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HA and DR Case Studies by Industry and Product

Agriculture/Agribusiness
MIMIX HA

Automotive
iTERA HA, MIMIX HA, ORION HA

Finance, Securities and Banking
iTERA HA, MIMIX HA, ORION HA, EchoStream for AIX, Vision EchoCluster

Government
MIMIX HA,  replicate1

Health & Pharmaceuticals
iTERA HA, MIMIX HA, Upgrade/Migrate While Active,   Replicate1,  EchoStream for AIX,
Vision Data Manager

Manufacturing
iTERA HA, MIMIX HA, Data Manager, replicate1

Media, Entertainment and Gaming
iTERA HA, MIMIX HA

Perishable Goods and Grocery
iTERA HA, MIMIX HA, ORION HA, Double-Take,  EchoStream for AIX

Retail
iTERA HA, MIMIX HA

Transport and Logistics
iTERA HA, MIMIX HA, ORION HA, EchoStream for AIX

Utilities
iTERA HA, ORION HA, Vision Director

   
Agriculture/Agribusiness
Ball Horticultural
Ball Horticultural's SAP data and applications must be available all of the time for its worldwide employees and systems must be up to accommodate online orders. With no “off hours” to perform regular system and database maintenance, Ball needed a robust HA environment to eliminate planned and unplanned downtime."
  Product(s): MIMIX HA
   
Automotive
Autoliv
For Autoliv, downtime can result in missed delivery requirements and measurable revenue losses. The company contracts with nearly every automaker in the world, and some contracts even specify a fine for late shipments. Every effort is made at Autoliv to reduce both planned and unplanned downtime.
  Product(s): iTERA HA
   
AMPORTS
Major automakers worldwide rely on AMPORTS for portside vehicle processing services including damage inspections, repairs, washing and accessorizing. AMPORTS is continuously graded for on-time deliveries and other metrics. Disaster recovery is a customer-driven requirement: automakers like GM and Ford require real-time data, and that’s business critical for AMPORTS.
  Product(s): MIMIX HA
   
Faurecia
Faurecia needed to maintain production at seven manufacturing and logistics sites in four locations in Poland and ensure rapid return to normal business operations in the event of unplanned downtime.
  Product(s): ORION HA
   
Finance, Securities and Banking
TheBANK of Edwardsville
TheBANK of Edwardsville had hot site agreements with several vendors. But even with those agreements in place, TheBANK reckoned that a disaster that rendered their banking systems unavailable would still result in the loss of thousands of dollars, despite their best recovery efforts.
  Product(s): iTERA HA
   
Unibill
Unibill provides ASP billing services to land line, long distance, wireless, and VoIP telephone companies, as well as vendors who offer cable TV. Unibill’s business model demands 24/7 system availability for real time call rating, along with 100% data integrity. So management was concerned when one of the most severe hurricanes of the 2005 season caused Unibill to lose communication between its primary and backup production computers, before they could test their newly installed iTERA HA solution.
  Product(s): iTERA HA
   
Alfa-Bank
At the end of every business day, Alfa-Bank must perform “end of day” procedures for their banking application. During this time, bank customers cannot access their accounts, conduct transactions or use services across delivery channels such as internet banking or ATM machines. With plans for expansion across multiple time zones within Russia, Alfa-Bank needed to completely eliminate its IT downtime and achieve nonstop business continuity.
  Product(s): MIMIX HA
   
Bank Niaga
With over half of its business transacted electronically over a vast network banking systems, and 24/7 customer access, Bank Niaga grew concerned with the exposure that a single compute point represented. Recovery from a serious iSeries server malfunction would take 10 hours with its cold-site backup strategy.
  Product(s): MIMIX HA
   
IndusInd Bank
Located in India’s commercial capital, Mumbai, IndusInd Bank understands the
significance of business continuity in a financial environment. The Gujarat earthquake, Tsunami and the Mumbai deluge have demonstrated the adverse impact calamities can have on a bank’s business. IndusInd required a solution that could ensure that the bank never faced downtime.
  Product(s): MIMIX HA
   
