1. we know
they know
Energen achieves half-million dollar savings
by migrating Oracle and SAP software to
IBM System p
Energen Corporation is among the Top
Overview 20 independent exploration and
production companies on the basis of
 The Challenge  The Benefits its US oil and gas reserves. Listed on
Energen was facing performance Saved an estimated $500,000 in the New York Stock Exchange,
and support issues for its SAP ERP annual costs, largely through Energen has averaged more than 30
application, which was running on reductions in Oracle licensing fees; per cent annual growth in earnings
Sun Solaris servers. The company accelerated the deployment of new and total shareholder return over the
wanted to reduce the total cost of servers from one month to two last five years. The company has
ownership – in particular by cutting days; improved server utilization; proved reserves of natural gas, oil and
its licensing costs for the Oracle boosted performance by 92 per natural gas liquids totaling 1.7 trillion
databases supporting its SAP ERP cent, cutting typical batch runs from cubic feet. Its regulated business,
application – and to stop the sprawl 24 hours to two; freed up floorspace Alabama Gas Corporation (Alagasco),
of servers in its data center by and power capacity in data center; is the largest distributor of natural gas
introducing virtualization. improved support for mid-range in Alabama, serving around 455,000
environment, with access to IBM customers.
 The Solution Advocate program
Working with IBM Business Partner In the face of deteriorating system
Mainline Information Systems,  Key Solution Components performance and worsening support
Energen replaced 20 Sun servers Industry: Oil & Gas, Utilities from its vendor, Energen wanted to
with two IBM System p5 570 Applications: SAP® ERP refresh its mid-range server
servers, each with eight IBM Hardware: IBM System p™, model environment. This environment –
POWER5+ processors running IBM p5-570 primarily used for its SAP and Oracle
AIX. Energen virtualized the SAP ®
Software: IBM AIX 5L™, software – had grown to 20 physical
software environment into logical Oracle 10g machines, representing a significant
partitions on the p5-570s, enabling Services: IBM Business Partner investment in both hardware and
multiple systems to share the same Mainline Information Systems software licenses.
processing and I/O resources.
“We were already familiar with logical
partitioning and server virtualization on
the mainframe platform,” says Ron
Payne, Director of Infrastructure

2. Services at Energen. “Consolidating to Our technology partner, Mainline
the IBM System p platform enabled us Information Systems, put together an
“IBM and Mainline both to do the same for our Sun mid-range analysis to show how moving to virtual
environment, delivering annual servers on IBM System p could
have a strong local
savings of around $500,000.” significantly cut our Oracle licensing
presence. That was a costs in addition to reducing our
significant selling point: The migration from Sun to IBM hardware costs. That, and the fact that
given the business- System p enabled Energen to IBM had a much stronger local support
critical nature of our consolidate from 20 servers down to network, convinced us that System p
two, significantly easing the pressure was the right platform for Energen.”
SAP software
on Energen’s data center, where the
environment, we needed continual addition of new physical Keith Jinright, Data Center Manager at
to have skilled support servers was using up valuable Energen, adds: “We had significant
close at hand.” floorspace and putting a growing support issues with our previous
strain on the electricity supply. vendor, Sun, which was cutting back
Keith Jinright support in the south-eastern US and
Data Center Manager
Energen
Choosing a supportive partner laying off employees. By contrast, IBM
Energen’s concerns about the cost and Mainline both have a strong local
and reliability of its mid-range presence. That was a significant selling
infrastructure coincided with a point: given the business-critical nature
planned refresh of the platform for SAP of our SAP software environment, we
software. Says Ron Payne, “It made need to have skilled support close at
sense to take a fresh look at the entire hand.”
environment, to see where we could
cut costs and improve service levels. Powering up with System p
Energen implemented two IBM System
p5 570 servers, each with eight IBM
POWER5+ processors. IBM
contributed towards the cost of the
migration and consolidation of the SAP
software, which was carried out with
the assistance of consultants certified
by SAP.
Energen migrated its entire SAP ERP
environment – including functionality
for financials (accounts receivable and
accounts payable), human resources
and payroll – from Solaris on 20
physical servers to IBM AIX V5.3 on the
two new p5-570 servers. The SAP ERP
application now runs in logical
partitions (LPARs) that dynamically
share the processing power of the
p5-570s.

3. Karl Swelling, UNIX Systems and dynamically to make the most
Administrator at Energen, says: “Each efficient use of the available resources.
LPAR is configured to use up to six “With Virtual I/O Server,
POWER5 processors, and the usage In addition to Micro-Partitioning –
we now have just four
is uncapped, so each environment whereby a small LPAR can occupy as
can adapt dynamically to changing little as one-tenth of a single processor
network and four fiber
business requirements. We pre-set the – Energen is taking advantage of the cards in each System p
policy – for example, so that Virtual I/O Server feature of IBM server. When we need
production environments take priority Advanced POWER Virtualization on to set up a new virtual
over test and development – and the System p.
server, we simply carve
system automatically allocates
resources to the different LPARs.” Says Karl Swelling: “We previously had
out a new LPAR and
two ordinary network cards and two link it to the virtual
The move to virtual rather than fiber-channel cards in each of our 20 network – it’s much
physical servers for the SAP software physical servers. With Virtual I/O simpler and more cost-
environment also means greater Server, we now have just four network
effective.”
speed and flexibility in server and four fiber cards in each System p
provisioning. With the previous Sun server. When we need to set up a new Karl Swelling
server infrastructure, it would take at virtual server, we simply carve out a UNIX Systems Administrator
Energen
least a month to meet a request from new LPAR and link it to the virtual
the business to build a new server. network – it’s much simpler and more
Says Keith Jinright, “In the past, we cost-effective.”
needed to specify, order and await the
delivery of the server, then allocate Energen has also embraced
time for buying additional software virtualization for its Microsoft Windows
licenses, installation, configuration, environment, using VMware
patching, testing and release to technology to consolidate from 60
production. Using virtualization on IBM physical servers to just four, for an
System p, it now takes just two days in estimated $600,000 in cost savings.
total, and the effort is minimal.” The company plans to consolidate a
further 15 Intel-processor based
Pushing ahead with virtualization servers running Linux to Linux
With server virtualization, Energen can partitions on one of the p5-570s. Says
deploy a server that is precisely the Keith Jinright, “We run a number of
right size for a new business Linux-based open source applications
requirement, simply by allocating the for Web serving, network services and
required resources to its LPAR. Unlike so on - by consolidating to partitions
implementing a new physical server, on System p, we will improve the ease
where the capacity is effectively fixed of management and further shrink our
from the date of purchase and can only Intel-based environment.”
be varied upwards through a
disruptive physical upgrade at Cutting costs for Oracle
additional cost, virtualization means Energen’s previous licensing deal with
that Energen can increase or reduce Oracle was on a “named-user” basis,
the size of its virtual servers instantly and each CPU used for Oracle

