Microsoft Server Product PortfolioCustomer Solution Case Study

Quanta Facilitates Data Growth, Savings, and Performance with Microsoft Platform

OverviewCountry or Region: TaiwanIndustry: Manufacturing—High-tech and electronics manufacturing

Customer ProfileEstablished in 1988, Quanta Computer is the world’s largest original design manufacturer of laptops. The Taiwan-based, Fortune Global 500 company has more than 30,000 employees.

Business SituationQuanta needed an affordable solution that could support half a terabyte of new SAP data each month—and deliver high performance and data availability.

SolutionThe company upgraded its 64-bit SAP infrastructure to Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2008 R2, and Intel-based HP servers.

Benefits Compresses data by up to 90 percent

and protects investments Cuts costs and increases performance Facilitates subsecond response times Provides high availability and security Simplifies IT for other SAP customers

“Upgrading to SQL Server 2008 R2 … enabled us to extend the life of our SAN. We are realizing data compression rates in excess of 80 percent and in some cases, up to 90 percent.”

T. J. Fang, Chief Information Officer, Quanta Computer

As a global leader in high-tech deliverables, Quanta Computer generates more than half a terabyte of new data each month. To help manage its exponential growth, protect investments including a storage area network (SAN), and maintain high availability and fast performance, Quanta upgraded its SAP infrastructure, with more than 25 terabytes of data, to the Microsoft platform and Intel-based hardware. The 64-bit solution uses built-in features including data and Unicode compression in Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2. With its new solution, Quanta can compress data by up to 90 percent, use its existing SAN, cut costs, boost performance, deliver response times of less than 400 milliseconds, and deliver high availability and security. The successful use of SQL Server 2008 R2 at Quanta and other companies has also prompted SAP to enable compression in its default software settings.

SituationQuanta Computer is the world’s largest manufacturer of laptops, with an annual revenue of TWD1.06 trillion (U.S.$37 billion). In 2011, the company also ranked ninth on the list of the “World’s Most Admired Computing Companies” by Fortune Magazine.

Based in Taiwan, the Fortune Global 500 company manages an international logistics network that includes more than 30,000 employees. These workers collaborate to design, develop, and manufacture high-value products and solutions for brands such as ACER, Apple, Cisco, Compaq, Dell, HP, Lenovo, Sony, and Toshiba.

Managing such a large global operation requires an enterprise-grade IT infrastructure. To meet this challenge, Quanta depends on the Microsoft platform to support its mission-critical applications. For example, the company uses Microsoft SQL Server data management software and

the Windows Server operating system to support its SAP enterprise resource planning (ERP) software and PTC Windchill product lifecycle management software.

In 2007, Quanta began a program to consolidate its three largest SAP instances into a single instance with one SAP client. The project, called 3:1, involved upgrading the existing SAP R/3 4.6C system to SAP ERP Central Component (ECC) 6.0. In addition, to support all Asian languages, engineers converted the software from a specific Asian character set to the Unicode industry standard.

The new centralized SAP infrastructure used one instance of Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Enterprise Edition. It ran on an HP Integrity Superdome server computer that included Windows Server 2008 Enterprise, 64 dual-core Itanium processors, and 256 gigabytes (GB) of RAM. To help consolidate the solution footprint, engineers only moved master data to the new SQL Server database and archived historical data on an HP EVA 8400 storage area network (SAN). By doing so, engineers reduced the original 5 terabytes of SAP data to just 1 terabyte. In addition, engineers replicated the SAP database to the SAN with log shipping in SQL Server.

As part of 3:1, Quanta also upgraded its SAP application servers to run on 24 blade server computers and Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise. Each system features two quad-core Intel Nehalem central processing units (CPUs) with 32 GB of RAM.

The solution, which went live in July 2008, supported more than 8 million SAP dialog

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Quanta Computer creates a world of computing products.

steps per day with an average total response time of half a second.

By the end of 2008, exponential corporate growth was adding more than half a terabyte of new data to the SAP database each month. “Our transaction volume and business requirements mean we have to keep a lot of data online rather than archived,” says T. J. Fang, Chief Information Officer at Quanta Computer. “Our SAP database growth rate meant we had only a matter of months until our SAN storage would need to be upgraded or replaced. We needed to find a new solution.”

SolutionIn 2009, Quanta investigated database solution options, among which was SQL Server 2008 R2 with its new capabilities including page, row data, and Unicode compression. To determine whether SQL Server 2008 R2 was ready to support its global, mission-critical operations, engineers from Quanta worked with the SQL Server Development team and consultants from Microsoft Services Premier Support. The Microsoft consultants demonstrated how other multi-terabyte customers around the world have benefited by using the new data compression capabilities in SQL Server.