Kingland Systems
For both stockbrokers and the auditors who vigilantly monitor them, computer system downtime resulting in unavailable data or applications could trigger a major crisis. Systems must be continuously available. Making sure they are is Kingland Systems’ stock in trade. If Kingland is unable to meet its SLA obligations to keep systems up and running it can cost the company more than $160,000 per instance.
  Product(s): MIMIX HA
   
OCBC Bank
With more than one million electronic transactions processed every day, OCBC Bank must be able to ensure that its IT systems are protected against both downtime and data loss. Any interruptions to service would have immediate and serious repercussions, damaging the excellent reputation OCBC Bank has forged over the decades.
  Product(s): MIMIX HA
   
PermataBank
As a major provider of fi nance and banking services, PermataBank must ensure the highest levels of customer service through a variety of delivery channels including ATMs, internet banking, mobile banking and teller services. Any interruption would mean serious damage to the bank’s reputation. PermataBank required an industry-proven high availability solution to protect the real-time delivery of banking information to its employees and customers at anytime of the day or night.
  Product(s): MIMIX HA
   
Volksbank International AG
In order to stay competitive in today’s financial marketplace, banks must be able to serve their customers at any time of the day or night from any location—not only during business hours at a branch office. With hundreds of thousands of customers across Central and Eastern Europe that rely on its banking services, Volksbank International AG needed a solution to keep its critical banking services and data protected and available at all times.
  Product(s): MIMIX HA
   
Commercial Bank of Ceylon
As an organization dedicated to delivering superior value to all of its stakeholders,
Commercial Bank of Ceylon holds managing risks as an important tenet of its business strategy and it selected ORION™ HA for i5/OS® from Vision Solutions as a key element of
that strategy.
  Product(s): ORION HA
   
Crédit Lyonnais
Crédit Lyonnais needed a High Availability (HA) solution to meet the rigorous demands of its business and its customers. Many institutions rely on Crédit Lyonnais’ to provide accurate and reliable information on a real-time basis. In addition, Crédit Lyonnais’ management requires all critical data to be protected. Moreover, customers often demand availability by imposing an operational backup clause in their contracts with Crédit Lyonnais.
  Product(s): ORION HA
   
RaiffeisenBank
With the expansion of 24/7 credit and debit card use, RBA needed to harden the systems involved in clearing these transactions. Existing recovery capabilities were limited in terms of the number of users and transactions they could accommodate. Furthermore, these transactions could not be cleared in real-time, which represented a liability for the bank.
  Product(s): ORION HA
   
First Future Credit Union
First Future Credit Union relies on Symitar’s Episys core processing system for its member services management, running its 19 branch offi ces in the San Diego area. In order to keep First Future in business 24/7, it is critical that these systems remain available and protected against both planned and unplanned downtime.
  Product(s): EchoStream for AIX
   
Robein Bank
Experiencing a steady business growth over the past years, and expecting continued expansion in the years ahead, Robein Bank set out in the summer of 2007 to fundamentally upgrade its ICT infrastructure. The main objectives were to continue to ensure world-class Private Banking service to its current customers and to offer wealth management services to a growing number of new clients.
  Product(s): Vision EchoCluster
   
Government 
City of Hoover, AL
For the city of Hoover, Alabama, a single server runs a vital suite of integrated software applications used by city staff, departments, citizens and businesses. The city needed a high availability (HA) solution that would protect its investments and provide business survivability for the city if a natural disaster or other emergency caused this essential system to go down.
  Product(s): MIMIX HA
   
Broward County Public Schools, FL
When the Broward County Public Schools data warehouse was first started in 1996, the vision was that data could make a significant difference in student achievement. This vision became a reality as Broward County began to empower thousands of non-technical users with information from its data warehouse. It also became clear that timeliness was a vital factor, and that Broward County parents, students, teachers and administrators needed real-time, on-demand data sharing.
  Product(s): replicate1
   