4. accounted for 25 licenses from a Says Karl Swelling, “The mid-range “The reduction in Oracle
central pool of 1,000. Looking at the environment is now much easier to
licensing costs was the
entire environment, including all manage. Administration on AIX is great
main contributor to the
development, test and quality – the command set is very consistent,
assurance instances, Energen had and it’s tied in very tightly with the total $500,000 annual
already reached the limits of this hardware. With Solaris, we needed to savings we achieved by
licensing deal with its previous buy a lot of additional software.” migrating to IBM
infrastructure. By consolidating its 20
System p for our SAP
Sun servers to just two p5-570s and Average processor utilization on the
software environment.”
switching to a server-based license p5-570s now stands at 25 per cent,
with Oracle, Energen was able to with peaks between 50 and 75 per
Ron Payne
reduce its software licensing costs by cent utilization for overnight batch runs Director of Infrastructure Services
40 per cent. of non-SAP workloads such as Oracle Energen
and data warehousing applications.
“We certainly made a saving on
hardware costs, but the reduction in “In the old environment, many servers
Oracle licensing costs was the main were running at less than 10 per cent
IBM Deutschland GmbH
contributor to the total $500,000 utilization, so much of our growing
D-70548 Stuttgart
annual savings we achieved by investment in hardware was sitting idle ibm.com/solutions/sap
migrating to IBM System p for our SAP and not delivering any value back to IBM, the IBM logo, IBM System Storage, IBM System z, IBM
System p, IBM System i, IBM System x, z/OS, z/VM, i5/OS, AIX,
software environment,” says Ron the business,” says Keith Jinright.
DB2, Domino, Lotus, Tivoli, Rational and WebSphere are
Payne. “Migrating from Solaris also “We’re now doing a much better job of trademarks or registered trademarks of International Business
Machines Corporation in the United States, other countries, or
produced software cost savings, utilizing the assets, and reliability is
both.
because with IBM AIX we no longer better too. Since going into production
Intel, the Intel logo, Intel Xeon and the Intel Xeon logo are
needed a separate volume with our SAP ERP environment on IBM trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation or its
subsidiaries in the United States and other countries. UNIX is a
management solution from Veritas, System p, we’ve experienced no
registered trademark of The Open Group in the United States
saving around $100,000 annually.” unplanned outages.” and other countries. Linux is a trademark of Linus Torvalds in
the United States, other countries, or both. Microsoft, Windows,
Windows NT, and the Windows logo are trademarks of Microsoft
“The server consolidation project was The IBM solution has significantly Corporation in the United States, other countries, or both.
hugely successful,” says Brunson improved the support available for Other company, product or service names may be trademarks,
or service marks of others.
White, VP and CIO of Energen. “We Energen’s mid-range server
This case study illustrates how one IBM customer uses IBM
have never completed a project that environment, as Keith Jinright
and/or IBM Business Partner technologies/services. Many
has so quickly generated as much explains: “We are in the IBM Advocate factors have contributed to the results and benefits described.
IBM does not guarantee comparable results. All information
return on investment as this one.” program – it’s like adding a highly
contained herein was provided by the featured customer and/
experienced employee at a fraction of or IBM Business Partner. IBM does not attest to its accuracy.
All customer examples cited represent how some customers
Greater flexibility and efficiency the cost. If we have a technical
have used IBM products and the results they may have
In addition to the reduction in costs for question, we can get the right answer achieved. Actual environmental costs and performance
characteristics will vary depending on individual customer
software, hardware acquisition and very quickly – the advocate really
configurations and conditions.
maintenance, Energen’s migration to knows the product.”
This publication is for general guidance only. Photographs may
the IBM System p platform for its SAP show design models.
software environment has improved Ron Payne concludes, “Migrating to © Copyright IBM Corp. 2008 All Rights Reserved.
performance - a typical batch IBM System p for our SAP software
processing run went from 24 hours environment has given Energen a
down to just two hours – an more compact and efficient
improvement of more than 90 per cent. infrastructure that combines
The IBM solution has also simplified significantly lower capital and © Copyright 2008 SAP AG
SAP AG
server administration and enabled operational costs with better Dietmar-Hopp-Allee 16
more efficient utilization of the performance and flexibility.” D-69190 Walldorf
available computer resources. SAP, the SAP logo, SAP and all other SAP
products and services mentioned herein are
trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP AG
in Germany and several other countries.
SPC03009-USEN-00 (02/08)