Impressed by the results of the demonstration, Quanta decided to upgrade its SAP database to SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise, which required only four hours of scheduled downtime. In addition, engineers were able to compress database tables while the SAP system was online—without visibly slowing system performance.Quanta also upgraded the SAP database to Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise. By doing so, the company could take advantage of the built-in failover clustering capability to facilitate high availability. Engineers configured the SAP database so that it used a two-node active/passive cluster that ran on two HP Integrity Superdome server computers, each with 64 processors and 256 GB of RAM. In addition, engineers configured a delay interval in the system replication process by using log shipping in SQL Server 2008 R2. As a result, engineers could have a historical copy of the database that would not include any corrupted data should a logical application-level error occur.

In April 2011, ongoing corporate growth pushed the SAP database to more than 10 terabytes of compressed data—approximately 25 terabytes of uncompressed data.

Always looking for ways to maximize performance and minimize costs, the company decided to migrate its replicated SAP databases to HP DL980 G7 server computers. The two new HP systems feature eight Intel Xeon X7560 processors—each with eight cores—and 1 terabyte of RAM. Dennis Lee, System Administrator at Quanta Computer, explains, "We conducted a performance test comparing HP DL980

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Table 1. Fast Facts About the SAP Database

Database/Table Name Uncompressed Compressed

SAP ECC 6.0 database 25 terabytes 10 terabytesSAP ACCTTT table 211 gigabytes 26 gigabytesSAP COSP table 462 gigabytes 89 gigabytes

Backup Compression Ratio 86 percent

systems with our existing solution and found that the new generation of Intel servers offer significant performance increases compared with previous systems."

Because the new server computers provide more RAM, engineers were able to increase the solution’s data cache. The company then maximized its usage of the larger cache by continuing to use the data compression capabilities in SQL Server 2008 R2.Quanta plans to use database mirroring in SQL Server 2008 R2 to support a real-time replica of the SAP database at a different site in Taiwan or abroad. To protect the replicated system from application-level corruption, engineers will continue to use log shipping to store a copy of all changes made to the production system over the past 24 hours.

BenefitsBy upgrading its mission-critical SAP infrastructure to SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise and the HP DL980 G7 servers, Quanta compresses data by 90 percent, extends the life of its SAN, reduces expenses, speeds performance, supports subsecond response times, provides high availability and security, and simplifies IT for other companies.

Compresses Data by up to 90 Percent and Protects InvestmentsBy taking advantage of the built-in data compression capabilities in SQL Server 2008 R2, Quanta reduced the size of its SAP database by 15 terabytes. As detailed in Table 1, reductions include cutting the size of the SAP ACCTIT table from 211 GB to 26 GB—and compressing the SAP COSP table from 462 GB to 89 GB.

The company has also been able to match or exceed the storage efficiency provided by competing database systems by using other capabilities in SQL Server 2008 R2 such as Unicode compression. “Upgrading to SQL Server 2008 R2 and taking advantage of data compression enabled us to extend the life of our SAN,” says Fang. “We are realizing data compression rates in excess of 80 percent and in some cases, up to 90 percent. Upgrading to SQL Server 2008 R2 was also much faster, easier, and affordable than it would have been to upgrade our SAN.”

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“By using the Microsoft platform and Intel processors … we can meet or exceed performance requirements … at a much lower cost.”

TJ Fang, Chief Operating Officer, Quanta Computer

Table 2. Compression Rates

Table Compression

COSP 80 percentGLPCA 89 percentCOEP 87 percentRESB 90 percentACCITT 87 percentMSEG 87 percentFAGLFLEXA 88 percentBSIS 90 percentCOSB 84 percentGLFUNCA 89 percent

Cuts Costs and Increases PerformanceWith its new solution that includes industry-standard, Intel-based hardware, Quanta can implement a single affordable, high-performance data platform. “Major vendors have commoditized operating systems and databases in terms of features and capabilities,” explains Fang. “By using the Microsoft platform and Intel processors to support our mission-critical architecture, we can meet or exceed performance requirements of internal business users and customers at a much lower cost than solutions built with competitive technologies.”

For example, the Intel processors in the HP DL980 G7 servers use the Nehalem EX and Westmere microarchitectures that deliver the same or better performance than competitive systems at a fraction of the cost. “Quanta started running SAP R/3 3.1 on Windows Server and SQL Server more than 10 years ago when the Intel platform was limited to 32-bit technologies,” says Fang. “However, today there is no difference in performance or reliability between UNIX hardware and systems like the HP DL980.”

