The Fruits of Their Labor Welch s saves money by upgrading to new IBM Power servers and the IBM XIV Storage System CUSTOMER: Welch's Food Inc., a cooperative HEADQUARTERS:Concord, Mass. BUSINESS: Leading marketer and manufacturer of Concord and Niagara grape-based products CHALLENGE: Ensuring core systems are properly powered and performing at their peak SOLUTION: Upgrading from a Linux/Intel environment to an IBM POWER5 processor-based environment to a Power Systems environment HARDWARE: Two IBM Power 570s, a Power 520, a System p520, an IBM XIV Storage System, an IBM System Storage DS6800 and an IBM System Storage tape library SOFTWARE: Oracle ERP Solutions We take great pride in how creatively we ve worked with our partners to deliver high-quality, cost-effective services to our business, says Mukesh Sharma, Welch s manager of database and ERP infrastructure. In fact, our motto here is to do more for less or the same. That pride is well founded, with Welch s having moved from an IBM AS/400* environment, to a Linux* environment running on an Intel* platforms, to several IBM POWER5* processor-based AIX* boxes, and now to a new POWER6* processor-based infrastructure all in the span of six years. That type of massive IT overhaul isn t without its perils, especially when a company migrates from one platform to another. This pertains to not only hardware, but also software, as in the case of Welch s, which moved from OS/400* applications to a full implementation of the Oracle E-Business Suite (EBS) running initially on Linux and then on AIX. Thanks to its partners, however, Welch s accomplished this with little business disruption. Now, it has a cost-effective, state-of-the-art server, storage and software environment that will last for years with closely integrated vendors keeping their eyes open to further Welch s goals of minimizing cost while delivering best-of-breed services. It became quickly clear that the IBM path would be the best. Not only would we gain better stability and a scalable architecture, but, just as significantly, we would be more cost-effective, achieving more with the same or less. Mukesh Sharma, manager of database and ERP infrastructure, Welch s
Making a Difference Many may not realize it, but the Concord, Mass.-based Welch s known for its many grape- and other fruit-based products operates as a cooperative owned by approximately 1,200 family farmers across the United States and in Ontario, Canada. These owners, who grow and harvest some 320,000 tons of Concord and Niagara grapes that Welch s processes to produce Welch s-branded juices, jams, jellies and other items, make up the National Grape Cooperative, of which Welch s is a wholly owned subsidiary. Notably, Welch s has a global market, reaching well beyond the borders of the U.S. and Canada, to include nearly 50 countries and territories. Welch s doesn t sell directly to consumers in these locations, but instead relies on licensed business partners with established distribution chains in those markets. Of course, this mode of operation requires a solid IT underpinning. Currently, that includes two IBM Power* 570s, a Power 520, a POWER5 processor-based System p* 570, an IBM System Storage* XIV* storage subsystem, an IBM System Storage DS6800, an IBM System Storage tape library and a Cisco MDS storage-area network (SAN). It s also running Oracle s ERP system to support its everyday business requirements. It s not necessarily this hardware and software infrastructure that has made Welch s such a success at least not in the IT department. Rather, it s the people who oversee these IT assets that make the difference. If not for the likes of Sharma and his fellow IT employees, hardware would just be hardware and software would just be software, plugged in and humming along, perhaps, but with no clear direction. Welch s success is also due in part to its outsourcing vendors such as Essex Technology Group, Inc. (Essextec) and Advanced Technology Services Group (ATS Group), as well as Oracle and IBM. These trusted partners help Welch s keep up with the latest technologies and make sure those innovations are best serving the company. An example of solution providing is the performance-management tool Galileo, which acts as the performance-management and compliance backbone. The ATS Group developed it in close partnership with Welch s; it today provides in-depth data required to optimally run AIX systems.
