A study case on IBM efficiency. The insurance group Mannheimer migrated from HP servers running SAP applications and Oracle databases in the Microsoft Windows Server environment to IBM infrastructure. Migration to IBM Power Systems and DB2 has reduced operational costs by around 30 percent a year; business reports that took 20 minutes to generate are now produced in three minutes; IBM DB2 Deep Compression for data and indexes has reduced total data storage requirements by an average of between 40 to over 60 percent, ect...Discover in this case study all the other benefits that the company received from the migration. Visit http://bit.ly/KWh5Dx to 'Follow' the official Twitter handle of IBM India Smarter Computing.

1. we know
they know
Group Mannheimer Versicherungen
reduces operational costs by 30 percent
with SAP and IBM
Overview
 The Challenge  The Benefits  Key Solution Components
Insurance group Mannheimer relied Migration to IBM Power Systems Industry: Insurance
on SAP applications to run its core and DB2 has reduced operational Applications: SAP® ERP
business operations. Older HP costs by around 30 percent a applications including financials,
servers were unable to support new year. Business reports that took controlling, SAP Financial Services
SAP applications, and migration to 20 minutes to generate are now Collections and Disbursements,
the Unicode standard would require produced in three minutes. SAP SAP Financial Services
investment in additional physical application dialog step response Re-Insurance and SAP ERP
servers. Poor dialog response times and batch run times have Human Capital Management
performance and slow report decreased by a factor of five. IBM Hardware: IBM ® Power™ 570, IBM
generation caused user complaints, DB2 Deep Compression for data System Storage DS4800 series
while maintenance and license and indexes has reduced total data Software: IBM AIX®, IBM Tivoli®
costs continued to rise. storage requirements by an average Storage Manager, IBM DB2®
of between 40 to over 60 percent. version 9.7 for Linux, Unix and
 The Solution SAP Financial Services Collections Windows
Migrated from HP servers running and Disbursements data was Services: LIS.TEC, IBM Global
SAP applications and Oracle reduced from 1TB to 350GB, Technology Services
databases in the Microsoft avoiding investment in additional
Windows Server environment storage capacity. Consolidating
to IBM infrastructure. SAP ERP from seven to two physical servers
applications, DB2 and other simplified the IT environment,
in-house and business intelligence reduced power consumption and
applications run in multiple virtual released valuable data room space
servers on IBM Power 570 servers for new projects.
running AIX and the Unicode
standard. Deployed IBM System
Storage DS4800 family systems to
rationalize and consolidate the data
storage landscape.

2. “The migration to IBM Founded in 1879 in Mannheim, systems and support for all the
Germany, insurance group Mannheimer companies, and IMD itself
Power Systems and
Mannheimer offers life, sickness and is a wholly-owned subsidiary.
DB2 has saved around general insurance. The group
30 percent each year, companies employ 842 people in total, “The existing HP and Oracle
and the solution is and generate an annual insurance infrastructure could not scale reliably
priced as a complete premium income of around €376 and cost-effectively to meet demand. In
million (2009). addition, we wanted to move to the
hardware, maintenance
current versions of the SAP applications
and license package for Mannheimer enjoys consistent as this would reduce license and support
five years, offering business growth, fueled by specialist fees. We therefore chose to review the
budget predictability for insurance solutions focusing on market entire software and hardware landscape.
Mannheimer.” sectors such as jewelers, artists and
musicians. The company has relied on “IMD had to complete many changes
Norbert Koch, Managing Director, SAP applications to run its core with minimal disruption to the
IMD GmbH
processes for many years, including Mannheimer companies, which placed
the specialist SAP Financial Services significant constraints on our project
Collections and Disbursements and plans. The new solution also needed to
SAP Financial Services Re-Insurance allow us to complete system
components, as well as its own administration and maintenance without
in-house and other non-SAP impacting daily business.”
applications.
Choosing IBM
Group IT services are provided by an The IMD team selected IBM to advise on
in-house company, IMD - Gesellschaft the best way to progress with the
für Informatik und Datenverarbeitung transformation, including the introduction
mbH. Norbert Koch, Managing Director of Unicode, which was required for the
of IMD, explains, “We provide SAP upgrade to the most current versions of
the SAP applications.
