Microsoft SQL Server 2005
Customer Solution Case study
GSBN System, a Global Business Core,
Upgrades its DBMS to Significantly Increase
the Quality and Credibility of its Services
Overview
"We firstly came up with two areas that will need immediate improvement as GSBN
Country: Seoul / South Korea
emerges as an important issue. From the user's perspective, we need to improve the
Industry: Manufacturing
serviceability and credibility of portal services. And from the perspective of IT
Customer Profile
Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. is a global
infrastructure, the availability, reliability and performance of the portal need to be met
for the service demands in the mid- and long-term. Luckily, we knew that Microsoft was
leader in semiconductor,
going to stop offering service for SQL Server 2000 such as service packs and hot
telecommunication, digital media and
patches, starting from January 2008. As a result, it was easier for us to make our mind
digital convergence technologies, with
to upgrade to a new DBMS to improve our IT infrastructure for GSBN."
2004 parent company sales of US$55.2
Chae, Chang Hoon / Manager of Information Strategy Group, Samsung Electronics
billion and net income of US$10.3
billion. Employing approximately
Samsung Electronics Corporation maintains facilities across the globe, including 24
123,000 people in 93 offices in 48
production subsidiaries, 36 sales subsidiaries, and 20 branch offices. To facilitate its
countries, the company consists of five
global business support, the company operates a worldwide collaborative portal
main business units: Digital Appliance
system called Global Samsung Business Network (GSBN). Powered by Microsoft
Business, Digital Media Business, LCD
BizTalk Server and SQL Server, GSBN is known for its contribution to bring the
Business, Semiconductor Business and
company's business capabilities to new level in international markets. In early 2007,
Telecommunication Network Business.
the company innovated GSBN portal, which is leveraged to sharpen its competitive
Business Situation
Samsung Electronics which had used
the GSBN system, a global business
environment, faced an issue. Its all
overseas legal entities and vendors
around the world were using the same
system, and the regional
communication environmental gap
made service quality different.
edge against its overseas competitors. It upgraded SQL Server 2000 to 2005, one
of the two foundations on which the network was based. As for benefits, Samsung
Electronics aims to minimize its additional costs, as well as enhancing the quality
and credibility of the GSBN services. Samsung Electronics has significantly
improved the performance and reliability of DBMS by utilizing the existing server
infrastructure. As a result, it was able to avoid the performance penalties from
increased usage of GSBN, and stabilize the advanced GSBN.
Solution
Started to deploy in 2003 and
started to operate in June of the
same year, GSBN DBMS was
upgraded from SQL Server 2000 to
SQL Server 2005. To do this,
Windows platform was also
upgraded from 2000 to 2003,
sophisticating entire-IT
infrastructure.
Situation
bring some changes to the operational
To increase its global business

launched to build up a system called
GSBN in 2003. Samsung, its partners and
customers can share information
inventory, marketing, and shipping using
Maximum results with minimum
investment

