Gujarat Apollo Industries supports growth with a robust server and storage infrastructure.

Gujarat Apollo Industries (GAI) is one of India?s leading manufacturers of road construction and maintenance equipment, with offices in 13 locations across the country. Offering a full spectrum of products and services, GAI has over 20 years of experience in the design, manufacturing and support of equipment for the building of bituminous roads in India. In 2009, GAI acquired a company in Berlin, Germany to provide manufacturing and engineering expertise to European markets.

The company?s IT strategy has focused on scaling to meet expected growth. With the company?s expansion into Germany as well an overall increase in infrastructure development projects in India, GAI was experiencing growth that could not be supported by their existing SAP? ECC 5.0 system. Adding more modules to the ERP system and upgrading to SAP? ECC 6.0 Ehp5 resulted in the need to expand the existing IT infrastructure built on Dell? PowerEdge? servers and Dell EqualLogic storage.

GAI envisioned an expansion of server infrastructure which would serve the company?s needs in the long term and was able to achieve this by deploying Dell PowerEdge R810 and R900 servers with VMware? vSphere? 4 server software. Hemant Darji, IT head, Gujarat Apollo Industries, states, ?A virtualised solution will support our IT infrastructure efficiently for the next five years and eliminate the need to deploy additional numbers of physical servers. The solution has significantly reduced our consumption of physical space, energy and maintenance time. Moreover, virtual machines are easy and quick to deploy as and when the need arises.?

GAI?s IT team has recognised significant time savings in data replication through expanding their existing storage with Dell EqualLogic PS 4000XV and PS 6000XV storage area networks (SAN). The team has noticed improved performance through being able to complete data replication between iSCSI SANs within hours instead of days, resulting in additional time available for servicing the business. Darji comments, ?We were impressed by the efficiency offered by our existing iSCSI SANs, which led to our continued selection of this storage technology. Data replication takes us around three hours; had we invested in Fiber Channel SANs, the same process could have taken our team days. We have increased support to users and are focusing on completing projects that deliver value to the business with the time saved.?

Service delivery

Expanding the company?s IT infrastructure has resulted in GAI being able to roll out additional ERP modules using thin provisioning technology to allocate more storage automatically to databases as the need arises. SAP? ERP expansion has resulted in improved employee productivity, and this increase in efficiency has had a positive impact on service delivery to GAI?s customers. Darji explains, ?With our robust infrastructure we can add storage in real time, allowing employees to access applications and information faster and reduce processing time in delivering reports to customers. We have significantly reduced customer waiting time and have received appreciative feedback from our customers.?

Minimises downtime

Situated in a region where natural disasters are prevalent makes disaster recovery the highest priority for GAI. ?Operating in a region where earthquakes are common is challenging in terms of ensuring a stable IT infrastructure. However, the built-in replication features of our SANs provide remote copies to fully protect our databases from site failure, giving us peace of mind,? emphasises Darji.

Stable support system

For an organisation where system failures have a significant impact on operations and revenue, it is critical to have a comprehensive support system in place. As part of the solution deployed, GAI receives support services provided by Dell ProSupport with Mission Critical. ?Having a reliable support system in place is critical for the efficient operation of our organization. Our infrastructure is reliable, which in turn equips our organisation to grow at a healthy pace,? comments Darji. ?We have become accustomed to the level of service provided by Dell and we no longer consider other vendors when we want to roll-out a new solution,? he adds. Moreover, the expansion of the IT infrastructure has altered the perception of the function of IT within the organisation. ?Through this solution deployment the organization has seen the role of IT evolve, from a cost centre to adding value to the bottom line of the business. This is crucial to aid the growth of our company, across India and the world,? concludes Darji.

TECHNOLOGY AT WORK

Dell? Support Services
- Dell ProSupport with Mission Critical, Hardware

Dell PowerEdge? R810 servers with Intel? Xeon? Processors
Dell PowerEdge R900 servers with Intel? Xeon? Processors
Dell EqualLogic PS 6000XV storage area network (SAN)
Dell EqualLogic PS 4000XV storage area network (SAN)

Software
VMware? vSphere? 4 server software

CUSTOMER PROFILE

? Company: Gujarat Apollo Industries Limited
? Country: India
? Industry: Infrastructure
? Employees: 700 Website: www.apollo.co.in
? Business need
? Gujarat Apollo needed to expand its IT infrastructure to meet the demands from increasing growth.
? so, the company deployed Dell? PowerEdge? servers and Dell EqualLogic storage supported by Dell ProSupport with Mission Critical to support the expansion of the company?s Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) modules.

BENEFITS

?  Increases IT team efficiency through virtualisation and tested storage solutions.
?  Improves service delivery to customers.
?  Minimises downtime with data replication to disaster recovery site.
?  Ensures future growth through a stable support system.