“IBM offers an excellent cross-brand
value proposition, including hardware,
software and services,” says Norbert
Koch. “IBM presented three possible
architecture solutions, any of which
could be operated in-house or
outsourced to IBM. This flexibility of
approach suited Mannheimer, as it
enabled us to choose the right course
based on the business requirements
rather than the technical specifications.”
Mannheimer chose to migrate all its SAP
applications to virtualized environments
on IBM Power Systems servers running
IBM AIX, and to replace Oracle with IBM
DB2.

3. The project was initiated in May 2008, character set, data volumes “We are extraordinarily
with the first hardware implemented in decreased slightly.
satisfied with the
November. Database migration
operations commenced in January Selecting a DB2 strategy
business, technical and
2009 and finished in February, Mannheimer implemented two IBM operational benefits of
followed immediately by SAP Power 570 servers with POWER6 the IBM Power Systems
application upgrades that concluded processors, two IBM System Storage and DB2 combination...
in November. The SAP ERP devices from the DS4800 family, and
The project ran
applications were divided into test, an IBM TS3310 tape library. To
development, quality management manage the data, Mannheimer
smoothly, on time and
and production, all hosted on the IBM enabled the DB2 Storage Optimization slightly below budget.”
Power Systems servers. Feature and implemented IBM Tivoli
Norbert Koch, Managing Director,
Storage Manager to provide backup, IMD GmbH
The purpose behind the upgrade to archive and recovery services.
the latest SAP ERP version and
Unicode enablement was to move the IBM Global Technology Services
company to a standard, current SAP provided service and support to
environment with reduced license migrate Oracle databases from 32-bit
costs on flexible, scalable technology. Microsoft Windows Server 2000 on HP
servers to the 64-bit AIX environment
The first project phase covered the on the IBM Power Systems platform.
migration from Windows and Oracle to
IBM AIX and DB2 9.5. This migration, “The strategic database system within
including DB2 row compression, the whole Mannheimer group is DB2,
resulted in compression rates of and we wanted to pursue our
between 40 percent and over 60 standardization strategy to help us
percent for the SAP Financial Services reduce costs, consolidate our skill sets
Collections and Disbursements, SAP and increase system performance.
Financial Services Re-Insurance, and DB2 provides a scalable, highly robust
SAP ERP Human Capital Management foundation for SAP applications, and
landscapes. The second project ensures that we are well-placed to TECHNICAL LANDSCAPE
phase comprised SAP application manage the predicted business Servers: Two IBM Power 570 servers
upgrades for SAP FSRI from SAP 4.6 C growth,” says Norbert Koch. with POWER6 processors replacing
via SAP 4.71 and SAP 4.72 to ECC 6.0, “Enhanced application performance HP servers, two IBM System Storage
and was completed during a single available from POWER-processor devices from the DS4800 family, and
weekend. The concluding phase was based systems also boosts user an IBM TS3310 tape library
the conversion to Unicode for the SAP productivity, a valuable gain across Software: IBM AIX and IBM Tivoli
Financial Services Collections and the entire company.” Storage Manager. IBM DB2 version
Disbursements, SAP Financial 9.7 for Linux, Unix and Windows
Services Re-Insurance, and SAP ERP Additional POWER-processor features replacing an Oracle database. SAP
Human Capital Management include Live Partition Mobility, a unique ERP applications including financials,
landscapes. This process included IBM technology for POWER controlling,SAP Financial Services
the upgrade from DB2 9.5 to DB2 9.7 processor-based systems that allows Collections and Disbursements, SAP
and the implementation of new LPARs to be moved from one system Financial Services Re-Insurance and
features such as “Reclaimable to another even during continuous SAP ERP Human Capital Management
Storage” and Index Compression, and production. Combined with the Users: 400
despite the conversion to the Unicode established reliability, security and

4. availability advantages, the IBM Power resources for busy application areas “For Mannheimer, the
Systems platform offers a very high when they are not needed by other
twin IBM Power
degree of business flexibility to LPARs. This is important both for our
Systems and DS4800
Mannheimer. nightly batch runs and during
production for the dialog-based solution provides easily
Taking advantage of IBM Power Systems applications.” sufficient capacity, and
With database migration in place, the flexibility offered by
Mannheimer migrated its SAP Norbert Koch says, “With IBM Power
virtualization enables
applications to the new platform, with Systems we can do what formerly was
us to look at adding
an intermediate upgrade and only possible in the mainframe
conversion to Unicode, followed by environment. AIX provides everything functionality, such as
final deployment of SAP ERP we need on one machine, and portal solutions, with
applications in the production practical experience shows that the no immediate need to
environment. The Power 570 systems virtualization solutions are very good.
