One of South Africa`s leading food manufacturers, Pioneer Food Group, has implemented a dedicated CompaqProLiant 8500 database server linked to Compaq StorageWorks architecture to meet the company`s growing storage demands.
Based in Paarl in the Western Cape, the company is currently in the process of rolling out SAP/R3 version 4.5B to a further 24 of its 135 branches nationwide. This is believed to be the largest SAP site running on Compaq NT architecture in the southern hemisphere.
"Our user volume grows on a monthly basis and by August 2001 upon the completion of the SAP rollout Pioneer Food Group will have grown from 1500 users," says Hubert Loubser, group manager IT at Pioneer Food.
Pioneer Food`s technology partner, Dimension Data Networking, a Compaq Solutions Integrator, delivered both the local and wide area networking solutions and applied its Application Ready Networking (ARN) model to the food giant`s IT structure.
According to Glenn Fermoyle, senior account manager at Dimension Data Networking in Cape Town, networking is an essential element of the Pioneer Food infrastructure. "Both Pioneer Food Group and Dimension Data Networking Western Cape have adopted a best practices approach which consists of Compaq, Cisco and Microsoft. Together with Dimension Data Networking`s ARN model this made the rollout of the entire WAN & LAN environments an absolute pleasure."
"LeRoi du Plessis, who heads up our systems integration team was instrumental in the implementation of the blueprint solution relating to the new Compaq ProLiant 8500 which was connected to the StorageWorks enclosures via fibre channel delivering response times of sub one second at user level.
Pioneer Food currently processes over 10 000 invoices a day, or 700 000 SAP Dialog Steps and storage demands are increasing at 30GB per month. To keep up with this massive demand for storage, the company has invested heavily in Compaq architecture. The latest addition is the installation of the Compaq ProLiant 8500 linked to four Compaq StorageWorks enclosures.
According to IT manager Merwe Erasmus, the massive increase in storage needs prompted the company to a storage area network architecture. The reason behind this is to be able to replicate data to a remote site.
"The Compaq ProLiant 8500 is linked to the StorageWorks enclosures using fibre optic technology. This configuration has been replicated at a nearby site for back-up purposes and each day we manually take the tapes to the disaster recovery site. Once Telkom allows us to install fibre optic cabling to the disaster recovery site, this task will be automated with Storage Works," says Erasmus.
In addition to the dedicated database server, Pioneer runs a further four Compaq ProLiant 5000 application servers, 80 NT servers and two terminal servers to support the branch office network. More than 1500 Compaq desktops have already been installed and this number will escalate as new branch offices come on line.
Loubser points out that Compaq architecture is the preferred hardware platform at Pioneer Food because SAP software requires at least a four-processor Intel system.
"I believe the efficiency of the Compaq ProLiant 8500 is its scaleability factor of well beyond four processors which we saw first hand at Compaq`s Competency Centre in Europe. Additionally, reliability is crucial in a mission critical 24x7 environment such as ours and Compaq offers us the peace of mind that any interruptions will not affect ongoing processing."
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Company Background Compaq Computer Corporation, a Fortune Global 100 company, is the largest supplier of computing systems in the world. Compaq designs, develops, manufactures, and markets hardware, software, solutions, and services, including industry-leading enterprise computing solutions, fault-tolerant business-critical solutions, and communications products, commercial desktop and portable products, and consumer PCs for the NonStop(tm) Internet world. Compaq products and services are sold in more than 200 countries directly to businesses, through a network of authorized Compaq marketing partners. Customer support and information about Compaq and its products and services are available at http://www.compaq.co.za Compaq Africa Region was established in October 1994 and is headquartered in Sandton, Johannesburg with regional offices in Cape Town, Durban, Nairobi (Kenya) and Lagos (Nigeria). Compaq products and services are sold and supported through a network of marketing partners across South Africa, Southern Africa, East Africa and West Africa.