Health Care and Pharmaceuticals
UMC
For processing in the MedSeries4 system, UMC users were offline for 30 minutes to an hour each night. The resulting difficulties included requirements for manual data entry that took far more than the actual downtime. UMC sought an HA solution to bring end-of-day downtime to less than five minutes and discovered a solution that reduced it to less than two minutes.
  Product(s): iTERA HA
   
The Jackson Clinic
The Jackson Clinic relies on Misys VPM (Vision Practice Management) software for its office operations and Misys EMR (Electronic Medical Record) software to run its nine medical clinics in western Tennessee. In order to keep the Jackson Clinic up and running, it is critical that the VPM and EMR systems remain available and protected against both planned and unplanned downtime.
  Product(s): EchoStream for AIX
   
Australian Pharmaceutical Industries Limited (API)
API’s business runs 24 x7, servicing and processing orders, requests and enquiries from pharmacists, agents, suppliers and customers. However, this “Always On” business environment began to take a toll on its ability to manage and archive its data. Operational changes were needed to meet supply chain and legal obligations while still ensuring uninterrupted business continuity.
  Product(s): Vision Data Manager
   
ProHealth Care
As a major provider of health care services and a major employer in southeastern Wisconsin, ProHealth has a profound commitment to its community. Business continuity is vital. The organization’s tape-based backup system could not deliver the rapid recovery required. ProHealth looked for a solution to eliminate downtime and protect its critical data and applications.
  Product(s): EchoStream for AIX
   
MidMichigan Health
To make certain doctors always have immediate access to critical patient information, MidMichigan Health utilizes a state of the art electronic medical record solution that delivers vital data around the clock to its hospitals and health care facilities. MidMichigan Health needed to ensure that the solution would remain up and running in the event of an unexpected IT outage or during planned system downtime.
  Product(s): MIMIX HA
   
Adventist Health
The computing load placed on an aging IBM AS/400 model 730 caused response times to swell, so a powerful new IBM System i model 570 was acquired to take its place. All of the healthcare facilities supported by this system operate on a 24/7 basis, with Adventist employees accessing and updating patient charts continuously. A conventional migration from the AS/400 to the new System i model 570 was going to result in an unacceptable amount of downtime—potentially more than 20 hours.
  Product(s): Upgrade/Migrate While Active
   
Grupo Uriach
Grupo Uriach employees needed to share critical global business data including accounting entries, manufacturing orders, purchase orders, stock, client and supplier invoices and other information regarding clients, suppliers, articles and manufacturing structures. Their solution was to use Vision Solution’s replicate1, which makes information available to the people who need it, when they need it. It provides real-time, on-demand access to data between any applications, regardless of database format or operating system.
  Product(s): replicate1
   
Manufacturing
Beaulieu Group
Beaulieu Group LLC, based in Dalton, Georgia, paid huge monthly fees for a hot site subscription. At best, this service could provide only a two to three day recovery time, and the recovery point would only be up to the last tape save, which could be as old as 24 hours. The last system failure that occurred just prior to the implementation of iTERA HA for i5/OS left Beaulieu Group down for two days. Among other things, the fix required a full reload of applications and data from tape.
  Product(s): iTERA HA
   
TDK Australia
TDK Australia chose to take disaster recovery (DR) and high availability (HA) solutions in house. When the company upgraded to one IBM® System i as the company’s main server, it was clear that any downtime could affect TDK’s ability to service its customers. The company evaluated options for an easy, cost-efficient way to protect their critical IBM System i applications and data.
  Product(s): iTERA HA
   
Serviplem, S.A.
In order to successfully support its operations in over 60 countries across 5 continents, Serviplem has highly systematized all its work. Consequently, losing access to their information systems, even for a few hours, prevents the company from invoicing, taking orders, manipulating inventories, and carrying out the most basic functions. Perhaps the most critical dependence in the system is the ERP production module; Serviplem’s worldwide workforce is absolutely dependent upon access to this system, so continuous, 24 x7 availability is required, year round.
  Product(s): iTERA HA
   