Establish
the
flexible
IT

a global business hub called GBSN.
In other words, GSBN portal is an
infrastructure to build a mid-
extended version of an integrated
and long-term GSBN operating
business information system that provides
strategy
Improve
the
credibility
of
quality
GSBN
and
service
through the high availability and
uninterrupted management
strategy."
advantages, Samsung Electronics
including purchase orders, sales,
Benefits
utilization, we felt that it was necessary to
ERP and SCM for its partners and
customers as well as its employees.
Because of its nature that everything
Sensing the need for the changes,
Information Strategy Group of Samsung
Electronics Co. sat down with Samsung
SDS -- a division that is responsible for
building and operating GSBN portal -- to
discuss the ways to improve the GSBN
portal. At this point, Information Strategy
Group decided to re-define the
requirements for investment as well as
operational requirements for DBMS that
will directly impact the performance and
service qualities of GSBN.
happens in one place, the utilization of
GSBN system has skyrocketed to respond
to its remarkable business performance
worldwide.
"We firstly came up with two areas that
will need immediate improvement as
GSBN emerges as an important issue.
From the user's perspective, we need to
"As the increasing number of people
access GSBN portal, data transaction, the
number of logging users, and disk size
have grown 38%, 19%, and 35%,
respectively, between 2005 and 2007,"
says Chang Hoon, Chae, Manager of
Information Strategy Group, Samsung
Electronics. "As it becomes important to
support overseas business entities
through GSBN due to the increased
improve the serviceability and credibility
of portal services. And from the
perspective of IT infrastructure, the
availability, reliability and performance of
the portal need to be met for the service
demands in the mid- and long-term,"
says Hong Je, Jo, Head of Part Division,
Samsung SDS. "Luckily, we knew that
Microsoft was going to stop offering
service for SQL Server 2000 such as
system through repeated setups and
service packs and hot patches, starting
configurations."
from January 2008. As a result, it was
easier for us to make our mind to
The test results were satisfactory. Based
upgrade to a new DBMS to improve our
on these results, we entered into our full-
IT infrastructure for GSBN."
fledged project. The first thing we did
was to change the configuration for
Solution
clustered servers. We still preserved the
configuration containing two Samsung
After settling on its next step by
Smart servers with 8-way 32-bit Intel
upgrading its DBMS, Information Strategy
machine, and a development server, but
Group took a few preparatory actions to
we modified the configuration of
upgrade to SQL Server 2005 Enterprise
clustering to improve reliability. First,
Edition. The biggest benefit from the
Samsung SDS replaced the existing
upgrade -- scheduled to implement
Legato-based cluster environment with
between June and August 2007 -- was to
Microsoft Cluster Service. Upon
maximize its return on investment.
completion of the server configuration,
Information Strategy Group debated
Samsung SDS implemented DBMS
whether to adopt new servers or leverage
upgrade and data migration. Since we
the existing servers for this project.
were upgrading to a product of same
vendor, migration was not difficult.
"We adopted the DMBS servers for
GSBN two years ago. At the time, we
As soon as it finished the upgrade,
thoroughly calculated the required server
Samsung SDS was able to see the
capacities for our system," says Hong Je,
difference right away. The difference
Jo. "Given the performance indexes such
between SQL Server 2000 and 2005 was
as tpmC, we thought SQL Server 2005
huge, given the fact that the system is
Enterprise Edition was good enough to
still being operated under the same
accommodate our requirements, and to
physical conditions, and even without
verify this, we have carefully reviewed the
tuning. Everything went smoothly as
expected. Samsung SDS found from its
try to separate DBA function from its own
evaluation that the throughput has
system administrative function, and
improved by 1.5 times, while reduced
designate specialized staff for this. And it
blocking and dead-lock has significantly
will dedicate to tune in the system step
cut down resource latency.
by step with these staff.
Overall performance has been
Benefit
improved while the servers and disks are
now much more available. The utilization
Maximum results with minimum
of memory resources has grown more
investment
than 8 times, and disk load rate has
reduced, eliminating bottlenecks. "We
tested disk I/O in DBMS servers for about
one week in early 2007, and found that in
some cases it exceeded the threshold of
Information Strategy Group, Samsung
Electronics made a decision that can
increase the investment/efficiency from
the planning stage. They learned enough
about the advantages of SQL Server 2005
80%," says Hong Je, Jo. "This bottleneck
Enterprise Edition. “We made a thorough
for disks leads to degraded performance.
investigation as to whether it enables us
If bottlenecks get serious, users can
to approach to our target performance
perceive this as a failure. But, now we
and reliability without hardware upgrade
don’t' have to worry about this type of
to make a efficient decision, rather than
problems".
non-conditional investment,” said Chang
Hoon, Chae. “We really thought it enables
Samsung SDS plans to tune in new SQL
Server 2005 Enterprise Edition for its
future project. The overall performance
improvement was achieved even without
tuning. Therefore, Samsung SDS finds the
us to improve value of the current
infrastructure, when considering mid- and
long-term operating strategy of GSBN. So
we could have set the most efficient
investment strategy.” They could have
built a foundation for GSBN mid- and
performance can be improved further via
long-term operating policy and GSBN
optimization, allowing it to maximize the
service quality sophistication only through
value of physical resources. Samsung SDS
the SQL Server 2005 Enterprise Edition
upgrade instead of additional
development and new hardware
introduction.
Improve the quality and credibility of
GSBN service through the high
availability and uninterrupted
Establish the flexible IT infrastructure to
management
build a mid- and long-term GSBN
operating strategy
SQL Server 2005 Enterprise Edition is
the same environment physically, but
There's a need of mid- and long-term
heralds a new age of high-availability and
plan for providing reliable and trusted
uninterrupted management. “In addition
service to meet increasing GSBN system
to increased organizational length
usage behind this project. “We are
through the reorganization of clustering
developing now a variety of plans for
environment, the addition of online
improving IT infrastructure and service
indexing feature makes 24x7
quality of GSBN to enable GSBN users
uninterrupted management possible,
around the world to process all business
which enables GSBN DBMS to have
in real time without inconvenience such
higher availability than before,” said Hong
as service delay,” said Chang Hoon, Chae.
Je, Jo. He added “SQL Server 2005
“GSNB system must have scalability and
Enterprise Edition gives confidence to
performance as well as flexibility for
users, as well as administrators.” “2005
applying strategies to realize various
edition is very reliable and enables users
operating strategies and this DBMS
to view a resource usage or a current
upgrade seems to be helpful.”
processing procedure at a glance, which
Information Strategy Group, Samsung
results in increased administrator’s
Electronics and Samsung SDS built the
circumstantial judgment and control over
foundation for sophisticating IT
DBMS system.”
infrastructure through the SQL Server
2005 Enterprise Edition upgrade. Besides,
they plan to develop the application
operating environment to .NET framework
3.0 to enhance perceived user experience
including sensuous and functional
elements of service.
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For more information about Samsung
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http://www.sec.co.kr
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