invest in additional
were divided into virtual servers called For example, for overnight batch runs
hardware.”
logical partitions (LPARs), used as we can utilize the whole machine to
staging servers for the upgrade and meet processing demands, and then
Rainer Böhm, Head of SAP Systems,
then sized according to the predicted re-allocate resources automatically to IMD GmbH
workload of the SAP application. the production applications the next
morning.
Norbert Koch continues, “We evaluated
other vendors’ 64-bit solutions for the “Additionally, scalability is a huge
SAP application landscape. Because advantage, as we could not predict at
the HP hardware had reached the end the time of purchase how the
of life, it became important that the new workload would grow. By combining
solution would be able to handle this the processor and resource allocation
workload and scale to meet future offered by virtualization with the ability
demands. We chose the Power to add processors as required,
Systems and AIX platform because it Mannheimer is able to increase
offers better scalability, IBM provides a throughput without buying additional
long-term strategy, the pricing was very servers.”
competitive and it included superior
virtualization technology.” Working with IBM
Mannheimer worked closely with IBM
Rainer Böhm, Head of SAP Systems, Global Technology Services on the
adds, “Virtualization capabilities were migration processes themselves. This
the deciding factor. IBM logical included the complex multiple steps
partitioning (LPAR) on Power Systems for updating both the SAP
servers permits dynamic allocation of applications and the introduction of
processor capacity between LPARs, the Unicode standard.
allowing Mannheimer to ensure that
each application meets its expected New versions of SAP applications
performance levels. require support for Unicode, and
older operating systems, database
“The ability to allocate CPUs is an data and applications must be
outstanding business advantage, upgraded in the correct sequence to
particularly the ability to use more ensure that the conversion is

5. successful and that the revised data Compression (both indexes and data), “We always assess which
sets are suitably compact. the 1TB volume was reduced to
platform best meets our
350GB, achieving a compression rate
“IBM Global Technology Services of 65 percent.
needs, and SAP
provided us with the advice and applications with DB2
experience necessary to plan and “We have been able to release several on Power Systems
execute the SAP application upgrades terabytes of disk space, and at current provide a cost-effective,
and Unicode conversions rapidly and growth rates do not need to worry
future-proof solution for
cost-effectively. By working with IBM about running out of space for the next
Global Technology Services, we were five to ten years,” says Norbert Koch.
Mannheimer.”
able to draw on their global resources “This represents a considerable cost
Rainer Böhm, Head of SAP Systems,
for the crucial periods, and complete saving for the company.” IMD GmbH
the work on time, successfully,” says
Norbert Koch. Improving storage performance
As part of the project, Mannheimer
Reducing costs with DB2 re-structured its data storage. By
As a central services supplier to the mixing drive types within the DS4800
Mannheimer group, IMD is particularly family storage units, the company
cost-conscious. On the database side, implemented an information hierarchy
any ways to reduce infrastructure cost that ensures data is placed on the
are welcome. For example, finding, drives as cost-effectively as possible
training and retaining IT personnel is a while at the same time improving
costly business, and database technical performance.
administrators are no exception.
Rainer Böhm explains, “We wanted to
Norbert Koch comments, “To maintain improve the response times from our
the Oracle databases we needed to business intelligence application, and
hire external contractors, whereas the one route would have been to license
DB2 tools remove this expense, and all further processors.
database administration tasks can be
managed internally. “Instead, working with IBM, we
reorganized the layout of the disks,
“The volume of data generated by SAP and we now have smaller disk drives
transactions started strain our total that offer faster data access, which
storage capacity. Even though has produced a remarkable
conversion to the Unicode standard improvement in response times
often results in increased capacity, without the expense of additional
using IBM Deep Compression we processor licenses.”
reduced the volume of data by from 40
to over 60 percent.” Two separate data centers each house
an IBM Power 570 server and storage
For example, SAP Financial Services system. IBM Tivoli Storage Manager
Collections and Disbursements automatically replicates data from the
originally ran to 500GB, which on production to the secondary server,
conversion to Unicode and migration including system state copies,
to the latest SAP application release ensuring that production can continue
grew to 1TB. After applying DB2 Deep even if disaster strikes the primary site.

