Certis CISCO

Challenge
SAP refresh needed
As one of Singapore’s major private security
organisations, Certis CISCO delivers a
comprehensive portfolio of security services,
ranging from auxiliary police to a ‘one-stop
solution’ for a full range of physical, IT and
data security.
A big part of the company’s services is
providing people – including armed
and unarmed auxiliary police and
protectionocers,enforcementocers,
security consultants and trainers.
The company employs more than
16,000stainSingapore,withoperations
inAsiaPacicandtheMiddleEast.
Recently, Certis needed to refresh the
hardware infrastructure it used to run its
main SAP Enterprise Resource Planning
(ERP) system, which is used for human
resources,nanceandprojectmanagement
modules at its Singapore headquarters.
The software was running on IBM pSeries
servers, using IBM’s DB2 database and
AIX operating system, but was near the
end of its usable life.
“The hardware was about six years old and
was reaching its maximum capacity, so we
needed to replace it,” says Chew Chee Keong,
manager, Information Systems at Certis
CISCO. “The machines were maxing out the
CPU and RAM, performance was slowing
down, and they were unable to meet the
requirements of the users.”
Certis has a policy of obtaining at least
three quotations, so when searching for the
replacement hardware it went out to tender,
after which a solution based around HP
servers was chosen.
Solution
SAP on HP-UX
“During the tender stages, the HP technical
and pre-sales teams gave our management
condencethattheywouldbeabletodeliver
the project,” says Chew. “The HP pricing
was highly competitive, and in terms of
specications,HP’sserverswereonpar
with what other vendors proposed.”
HP was able to demonstrate its SAP expertise
and the suitability of the HP UNIX®, or HP-UX,
environment for SAP, with evidence from
strong reference cases. Chew comments,
“We knew a company that was successfully
running HP-UX and DB2 on an Itanium box
without performance issues, I spoke to them
andtheyconrmedtheyhadnomajorpain
points with their migration from AIX, so that
gavemecondence.”
Case study | Certis CISCO
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