The Best Path Welch s didn t always trust outsourcing vendors. When it implemented its first phase of Oracle s EBS running on Linux on Intel, it managed almost everything internally, except some of the Oracle database. The hardware was in the hands of Welch s internal IT team, which admirably did what it could, but experienced many difficulties related to the Linux technology-based Oracle solution running on Intel. The company had system reboots typically four times a month, Sharma recalls. And the biggest challenge was to find what caused the reboots. Due to the level of technology we were using, it wasn t possible to set up accounting rules to have that level of auditing. Additionally, if there were a non-oracle-related problem that a system reboot couldn t address, that sole systems administrator would often use Google to attempt to find a solution. This was in part because he wasn t sure which vendor to turn to in the event of a sudden or chronic problem: Linux or the server provider. Welch s knew with an upcoming expansion of Oracle EBS to all of its manufacturing sites, which required near 24-7 uptime, the company could jeopardize manufacturing and shipping with this type of instability. It was apparent virtualization and market competitiveness had made the AIX environment reliable and cost-effective. One of Welch s first calls to action was to bring in ATS Group to look at the company s IT infrastructure. ATS Group ran a benchmark of Oracle Demantra running on the Linux on Intel solution against a benchmark of the same Oracle software on AIX. The results were more than eye-opening: some functions that ran for two hours under Linux on Intel were completed in 43 minutes on an AIX server. Other, similar tests were run with similar results. This testing was conducted as the company was about to enter the second phase of its Oracle implementation. Based on the results, Welsh s knew it had to do something to improve both performance and stability while also keeping costs in mind. We looked at two options. One was to upgrade to the latest Intel technology-based servers as well as the latest version of the Linux software, and the other was to take a more significant step and move to the System p running AIX, Sharma says. Based on an ROI study we conducted with the assistance of Essextec, it became quickly clear that
the IBM path would be the best. Not only would we gain better stability and a scalable architecture, but, just as significantly, we would be more cost-effective, achieving more with the same or less. As a result of this, Welch s decided to move fully toward the AIX space, working with ATS Group and Essextec to, for example, determine how to size the AIX servers and choose the AIX servers and choose the best storage technology. In mid-2005, Welch s converted to three highly virtualized System p 570s which took the place of more than 30 Linux on Intel servers and an IBM System Storage DS6800 storage environment. Welch s further expanded its new AIX infrastructure in 2006 with a System p 570 to run its Data-Mart and business-intelligence (BI) solutions and also act as a high-availability (HA) system. As Sharma explains, We call it a smart HA system, because it s not just sitting there waiting for a disaster to happen. It s also running BI and acting as an Oracle test system. We put those on there because they re not really mission critical and we can take them offline should we have to put the HA system into disaster mode. Several Factors In early 2009, the leases on the three original POWER5 processor-based machines were due to expire. At the same time, Welch s demand on its Oracle systems was continuing to grow as budgets began shrinking. Faced with yet another decision, the company with the assistance of its business partners again performed a thorough review of its IT infrastructure. The team discovered Welch s could further reduce its costs by moving the workload of three of the POWER5 processor-based servers to two Power Systems* servers, thereby lowering costs of server leasing. This move to the new systems would also increase server performance by up to 60 percent, allowing it to keep up with its increasing application demands. The two boxes currently work in a clustered environment, with Oracle spanning across their resources. The Power 520 is used as an AIX Network Installation Management (NIM) server. As Sharma explains, When we started on the IBM AIX path, we looked at what the IBM solution was for bare metal recovery. In our case, the solution was to go with a small 520 and make it a central backup server and push all the backups from the other frames onto this NIM, which has an external tape drive attached to it, enabling backups to tape for bare-metal recovery.
Welch s decided to move from the DS6800 storage environment to XIV, based on several factors, including built-in functionality (such as thin provisioning and grid storage), bundled applications (SnapView, Snapshot), scalability (180 disks, in the case of Welch s), the migration process (replication) and administrative ease. As with its Power Systems solution, this also allowed the company to consolidate from two DS6800 storage devices to one XIV storage device. Because tools such as SnapView and Snapshot come bundled with XIV, Welch s didn t have to pay additional software-licensing fees. When we compared costs, ROI and features, XIV always came out on top, Sharma says. In addition, XIV combined with the performance of the Power Systems servers, improved overall response times. For example, we produce a good morning report. In the past, that was somewhat of a misnomer, because we didn t deliver until around noon. As soon as we added XIV to the mix, we were getting it out by 7 a.m. Reducing Hassles Welch s relies heavily on its business partners, including ATS Group and Essextec. Together and with the oversight of Sharma they in ways act as an effective extension of the company s IT department. Essextec not only helps Welch s procure the IBM equipment it needs, but also keeps its eyes open for new and upcoming solutions that can further Welch s goals of reducing costs while improving IT performance. ATS Group, which is closely aligned with Essextec, is the support organization, providing all of IBM systems to offer the expertise Welch s needs, whether production, backup or NIM servers, or storage. They re an integral part of our team, Sharma says. And thanks to their and our efforts, working together as a team, we ve been able to fulfill our charge of more for less.