Nelipak
The IT infrastructure is a business-critical component of Nelipak’s business strategy. The company’s competitive advantage is closely aligned with its world-class R&D division. That and the firm’s unique production processing techniques are the true capital components of Nelipak’s success. Because the company’s know-how is stored on a high performance IBM® server platform, there was a clear need for a high availability (HA) solution.
  Product(s): MIMIX HA
   
CCL
While hardware failure was a very unlikely scenario with the highly reliable IBM server, CCL needed to plan to protect its data and continue operations in the event of a power outage or natural disaster."
  Product(s): MIMIX HA
   
Alro Group
Two years ago, Alro Group outgrew their IBM iSeries model 270, so they replaced it with a new, dual processor System i model 520 with a hefty 700 gigabytes of DASD. Surprisingly, in a short period of time data-creep pushed disk utilization on the new system to 60 percent. Only 30 percent of this data was useful in a production setting. Alro Group’s first backup on the new server was initially written to disk and then to tape. Because of this, disk utilization suddenly spiked to 90 percent.
  Product(s): Data Manager
   
American Forest Management Inc.
To make continuous, real-time data available to its stakeholders via the Internet, American Forest Management (AFM) needed an information availability tool that could cost-effectively and efficiently deliver data where, when and how users need it—including its highly specialized geo-spatial data.
  Product(s): replicate1
   
Media, Entertainment and Gaming
Boyd Gaming
Boyd Gaming can’t afford downtime in its 24/7 environment. Excellent customer service and data integrity are critical to the company’s success in the gaming industry. The company looked for an HA solution that would help them avoid out-of-synch conditions and achieve repeatable role swaps.
  Product(s): iTERA HA
   
Wimbeldon
Data and applications play a vital role at Wimbledon in ticketing systems that directly impact customer service and revenue generation. The All England Lawn Tennis Club naturally wanted to make absolutely certain that its systems would be available during the annual two-weeks of Championships and the period leading up to them.
  Product(s): MIMIX HA
   
Perishable Goods and Grocery
ABC Fine Wine & Spirits
Category four and five hurricanes in the summer of 2005 caused management at Florida-based mega-retailer ABC Fine Wine & Spirits to examine their vulnerabilities. 154 busy retail stores in latitudes as far north as Tallahassee and as far south as Miami could be isolated without access to the company’s IBM System i 550, which is housed in the executive office complex next to its 250,000 square foot distribution center in Orlando.
  Product(s): iTERA HA
   
Nicholas & Company
As a broad-line foodservice distributor, Nicholas & Company delivers food and other products to a wide range of customers, from the smallest restaurants to national fast-food chains. Investments in technology have helped Nicholas & Company continue to meet a key customer demand in this highly competitive industry: on-time delivery.
  Product(s): iTERA HA
   
Oliver Adams Ltd.
Oliver Adams knows that when it comes to craft-baked goods, minutes matter. So protecting against any delays caused by computer system downtime is a vital ingredient to its success.
  Product(s): iTERA HA
   
Alpura
Alpura must be able to process, package and deliver its high quality dairy products to supermarkets across Mexico less than 24 hours after production, and always under the strictest quality control. Downtime, planned or unplanned, that delays this continuous supply chain, even for a few hours, is a serious matter.
  Product(s): MIMIX HA
   
Casino
Keeping huge amounts of retail goods flowing to its stores is the main task for Casino. Any downtime would have dramatic consequences for its long and complex supply chains. The sales outlets utterly depend on timely and accurate deliveries. Casino’s IT team must ensure that the company’s 17 warehouses have constant access to their data and applications to ensure that the business does not come to a sudden standstill.
  Product(s): MIMIX HA
   
Devro
Devro requires a high availability (HA) solution to provide business continuity and reduce the potential impact of system downtime on stock levels, customer delivery schedules and incoming orders.
  Product(s): MIMIX HA
   
Tony's Fine Foods
Trucks move in and out of Tony’s Fine Foods’ warehouses nearly 24 hours a day and a system outage would impact the receipt and delivery of products including perishable items. To maintain its superior customer service, Tony’s needed a way to protect against unexpected downtime and provide flexible ways to manage planned downtime.
  Product(s): MIMIX HA, EchoStream for AIX
   
