Challenge.

During an audit by Bechtle together with its long-standing customer Davidoff, it was determined that the performance of the existing SAP HANA infrastructure no longer met the increased requirements. In addition, the effort for operation and maintenance was too high and too cost-intensive. Davidoff was therefore looking for a new, future-proof solution that could be integrated leanly with the existing interfaces and enable them to focus on the upcoming challenges of their core business at an early stage. "The rapid availability and implementation of the solution was of utmost importance in order to ensure that the internal projects could be kept on schedule within Davidoff's overall annual plan. One of the biggest challenges was the timely delivery of the hardware and Bechtle managed to do this in Corona times," says Josef Huber, Director SAP Technology & BI, Oettinger Davidoff AG, happily.


The goals of the new solution were:

  • Increase IT service quality
  • Automation and standardisation of processes
  • Utilisation of IT innovations
  • Simplification of administration & management - analogous to a "private cloud"
  • Respond faster to changes in their business needs

Bechtle has relied on SAP infrastructures as an important part of its core business since 2012, has built up a dedicated team of SAP-certified system engineers, and thus has a great deal of experience in the SAP infrastructure and application environment. Bechtle and Davidoff discussed and carried out various analyses in several joint workshops. On the basis of the defined goals, Bechtle took over the elaboration of three different solutions in a next step and made a recommendation for the most sensible one, with the highest benefit as well as the best price-performance ratio. In addition, the integration into the existing security concept was checked and the integration of the existing backup was adapted. 

Solution.

The proposal with HPE's GreenLake consumption-based billing model won the bid. HPE's mature SAP appliance technology provides self-contained, SAP dedicated infrastructure units that meet all compliance requirements. Thus, HPE's business-critical infrastructure solution with two systems is ideal for SAP HANA environments in terms of quality, performance and reliability.

In addition, GreenLake with all its included additional services is an extremely attractive solution for consumption-based financing. The HPE appliances are located at Davidoff, which means that the existing data centre can continue to be used - now as SAP HANA as-a-Service.

Under the motto "pay only what you use", the new approach guarantees cost transparency and security in budget planning due to predefined prices over the entire contract term. The solution includes active capacity management of the managed platform, customised remote monitoring and operation of the environment through HPE Greenlake Management Services, and a hybrid cloud-ready management console with HPE GreenLake Central. 

Furthermore, Davidoff receives the following important additional services that are included in the GreenLake package and would have resulted in additional costs in the case of an infrastructure purchase:

  • Support Model: GreenLake Management Services (GMS) Solution Level Support with access to the HPE Center of Excellence (CoE).
  • Datacenter Care, Governance: call handling service manager, capacity measurements plus a dedicated support team from HPE to provide ongoing capacity monitoring.
  • GreenLake Managed Services: Monitoring, administration and operation from HPE

We have a long-standing, very professional, flexible and service-oriented partnership with Bechtle and HPE. Bechtle provided us with close support and good advice during the evaluation and contracting process. Overall, we benefited from a cooperation at eye level, which we would use again at any time for further projects.

Josef Huber, Director SAP Technology & BI, Oettinger Davidoff AG

Business benefits.

The GreenLake model provides Davidoff with a full overview of current consumption at all times. Periodic meetings with HPE ensure continuous capacity planning. 

Davidoff did not have to make any upfront investment for the SAP appliances. The GreenLake model is designed for five years. Depending on the course of business, performance can be increased immediately using the buffer resources already available. However, only the resources actually used are paid for. Billing takes place monthly according to an automated consumption log. In addition, the HPE Greenlake model offers full freedom of choice for the continued operation of the systems at the end of the contract - there is no lock-in, neither for the chosen manufacturer HPE nor for the data created. 

"The biggest advantage of today's solution is the change from a CAPEX to an OPEX-based financing model with clear cost transparency, as well as scalability as the business grows. Another big plus is Bechtle's ITIL-based service platform for incidents," says Josef Huber.

Partner.