www.wipro.com
ENGINEERED SYSTEMS: TOMORROW’S ANSWER
TO RUN-THE-BUSINESS AND TRANSFORMATION
Mahesh Dixit
Table of Contents
03.............................................................................. Introduction
03.............................................................................. Business overview
04.............................................................................. Engineered systems to the rescue of CIOs
05.............................................................................. Some difficult technology decisions for CIOs
06.............................................................................. When is it a good time to change over to an engineered solution?
06.............................................................................. A simpler and more logical solution
06.............................................................................. Conclusion
Introduction
Business Overview
Disruption is the new change. There is a new app, a new business model
In the face of large volumes of data, finance organizations struggle to
or a start-up just around the corner that threatens to disrupt your business.
complete Period Closure on time. Manufacturing organizations aspire to
To meet the challenges from change, strategies have to be rethought and
accelerate global R&D and their product development process, but are
business plans need to be flexible. How can IT platforms provide your
unable to leverage the data they have. The Utilities industry is constantly
organization the required agility and scale to ensure you are ahead of
trying to improve billing accuracy and its meter-to-cash process by managing
the change?
and harnessing exploding volume of data from smart meters. Retail is trying
This paper discusses the growing business demand that CIOs are facing – to
keep the lights on and simultaneously transform the business -- and Oracle
Engineered Systems that help meet those demands.
to analyze past customer buying behavior to improve customer experience.
There is data all around.
There is a need for businesses to coax more information from the enormous
amounts of data at their disposal. Today, businesses are at the threshold of
the Zettabyte Era – meaning, annual IP traffic will go well past the zettabytes
threshold in the next year or two. This is good news, and bad, at the same
time. It is good because data helps businesses improve operating efficiencies
and drive accurate decisions. And bad because everyone will have to store,
back up, process and analyze these daunting volumes of data. There is no
escaping this eventuality.
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Engineered systems to the
rescue of CIOs
means the performance of IT systems must improve at the same pace as
the growth in data. To meet these demands CIOs have two options. One
is to create savings to buy the required hardware while the second is to get
business to sponsor the budget. For the latter, CIO should explore systems
that improve business-related processes and transactions such as:
CIOs across industries are under pressure to manage growing data. In
addition, they must keep pace with the transformational needs of the
»» How can my IT impact business by enabling faster finance period close?
organization. Oracle has responded to the demand. It has created systems
»» How can I implement a superior order-to-cash solution – for faster
that ensure customers have choices that match today’s changing needs.
order management and fulfillment?
This has been in the form of optimized, integrated, purpose-built,
Engineered Systems.
Engineered systems bring together applications, middleware, database,
operating systems, servers and storage so that they run better, faster and
»» How can our systems deliver immediate on-demand processing instead
of my customers waiting for overnight batch processing?
»» What if the organizations procurement management can be improved
at massive scale. The good news is that these engineered systems go a step
by several magnitudes?
beyond -- they can be integrated with existing investments, ensuring that
»» Can I reduce time spent on compliance reports even while improving
current assets are optimized as well.
the insights we deliver to management?
What about the pressure that CIOs find themselves facing? They need to
show continuous improvement in IT systems by being able to process data
and deliver meaningful information to all stakeholders at the right time. This
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Some difficult technology
decisions for CIOs
for these systems, if the systems can be deployed on time and if they will
meet business demand. Sometimes, organizations face a dilemma as there
are many vendors offering commodity hardware systems in the form of
Integrated Infra Systems (IIS) and Integrated Ref Architecture (IRA). What
CIOs actually need is an Integrated Stack System Solutions that matches
Each of the above business expectations are putting pressure on data centers
business needs by creating an IT ecosystem where each component
and forcing them to add servers, storage – often from multiple vendors.
is matched with the capabilities of the others, resulting in efficiency at
Hardware manufacturers are responding with larger machines. Processors
minimum cost.
are becoming faster. And the pipes running between applications, database
and storage are becoming thicker.
