Customer Case Study
Cost-effective Protection for Manufacturing Supply Chain
Lehmann & Voss deployed a Cisco storage area network to defend its
mission-critical applications against downtime
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Customer Name:
Lehmann & Voss & Co. KG
Industry:
Manufacturing, chemicals, distribution
Location:
Hamburg, Germany
Number of Employees:
260
Business Challenge:
• To permanently safeguard the
company's ability to supply its
customers
• To reduce capital and operational costs
through more efficient utilisation of
resources
Network Solution:
• A Cisco optical solution connects the
company's two computer centres in
Hamburg and enables synchronous
mirroring of business-critical
databases
• A Cisco multi-site storage area network
solution enables virtualisation of
resources
Business Results:
• Cost-effective protection against
downtime for mission-critical
applications, resulting in improved
customer service
• Reduced capital expenditure and
management costs
Business Challenge
The privately-owned firm of Lehmann & Voss & Co. KG (LUV)
has been marketing specialist chemical and mineral
specialties for over 100 years. An international operator with
over 260 employees, the company achieved a turnover of
approximately ¤156 million in 2006. Since the early Nineties,
LUV has expanded more heavily into the European market and,
at the same time, has continued to enlarge its global
procurement network, the latest development being the
founding of a Chinese subsidiary in 2006. Today LUV, which is
still a family-run business, has links to over 150 suppliers
across four continents.
The company's current business model relies on a
combination of external procurement and in-house production.
Customers benefit from maximum availability of supplies
because, to a certain extent, LUV offers a direct line to the
world's procurement markets. However, what distinguishes this
midsize company from its competitors in the chemical trading
and distribution sector is its ability to provide bespoke
materials and to produce additive preparations in-house at
extremely short notice.
Efficiency and stability in the internal processing system are
the cornerstone of an optimised value-creation chain that
stretches from the supplier to the customer. LUV uses SAP
software throughout its operation, for example, to ensure
maximum process standardisation, while all depots and
subsidiaries access the central applications server via a VPN
and Citrix Metaframe. LUV attaches equal importance to the
quality of communications, both in terms of improving
collaboration within the company and also providing the best
possible customer service.
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Page 1 of 4
Customer Case Study
LUV had already switched to IP Telephony by deploying a future-proof Cisco® Unified Communications
solution in 2004. Since then all calls within and between sites have been running over a single network, based
on Cisco routers and switches, that also handles data applications. “The greater the number of business-critical
applications running on a common platform, the greater the challenge to guarantee high performance and
unlimited availability at all times,” comments Andreas Willenbockel, the project manager working on precisely
this challenge.
“We opted here for Coarse Wavelength-Division
Multiplexing (CWDM) technology from Cisco because it is
ideally suited for bridging geographically remote SAN
islands,”
—Jörg Klein, Account Mananger for LUV, avodaq AG
Network Solution
Until 2006, the company's two computer centres in Hamburg at its sites at Lake Alster and Wandsbek were only
linked by redundant 2Mbps lines, which was “too little for a back-up process covering several locations”, as
Willenbockel confirms. This meant that couriers were used to physically carry back-up tapes between the sites,
something which in itself posed substantial data security risks. “It was indispensable for us to have mirrored
databases in computer centres at different sites, mainly as a preventive measure in the event of a disaster,” adds
Willenbockel.
LUV's management demanded that all critical corporate applications must be fully up and running within 24
hours, should one of the computers fail, with absolutely no question of any significant data loss. A further reason
for increasing line capacity, according to Andreas Willenbockel, was the consolidation of storage media from all
sites through a common Storage Area Network (SAN). The fact that the SAP systems are about to be switched to
Unicode, which will also enable the software to display Chinese characters, will mean that capacity requirements
are pushed up even further in the future.
To avoid dependence on any one provider's technology, LUV leased so-called dark fibre. This is optical fibre that
is managed by the company itself using the line technology it chooses. “We opted here for Coarse WavelengthDivision Multiplexing (CWDM) technology from Cisco because it is ideally suited for bridging geographically
remote SAN islands,” explains Jörg Klein, avodaq AG's Account Manager for LUV. avodaq AG, a Cisco Certified
Gold Partner, has for many years assisted LUV in all issues relating to networking innovations and technology.
Current SAN protocols are inherently designed only for short distances, as is the widespread Fibre Channel (FC)
protocol. The Cisco CWDM solution, on the other hand, transmits several FC or gigabit Ethernet data streams in
1Gbps or 2Gbps channels via a single common-use optical fibre, and it does this easily across distances of over
50 kms. This means that each individual CWDM channel offers a thousand times more capacity than the 2Mbps
All contents are Copyright © 1992–2007 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. This document is Cisco Public Information.
Page 2 of 4
Customer Case Study
lines previously available between the computer centres. A further major benefit of this technology is that, as a
logical continuation of the convergence concept, block-orientated storage access runs via one and the same
fibre as IP Telephony and all server data. Should more capacity be required, additional transmission channels
can easily be added.
“The flexibility of Cisco's CWDM, in conjunction with the
VSAN capabilities of the Cisco MDS Series, provides us
with a complete system. This means we can ensure a high
level of availability for all business-critical applications in a
particularly cost-effective manner.”
— Andreas Willenbockel, Project Manager, LUV
Business Results
Server and storage capacities at LUV are now logically completely separate from one another. This means that
application data is no longer stored on local hard drives attached to a specific server; it is all available centrally
from a common SAN pool and all servers are equipped with redundant Cisco MDS 9000 Series Multilayer SAN
Switches. Each of the computer centres has been fitted with two of these storage components, to which HP EVA
4000 mass storage systems have in turn been connected.
“A SAN like this is a pre-condition for an efficient data back-up system with synchronous mirrored storage via the
new CWDM connection,” explains Willenbockel. “It also means we are making considerably more efficient use of
the resources available through virtualisation in the SAN and thus reducing future capital requirements.
Moreover, since network and storage administration have been substantially standardised, the running costs for
management will also be significantly reduced per gigabyte.”
For LUV, one of the decisive factors in favour of this technology was the flexible and secure set-up of virtual
SANs (VSANs) by logically segmenting the storage networks on the Cisco switches. Services can then be
provided per VSAN which would normally only exist once in conventional environments. At the same time, the
Cisco Inter-VSAN routing technology enables concurrent use of disk or tape systems from various VSANs.
“The flexibility of Cisco's CWDM, in conjunction with the VSAN capabilities of the Cisco MDS Series, provides us
with a complete system,” says Willenbockel. “This means we can ensure a high level of availability for all
business-critical applications in a particularly cost-effective manner.”
Ultimately, LUV has achieved a balance between an economically-viable general framework on the one hand
and business continuity on the other, which means dependability and reliability of supply for the customer.
For More Information
To find out more about Cisco storage area networking solutions, visit www.cisco.com/go/manufacturing.
Product List
Routing and Switching
• MDS 9000 Series Multilayer SAN Switches
All contents are Copyright © 1992–2007 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. This document is Cisco Public Information.
Page 3 of 4
Customer Case Study
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