upgrade we’ve been able to install updates much faster. That has massively reduced our risk of downtime, as well as reducing our IT workload more generally. The company also decided to take advantage of server virtualisation, with support from the SUSE team. We saw VMware as a means of reducing administrative burden and speeding up the system overall. How has server virtualisation made your operations more efficient? We were impressed by how quickly the SUSE team was able to get our existing servers virtualised, and how quickly they were up and running. El Ezaby Pharmacy also saw opportunities for further efficiency in server virtualisation, knowing the SUSE solution was compatible with VMware technology. 68 INTELLIGENTCIO El Ezaby Pharmacy was able to move from two physical servers to four virtual ones for How scalable is the new system? The system moves much faster now. The virtualisation of our IT infrastructure means we can perform the same tasks much more rapidly and the SUSE solution scales up more easily than our previous system. Are there any other advantages the SUSE solution has brought to you? El Ezaby Pharmacy’s IT team had previously been forced to spend six hours every weekend updating its database and security software, but with SUSE Linux Enterprise Server it is now able to make those updates within just 16 minutes each week. The SUSE solution has helped make our IT landscape more stable, more flexible, and more efficient, and with the SUSE team’s support we are confident that we can continue to deliver our core products and services to the high standards our consumers have come to expect Overall, we are very happy with our decision to start using SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP HANA Applications. n www.intelligentcio.com