Oracle delivers an integrated solution that is completely assimilated in
every layer of the technology stack, and that translates into a modern
Suddenly, buying a technology stack with applications, middleware, database,
infrastructure characterized by increased flexibility, lower risks, and reduced
server and storage from different vendors is becoming difficult. There are
costs. They call this an Oracle Engineered Systems.
questions over integration and CIOs are uncertain if that can match budgets
ENGINEERED SYSTEMS & COMMODITY HARDWARE
ENGINEERED*
COMMODITY
Pre-tuned, pre-configured, especially for business application running
Increased time and energy on configuration, Tuning to maximize
on Oracle database
database investment returns
Integrated components work together, eliminating the need for fixes
Increased integration overhead, added extra layer of costs, complexity
and patches
and risk
Excellent performance from the initial level and bundled as a package
Effort required to enhance the performance of the hardware to nearly
for the long run
match the engineered systems
Networking (Infini Band)and speed capabilities are best when compared
Networking and speed have dependencies and do not match what an
with peer products
engineered system delivers
Compact, reduces real estate requirements
Large hardware footprint
Low power consumption
Power hungry
Lowered system complexity demands minimal maintenance and
support
Requires coordination between vendors for maintenance and support
* Engineered Systems from Oracle include The Oracle Exadata Database Machine and Oracle SuperCluster which consolidates cloud deployment
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When is it a good time
to change over to an
engineered solution?
The best window to implement engineered solutions is when one of the
following happens:
»» App upgrades are released: this is the right time to think of application
modernization
»» Hardware and data centers reach end-of-life or storage capacity
becomes inadequate: this is the right time to think of a system refresh
»» The company goes through a merger or an acquisition: this is when
demand and capacity can become mismatched and is the right time to look
At Wipro, we have worked with Oracle and leaders in industries such
as semiconductors, financial services, manufacturing, retail, utilities and
telecom, to understand how engineered systems must also be tweaked
based on industry needs.
Our constructs for these industries have been built in collaboration with
Oracle. We call these services Oracle on Oracle (Oracle Applications
on Oracle Systems). This is a reflection of the fact that industrial-strength
future-ready Oracle applications are run on specially engineered Oracle
hardware.
Our experience of implementations across industries has demonstrated
some clear benefits:
»» Business Process performance improvements
»» IT operations witness several magnitudes of efficiency through
streamlined processes
at apps and platform transformation
»» Faster batch jobs processing
»» Changes in business performance: (data volumes grow, batch processing
»» Cost of running IT drops favorably
cycles become long, wait times for processes becomes unacceptable, SLAs
are impacted or there are new reporting and analysis needs) – this is when
»» CIOs can eliminate the pain of responding to scale
a more efficient technology becomes imperative
A simpler and more logical
solution
Conclusion
The potential of Oracle Engineered System to maximizing efficiencies
in tomorrow’s business processes is significant. This is especially true
when combined with Wipro’s app-down approach to boost application
The challenge is to standardize and harmonize processes, make them scalable,
address volumetric needs. Simultaneously, architecture must be simplified
to reduce management and budgetary overheads. Wipro’s response to this
challenge is App-down approach. Once an organization’s business needs
are mapped to applications, middleware and hardware requirements are
performance.
Organizations are taking the decision to move to integrated engineered
system systems. This decision is a positive step toward acquiring a future
ready platform where the investment is likely to pay-off quickly.
determined, using an engineered system then helps integrate the complete
technology stack, end-to-end, reducing complexity and deployment time.
The result goes beyond expectations – application performance improves,
the hardware footprint shrinks and power consumption is reduced.
An engineered system implementation for a global semi-conductor leader
resulted in:
»» 99% improvement in finance report tracking
»» 99% faster availability of inventory information
»» 96% faster analysis of collection for improved credit planning
»» 95% faster payable analysis for improved Cash management
»» Advanced supply chain planning / collections (2X faster)
»» Headroom for 3-year capacity at 40% growth
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About the Author
Mahesh Dixit is the Global Head of Oracle & Emerging Applications Solutions group. With more than 19 years of experience, he is responsible for building
future ready solutions, rolling out Oracle on Oracle solutions leveraging Oracle Engineered Systems. He has helped many clients successfully implement these
solutions. Mahesh has also pioneered the Wipro’s EasyU Solution on Oracle Apps Upgrades.
About Wipro Ltd.
Wipro Ltd. (NYSE:WIT) is a leading Information Technology, Consulting and Business Process Services company that delivers solutions to enable its clients do
business better. Wipro delivers winning business outcomes through its deep industry experience and a 360 degree view of “Business through Technology” helping clients create successful and adaptive businesses. A company recognised globally for its comprehensive portfolio of services, a practitioner’s approach
to delivering innovation, and an organization wide commitment to sustainability, Wipro has a workforce of over 150,000, serving clients in 175+ cities
across 6 continents.
For more information, please visit www.wipro.com
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