Cost savings by reducing the amount of memory consumed by SAP systems, establishing monitoring and increasing performance

In the course of regular database housekeeping activities, an automotive manufacturer noticed that memory consumption, and thus the bill for SAP systems, had risen sharply. Since SAP, as the manufacturer, provides guidelines for the growth rates that can be expected from regular operation, it was quickly determined that the situation at hand deviates greatly from the guidelines.

sap datacenter kosteneinsparung bits scaled

The goal of the project was to stop this disproportionate growth, reduce existing storage consumption, and thereby save seven-figure annual costs in both the short and long term.

In addition, the performance of certain tables suffered from the high memory consumption.

The task of BITS, together with a technical team from the customer, was first to analyze the causes of the high consumption, to derive measures from this and to supervise their implementation. Both project planning and especially technical project management were the main fields of activity.

>200 TB data volume

Total amount of storage of the 5 largest systems

Cost reduction

Savings potential in the seven-digit € range per year

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Implementation of savings in ongoing operations

Challenge

The challenges presented themselves in different dimensions. Thus, it was first necessary to determine at a high technical level which systems in which platform caused the most consumption and the highest growth rates. Afterwards, a potential analysis was carried out to determine in which area the fastest and most effective results could be achieved.

The project also aimed to analyze and improve the declining performance values of the affected systems.

Since some of the systems identified were production-critical systems, the path with the lowest risk was selected after a risk analysis.

IT Systems Analysis
Potential analysis
Implementation strategy

Performance optimization
Risk analysis
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Realization

The technical analysis phase was followed by the derivation of the necessary measurements and the validation of the options with regard to their feasibility in coordination with the platform owners and the SAP Basis team.

Depending on the technical requirements and the interaction of internal processes of the IT infrastructure, a milestone plan including concrete measures was developed to achieve the greatest starting points and effects.

Identification of the largest systems and tables
Elaboration of technical measures
Reduction of the largest systems

Processes for deleting superfluous data
Establishment of a monitoring system
Performance increase

Interim status & outlook

Once the planned approach was approved, the focus shifted to the current phase of the project, implementation.

The first measures were launched with high expectations and the decision to take the safe route immediately proved to be the correct one. This is because technical implementation once again poses a number of challenges.

The implementation of the planned measures is currently underway and will be implemented over several weeks.

BITS continues to accompany the project for the clarification of emerging issues in the context of the implementation as well as in the project management, since in the meantime also the service providers and SAP as manufacturer are involved, the focus has meanwhile shifted strongly from the technical analysis to the project management.