6. Rainer Böhm comments, “With the At the operational level, Mannheimer
previous system, we needed three has replaced seven HP servers with
days to recover data and restart two energy-efficient IBM Power
operations. Based on previous Systems servers. With lower energy
experience we used to dread this. consumption and reduced heat output,
the company saves on air-conditioning
“The new solution has cut the period to costs and has been able to reduce
just half a day, and with the IBM Power server room floor space.
Systems and DB2 combination,
recovery and it is no longer an issue. Norbert Koch concludes, “We are
We use Tivoli Storage Manager to extraordinarily satisfied with the
mirror data continuously between the business, technical and operational
IBM Deutschland GmbH
two data centers, and the non- benefits of the IBM Power Systems and D-70548 Stuttgart
ibm.com/solutions/sap
production Power 570 server acts as a DB2 combination. Some consulting
IBM, the IBM logo, and ibm.com are trademarks
hot stand-by system, offering very high companies painted what we might call
of International Business Machines Corporation,
availability of better than 99.98 ‘anxiety scenarios’ concerning the registered in many jurisdictions worldwide. A
current list of other IBM trademarks is available
percent.” migration, and they have been proved
on the Web at “Copyright and trademark
wrong. The project ran smoothly, on information” at http://www.ibm.com/legal/
copytrade.shtml
Achieving business benefits time and slightly below budget.”
Intel, the Intel logo, Intel Xeon and the Intel Xeon
This root-and-branch review and
logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of
restructuring of the Mannheimer IT IBM provided a SAP certified Migration Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United
States and other countries. UNIX is a registered
landscape has more than met the Consultant to support the
trademark of The Open Group in the United
business objectives, and has also transformation, working as a joint team States and other countries. Linux is a trademark
of Linus Torvalds in the United States, other
delivered lower operational costs with with Mannheimer and LIS.TEC.
countries, or both. Microsoft, Windows, Windows
improved technical performance. NT, and the Windows logo are trademarks of
Microsoft Corporation in the United States, other
Rainer Böhm adds, “Migration to DB2
countries, or both.
Norbert Koch comments, “The HP and fully meets our expectations, and we
Other company, product or service names may
Oracle solution was incurring high are 100 percent confident in the be trademarks, or service marks of others.
maintenance costs and significant solution. IBM recommended the This case study illustrates how one IBM
customer uses IBM and/or IBM Business Partner
annual license fees. The migration to combined landscape and migration
technologies/services. Many factors have
IBM Power Systems and DB2 has process, and it was excellent. contributed to the results and benefits
described. IBM does not guarantee comparable
saved around 30 percent a year, and
results. All information contained herein was
the solution is priced as a complete “For Mannheimer, the twin IBM Power provided by the featured customer and/or IBM
Business Partner. IBM does not attest to its
hardware, maintenance and license Systems and DS4800 solution provides
accuracy. All customer examples cited represent
package for five years, offering budget easily sufficient capacity, and the how some customers have used IBM products
and the results they may have achieved. Actual
predictability for Mannheimer. flexibility offered by virtualization
environmental costs and performance
enables us to look at adding characteristics will vary depending on individual
customer configurations and conditions.
“Previously, users complained about functionality, such as portal solutions,
This publication is for general guidance only.
performance, especially concerning with no immediate need to invest in
Photographs may show design models.
the 20 minutes or so it took to generate additional hardware.
© Copyright IBM Corp. 2010. All rights reserved.
complex accounting and statistical
reports. With the Power Systems “We always assess which platform best
server and DB2, the same queries now meets our needs, and SAP applications
take around three minutes to complete, with DB2 on Power Systems provide a
and many other standard reports are cost-effective, future-proof solution for
delivered in just seconds. Similarly, Mannheimer.”
SAP application dialog step response © Copyright 2010 SAP AG
SAP AG
times and batch run times have Dietmar-Hopp-Allee 16
decreased by a factor of five, D-69190 Walldorf
eliminating user complaints and SAP, the SAP logo, SAP and all other SAP
products and services mentioned herein are
greatly improving total productivity.” trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP AG in
Germany and several other countries.
SPC03284-DEEN-01 (November 2010)