Dairy Farmers
To assist in unified reporting and establish common systems across its enterprise, Dairy Farmers consolidated onto a single integrated ERP system. With no backup window, no allowance for system downtime and huge transactional volumes, Dairy Farmers needed a robust HA solution to ensure continuous business operations.
  Product(s): ORION HA
   
Delta Greece
Delta Greece needed to enable its business to operate 24/7 to ensure that perishable goods are delivered on-time to customers. Furthermore, the company needed an effective, easy-to-manage solution to keep core systems running.
  Product(s): ORION HA
   
Nutreco
Rapid growth through acquisition left Nutreco with a wide variety of business applications running on different computing platforms. To promote greater operational consistency, Nutreco elected to centralise its operations on an enterprise-wide ERP solution called Movex from Intentia. Movex runs on an IBM® eServer System i computer. With its entire global operation running on a single system, Nutreco made high availability a high priority.
  Product(s): ORION HA
   
Alpura
Alpura must be able to process, package and deliver its high quality dairy products to supermarkets across Mexico less than 24 hours after production, and always under the strictest quality control. Downtime, planned or unplanned, that delays this continuous supply chain, even for a few hours, is a serious matter.
  Product(s): Double-Take
   
PFG
With an eye on disaster recovery, PFG had implemented MIMIX HA for i5/OS to protect the mission-critical applications on the company’s production IBM System i server. Pressed for 24/7 availability and with increased growth and market opportunities, PFG saw the need to optimize uptime for all of its systems. To minimize planned and unplanned downtime for its Windows-based applications, PFG looked to Double-Take® for Windows from Vision Solutions.
  Product(s): Double-Take
Retail
Puregold Price Club
A major concern for Puregold Price Club is ensuring the 24/7 availability of its core merchandising application, JDA MMS, across its entire network of stores. The application is powered by a single production server, which already crunches more than three terabytes of data, a workload which is expected to increase with the addition of more stores next year. It is critical that this application receives and distributes data across the network continuously and accurately. Thus, the company needed a solution to constantly replicate data to a backup server so that they could be assured of fast recovery in the event of a crisis.
  Product(s): iTERA HA
   
Quixtar
Sometimes a solution yields benefits well beyond the initial business requirement. That’s exactly what happened when Quixtar, Inc., an online health and beauty retailer, sought a high availability solution for its back-end business applications.
  Product(s): MIMIX HA
   
Staples
Staples runs its global business operations, including systems that support 24x7 Web sales, on System i servers. Because competitors are just a click away, any business stoppage will result in considerable lost sales and customer dissatisfaction. Staples needs its systems up and running no matter what, including during scheduled maintenance and unplanned system outages.
  Product(s): MIMIX HA
   
Transport and Logistics
C.R. England
As one of North America’s largest trucking companies, C.R. England simply cannot
afford to have its business-critical trucking operation applications offline. Downtime could translate to frustrated customers and thousands or even millions of dollars in lost revenues. C.R. England looked for a high availability (HA) solution that would provide reliable synchronization between the production and backup machines to avoid delays and problems during role swaps.
  Product(s): iTERA HA
   
TCY
TCY serves four leading shipping companies, including the world’s largest. For each shipping line, TCY must keep precise track of each and every container; its exact location in the port; its shipping movement records; and the days it is held at the terminal. All that information is managed by TCY, who must provide its customers with 24/7 continuous online information availability, 365 days a year, in spite of being in a hurricane zone.
  Product(s): iTERA HA
   
McLane Polska
An internal audit of uptime requirements revealed that it could take up to 24 hours to get McLane Polska’s distribution and financial systems online if a major event compromised its servers. Also, McLane Polksa’s technicians had only a small window to perform backups, system maintenance, and testing. Given the company’s operational scale, its high degree of complexity, and the huge number of documents possessed by this system, its technicians worked intensively over the weekend to complete these tasks.
  Product(s):