Metcash, the largest FMCG wholesale operation in Africa, has installed a Hewlett-Packard Unix Superdome server using an innovative financing model as the company moves to consolidate its systems and slash IT costs.
The Superdome has already made a "huge" difference to Metcash`s turnaround time on data warehousing queries: what previously took 30 minutes or more now takes five minutes, making the company significantly more responsive to business users.
Using Superdome`s partitioning capabilities and its high-availability features to consolidate workloads from multiple smaller servers, Metcash has effectively consolidated its systems and reduced its cost of IT operations by eliminating redundant hardware.
"We needed to upgrade our existing servers, specifically our data warehousing server, and from a management perspective it made sense to consolidate servers and have the latest disk technology," said Metcash`s Group MIS Director, Nick Parsons.
"As our amount of data grows every month, we can be assured that we have sufficient storage and processing capacity. The Superdome also gives us a scalable upgrade path by providing more processors than we need right now, allowing us to turn on processors instantly as our capacity needs increase. This typically allows for lower upfront costs and better use of resources."
HP South Africa`s extended manufacturing business unit manager, Rui Mendes, said the deal was put together using HP`s instant capacity on demand (ICOD) model - which provides the end-user with additional processing power as and when they need it - and linked to HP financing, which effectively transfers the server from being a capital expenditure to a monthly operating cost.
"This model helps clients manage revenue streams more effectively. It is our strong conviction that a new era of open, collaborative electronic services built on this infrastructure will define the information infrastructure of the next century," said Mendes.
Metcash had put the upgrade out on open tender, but what clinched the deal for HP was a combination of superior technology and attractive financing options based on HP buying back the hardware at book value.
"At the end of the day business is based on relationships and this philosophy works for us," said Parsons.
HP value-added reseller Cornastone, which played a key role in putting together the deal, completed installation within a month with no hiccoughs.
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