The Client
Fortune 500 manufacturing company
The Challenge
The project was tasked with evaluating, recommending, and implementing a company-wide Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution. This application will support the information needs of all users in all of this customer’s locations in North America. There are 3,000 users spread across the United States.
Prior to this initiative, Haverstick had been engaged to architect and manage a number of initiatives for this customer including the deployment of exchange, dial-up solutions; SMS; Faxsys; Windows NT deployments; and currently, the organization’s Windows 2000 deployment. Since this initiative was undertaken, Haverstick has been the architect, implementer, and primary management provider for the J.D. Edwards and point solution applications that have been deployed using Citrix Technology.
The customer’s requirement included a common interface for all users, 93% uptime, WAN access for all users and bandwidth management and control using a QOS initiative (Packetshapers).
- Common computing environment for users
- Highly available environment for ERP
- Lower TCO
- Minimize deployment of applications to remote users
- Centralize data and the management of data
The Haverstick Approach
The first application that was deployed within this customer’s environment was the J.D. Edwards client application itself. This application has a 2.2-gigabyte footprint and is difficult to maintain in a single-site installation. In our customer’s case, there are in excess of 35 mills and plants that have low-speed to moderate-speed WAN connections back to corporate data centers. Citrix was the obvious choice for deploying the application and maintaining appropriate revision levels centrally.
Complicating the issue was our customer’s desire to maintain essentially 3 ERP environments:
- A development where developers can customize code and test changes in their OneWorld modules
- A quality assurance environment to validate those changes made in development
- A production environment with live data including the data needed to manage company business functions—including financials, HR, shop-floor management, inventory management, and facilities maintenance
After the J.D. Edwards installation was completed and tested, so-called “point solutions” began testing and implementation. Applications that perform specific functions at mills and plants not fulfilled by OneWorld are these so-called “point solutions.” The applications have connections or links back to OneWorld.
For each of these “point solutions,” the client applications are deployed using load-balanced Citrix servers. To insure reliability and maintain system availability, Haverstick consultants developed an automated, image method of installing identically configured terminal servers. The farmed servers are using load balancing and can be rapidly deployed without affecting application availability due to the fact that these servers are in application-specific farms.
The Result
Inland Paperboard and Packaging, Inc. was able to maximize the benefits of Citrix technology to achieve increased efficiency within its ERP implementation. Details include:
- A centralized access point to connect to the ERP applications and its point solutions has achieved high levels of system availability, dependability, and ease of use.
- Our implementation included a quality of service initiative using PacketShaper technology to obtain a full-service implementation for the ERP solution by insuring bandwidth availability for Citrix network traffic.
- Deployment of updates and changes are significantly more manageable and successful. System uptime is being maintained at very high levels with reasonable staffing numbers.
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