Delivers Subsecond Response TimesQuanta realizes additional performance gains by using the compression capabilities in SQL Server 2008 R2. One reason for the accelerated speeds is that the smaller, compressed data sets reduce disk I/O. In addition, page compression stores a repeating value only once per page (and uses a pointer to indicate where that value is), which also minimizes processing requirements. Fang adds, “Because data compression in SQL Server 2008 R2 reduces page size, it enables us to have more data

in the cache. As a result, we have improved the overall performance of our systems.”

Data compression accelerates performance in other ways as well. “With SQL Server 2008 R2, the data compression runs in the background, while users continue to access the information,” says Fang. “There is only a minor, virtually undetectable, performance hit from compressing tables online.”

Elaborating on the solution’s speed, Lee says, “Our end users have seen a large improvement in batch job performance since we have implemented SQL Server 2008 R2. In fact, our average dialog response time is below 400 milliseconds even during peak processing times at the end of each month.”

Provides High Availability and Security By taking advantage of built-in solution capabilities, Quanta facilitates high levels of availability. For example, Quanta uses failover clustering in Windows Server and data compression in SQL Server 2008 R2 to facilitate around-the-clock data access. “Quanta Computer operates assembly factories 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” explains Fang. “Planned or unplanned system downtime is not acceptable to our business users or our customers. Our mission-critical SAP system supports core financials, logistics, and supply chain operations for employees worldwide. By running it on the Microsoft platform, we can achieve the high levels of availability and security that we require.”

To eliminate any requirement to restart the SAP system at regular intervals, Quanta engineers reduced the update requirements of Windows Server to the

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“Our mission-critical SAP system supports core financials, logistics, and supply chain operations for Quanta employees worldwide. By running it on the Microsoft platform, we achieve the high levels of availability and security that we require.”

T. J. Fang, Chief Information Officer, Quanta Computer

"By using the Microsoft platform and Intel processors to support our mission-critical architecture, we can meet or exceed performance requirements of internal business users and customers at a much lower cost."

T. J. Fang, Chief Information Officer, Quanta Computer

same level as a UNIX platform. They accomplished this by taking steps such as removing the Windows Internet Explorer browser from the database and SAP application servers. “Windows 2008 R2 is a very secure operating system and installs only the bare minimum functionality by default,” says Lee. “However, by removing Internet Explorer and running the Windows Security Configuration Wizard, we harden the security of our servers.”

By deploying its new HP hardware, Quanta has promoted continuous access to data in other ways. For example, in the Nehalem EX series of Xeon processors, Intel added reliability, availability, and serviceability features previously used in Itanium processors that support UNIX systems such as HPUX. Windows Server 2008 R2 supports the reliability, availability, and serviceability features in Intel processors and increases the maximum number of supported CPUs to 256.

Commenting on the evolution of availability and security in the Microsoft platform, Lee says, “Older versions of Windows Server required frequent software updates, but this is no longer a requirement. Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 has only a limited number of security updates and most of them do not apply to our servers because we removed Internet Explorer and disabled unnecessary services.” Database security has also been a

nonissue for Quanta over the years. “SQL Server very rarely has any security updates, and many years can pass without one.” In fact, data from the National Institute of Standards and Technology shows that for the past ten years, Microsoft SQL Server is the most secure database platform with the least number of vulnerabilities.

Simplifies IT for Other SAP CustomersQuanta is just one of hundreds of SAP customers who have significantly increased performance and reduced costs by implementing SQL Server 2008 R2 and its built-in features such as data compression. As a result, SAP has modified its applications’ default settings to support 100 percent page compression of tables and indexes for all new installations, upgrades, or migrations to SQL Server 2008 R2 databases. Although SAP software can run on numerous data platforms, SQL Server 2008 R2 is the first and only database that SAP selected to compress data by default.

Microsoft Server Product PortfolioFor more information about the Microsoft server product portfolio, go to:www.microsoft.com/servers

For more information about Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 and SAP go to:

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For More InformationFor more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (877) 568-2495. Customers in the United States and Canada who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to:www.microsoft.com

For more information about Quanta Computer products and services, call (886) 33272345 or visit the website at: www.quanta.com.tw/Quanta/english/Default.aspx

This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.

Document published August 2011

Software and Services Microsoft Server Product Portfolio− Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise− Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2

Enterprise Services− Microsoft Services Premier Support

Hardware HP DL980 G7 server computer with 1

terabyte of RAM Intel Xeon X7560 processors

www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/en/us/solutions-technologies/sap.aspx

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