KOSTAL: Cloud-ready with SAP operational automation

Energizing Mobility & Embedding People: Two Product and Innovation Pillars - One Global Team! With KOSTAL's expertise in mechatronic products, the independent family business creates efficient solutions for electromobility and the operating concepts of the future. Customers are served at 46 locations in 20 countries on four continents.

Well-Working SAP systems are absolutely business critical for KOSTAL. Almost entirely all business processes are controlled by SAP, such as production and global logistics. A breakdown would mean production downtime and the endangerment of supply chains, making a stable SAP platform and reliable operation all the more important.

As early as 2010, as part of the IT modernization, KOSTAL was looking for a solution that would simplify SAP operations in the long term, reduce the dependency on underlying hardware and minimize the problem of static connection configurations in the SAP environment.

Without PCG, the development of this future-proof infrastructure and system would hardly have been possible. Even though we are dependent on SAP's strategy, according to which on-premise installations should be a thing of the past in the foreseeable future: With ALPACA, we are already well positioned for future SAP decisions.

Frank Hildebrand

Team Leader SAP Basis

 @ 

KOSTAL

1. Step in 2010:

Repositioning of the hardware platform (previously HP-UX) through the implementation of consistent SAP application virtualization.

2. Step:

Partial automation of the upcoming HANA migration including cloud redundancy.

3. Step:

Establishment of ALPACA as an operations platform and complete automation of SAP processes (backup/restore, HANA HA over SR, HA cluster for SAP instances, lifecycle management, copy/refresh).

The solution to the problem of static connection configurations was application virtualization, based on SAP's Adaptive Computing concept.

This idea was the brainchild of PCG, which was invited to bid on the project along with a hardware vendor.

With ALPACA, KOSTAL is not only in a position to manage the SAP systems IP-supported, but also to encapsulate the various processes, databases and system interfaces. The problem of manually adjusting static configurations is now a thing of the past.

KOSTAL has never regretted its decision to use ALPACA as a central management platform for SAP. Fully productive since 2012 with initially only 15 SAP systems based on Oracle, the environment has developed rapidly in the meantime.

All operational processes are now automated to a large extent:

• Backup/Restore
• Deployment
• Monitoring
• Application patch management
• Application server and database
• High availability
• Recovery and reboot testing
• System refresh

Despite constant updates and upgrades to our SAP environments, we are very close to zero downtime. If we change the IP address during operation, users only see the hourglass briefly. That's not even enough time for a for a quick coffee break.

Ulrich Sander

SAP Basis Administrator

 @ 

KOSTAL

The results in a nutshell

• Continuous operation of 17 system lines with 78 SAP systems (4 employees plus managed provider support for approximately 15,000 users).
• Maximum level of independence from manufacturers and platforms due to migration on Linux and implementation of application virtualization.
• Unified management of systems and Common Unix Printing System (CUPS) with HANA and Oracle DB in one admin interface.
• Possibility to implement geo-redundant expansion of on-premise SAP system landscape in the cloud quickly.
• Reduced installation effort of an SAP S/4HANA sandbox system from two days to one to two hours.

Smooth transition to HANA

In 2015, KOSTAL was one of the first SAP customers to migrate to HANA. SAP BW users in particular needed more performance and opted for the latest technology. With scale-out, a distributed database on eight servers and system replication, the environment was a complex pilot project for ALPACA.

For the first time, the concept of primary and shadow side within a database had to be implemented in the platform. Despite the complexity, the expansion of ALPACA to HANA as the database platform went almost without a hitch.

Since 2020, all environments, which have now grown to 78 SAP systems, have been migrated to HANA, and the license costs for the database have been significantly reduced as a result of the switch. Thanks to application virtualization, classic host virtualization is hardly necessary at KOSTAL, which also saves on license costs. Depending on the application scenario, KOSTAL can use both HANA and ALPACA to switch systems within the overall infrastructure, thereby achieving a high level of reliability.

The short way to the cloud

To further increase high availability, KOSTAL is preparing for geo-redundancy by outsourcing to the cloud in addition to two separate data center locations. Thanks to the strict separation of hardware, operating system and application, the switch to the cloud with the help of ALPACA is not expected to involve any significant effort.

Since the backup storage system is also to be geo-redundant and a corresponding network infrastructure is required due to the large data volumes, a switch to MS Azure requires some lead time. Tests have shown that KOSTAL is also ready for operation when the systems are outsourced to the cloud. Thanks to ALPACA, the underlying platform no longer plays a role for KOSTAL today or in the future.

In the cooperation with PCG, we are not a number like with other providers. Short lines of communication ensure that questions are clarified quickly and that we, as an innovative IT user, can also proactively influence and customize the further development of ALPACA.

Frank Hildebrand

Team Leader SAP Basis

 @ 

KOSTAL

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