Case study
Balasore Alloys advances with
new SAP platform
HP servers and storage provide the platform for
vital SAP developments
Industry
Manufacturing
Objective
Streamline business efficiency by implementing
SAP Enterprise Resource Planning applications
Approach
Upgraded IT infrastructure after
considering solutions from HP and IBM
and considering references
IT matters
•Ensures vital uptime for business
critical applications
•Delivers reliable storage for important
business data
•Provides increased server performance and
a highly compatible SAP platform
Business matters
•Improves the efficiency of business processes
to increase competitive advantage
•Brings Balasore Alloys in line with other parts
of the group
•Represents a major step in the company’s vision
of becoming a world leader in its field
“It’s mandatory for us to have a good IT infrastructure
and we’re happy with the HP servers. They’re very
reliable and we expect they will deliver good uptime.”
– Shankar Agrawal, President of IT, Balasore Alloys Limited
Moving close to the vision
India’s Balasore Alloys (BAL) aims to become a world leading
Ferro alloy producer. Having installed the latest production
processes, it moved a step closer to this vision when it
decided to implement SAP business software but found that
its existing systems could not support the sophisticated
applications. A new platform was needed and BAL chose
robust HP servers and storage.
Case study | Balasore Alloys Limited
Challenge
Customer solution
at a glance
Forward vision
Balasore Alloys Limited (BAL) is part of the
Ispat Group of companies, one of India’s
major business groups. Founded in 1984,
it operates five furnaces with a total capacity
of 57 Mega Volt Amperes. These furnaces
produce more than 100,000 Metric Tonnes
of ferro alloys each year, a principal
component in the production of stainless
steel. The company is one of the largest
ferro alloy producers and suppliers in India
and exports products to more than
26 countries.
Application
Enterprise Resource Planning
Hardware
•HP ProLiant BladeSystem c7000 enclosure
•HP Integrity BL860i2 Server Blades and
Integrity Server rx2800i4 in DR
•HP BL460c G7 Server Blades
•HP EVA P6300 Storage
•HP StoreEver MSL2024 Tape Library
Software
•HP Serviceguard for HP-UX
•HP Solution Manager
•HP Data Protector
BAL also manages its own chromite ore
mines in the region providing it with the basic
raw materials (Ore). This is a major advantage
as the availability of chrome ore is uncertain
and the price can fluctuate.
The company adopts the most advanced
technologies into its manufacturing process.
As part of this, BAL opted to implement a
world class Enterprise Resource Planning
business solution in order to integrate and
streamline processes such as Finance,
Procurement, Production, Quality, Sales,
Plant Maintenance, and Human Capital
Management.
To move in line with the rest of the Ispat
Group and meet the growing needs of the
business, BAL decided to implement SAP
ERP Central Component ECC 6.0 and SAP
Business Intelligence/Business Objects.
BAL found its existing IT infrastructure
could not meet the requirements of this
sophisticated software.
“There was nothing really wrong with our
old infrastructure but it was just not
adequate for SAP,” says Shankar Agrawal,
President of IT, Balasore Alloys Limited.
“The requirements for SAP were higher
than our storage and servers could support
so we had to go for a new infrastructure.”
Solution
SAP alliance
Seeking a new hardware platform, the
company considered equipment from HP
and IBM, both of which it had already used.
HP was chosen because of its strong
experience with SAP (HP and SAP have a
long-standing alliance). HP’s analytics,
cloud, mobility, and business process
solutions work with SAP to provide users with
seamless, secure, context-aware platforms
for their SAP environment. BAL also uses HP
equipment in other parts of its parent group
and it could find impressive references.
BAL installed an HP ProLiant BladeSystem
c7000 enclosure with three dual processor
HP Integrity BL860i2 Server Blades.
Running HP-UX, two of these are
SAP production machines and one is
used for SAP development and QA.
HP Serviceguard for HP-UX maintains
continuous service availability, prevents
revenue loss caused by downtime, and
maximises post-failover performance.
BAL also implemented five standard
Windows® single processor HP BL460c G7
Server Blades. Three are used as SAP BI/BO
production, development and QA machines,
one is a backup and storage management
server and one runs HP Solution Manager,
for efficient IT Service Management.
The new primary storage solution is an
HP EVA P6300 Storage enterprise class
virtual storage array and for data backup
there is an HP StoreEver MSL2024 Tape
Library with automated backup delivered
by HP Data Protector software.
The equipment is installed at the company’s
main data centre which is managed by the
internal IT team. The new SAP installation
has 90 users, with HP partner providing the
additional hardware and on-going support.
Benefits
Vital reliability
“It’s a mandatory requirement for us to have
a good infrastructure and we are happy with
the servers,” says Agrawal. “They are very
reliable and we expect that they will deliver
good uptime.”
The implementation of SAP has enabled
Balasore Alloys to streamline its business
processes and move closer towards its vision
of becoming a world leader in the production
of Ferro alloys.
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4AA5-0155EEW, May 2014