MSI Helps Allied Oil & Supply Cut Computing Costs and Prepare for Future Growth with On Demand IT System

Based in Omaha, Nebraska, Allied Oil & Supply provides a wide range of Heavy Duty lubricants and new and retread tires to transportation industry support companies throughout eight Midwestern states.

Like many fast growing small and mid-size companies, Allied Oil & Supply used a distributed processing strategy to handle the company's rapidly evolving IT needs. The client server architecture provided an easy to deploy and relatively economical means of building an IT infrastructure.

"I would wholeheartedly recommend MSI to anyone looking for expertise delivered with a high degree of integrity." - Tony Mudd

The Challenge

As the business grew, that distributed infrastructure became very complex, difficult to manage and a nightmare to modify. Escalating work loads, time-sensitive processing demands and new business initiatives were adversely impacting the system's ability to effectively respond to Allied's business needs.

Server proliferation had also reached the point where the cost of maintaining and managing the diverse array of hardware and software was becoming an unacceptable financial burden, given system performance and adaptability limitations. Allied needed to find a way to simplify the infrastructure and significantly reduce the total cost of ownership (TCO), while improving the ability to respond to changing business needs.

Tony Mudd, Allied's vice president of operations, decided it was time for a major overhaul of the company's IT infrastructure. According to Mudd, "We needed an integrator with a wide range of skills, systems expertise and resources. This was an important project for Allied, so our choice had to be a company that could quickly and efficiently handle the entire transition from start to finish."

With that in mind, Mudd turned to MSI for help in transforming the old distributed processing architecture into a less complex, yet far more robust enterprise IT system, capable of supporting Allied for years to come.

The MSI Solution

Successfully curing server sprawl through consolidation isn't as easy as it may seem at first glance. Careful attention must be given to the existing IT infrastructure and applications. In order to delineate how each facet of the system relates to other facets and to the organizations that rely on various aspects of the system, user interfaces, storage, and a host of other requirements must be thoroughly mapped to assure that they are addressed and supported.

The first step in any consolidation effort is a thorough audit of the components and capabilities of the existing IT infrastructure. IT processes and applications profiles must also be clearly defined for subsequent evaluation. The results of this effort help identify which systems are inefficient and highlight under-utilized or duplicated capabilities. These audits also provide a benchmark for measuring improvements resulting from the consolidation effort.

MSI and IBM worked together to conduct a comprehensive assessment of Allied's existing IT infrastructure, using the IBM Consolidation Discovery Analysis Tool (CDAT). The findings provided a detailed profile of the infrastructure, which formed the basis for MSI's consolidation strategy.

MSI used its Omaha, Nebraska-based Technology Enablement Center (TEC) and WebSphere Information Center (WIC) to validate the proposed solution and help Allied managers clearly understand the strategy, potential benefits, business implications and integration requirements associated with the consolidation strategy. To save customer time, the briefings were held at Allied's offices via remote access to MSI's TEC and WIC centers.

Prior to consolidation, the Allied IT infrastructure included nine Intel-powered servers, running Windows 2000 Server and one IBM iSeries AS/400, running Infor's A+ distribution software.

The MSI solution called for consolidating and integrating applications that were resident on the single application servers into an IBM iSeries AS/400, running six integrated xSeries servers (IXS). This strategy provided significantly improved performance, reliability, scalability and administration.

File and print applications were moved to a Linux partition on the newly configured AS/400. The IBM Tivoli Storage Management (TSM) software was converted to a native OS400 version for use on the AS/400. Backup and recovery functions were handled by IBM Backup, Recovery & Media Services (BRMS) software integrated with TSM, which provides daily OS400 backup and file-level backup on Windows, Unix and Linux applications. An IBM TotalStorage 3581 tape autoloader was installed to perform the backup and recovery functions.

User access and management are facilitated via implementation of enterprise identity mapping (EIM), which permits single sign on capabilities for complex networks, and OS400/Windows user synchronization. MSI also deployed IBM OS400/Windows user synchronization software to reduce user management requirements and facilitate troubleshooting activities.

The entire project, including the CDAT analysis, was completed within a seven-month timeframe. In describing MSI's performance, Mudd noted that, "The MSI team demonstrated a high degree of expertise and professionalism throughout the process. We relied on them for imaginative solutions, sound advice on alternate approaches and technical knowhow across a broad range of computing and networking issues. And, they came through for us on every level. We couldn't have had better support."

The Benefits

The consolidation project significantly reduced the complexity of Allied's overall IT infrastructure, thereby lowering or eliminating many system-related costs for hardware, software, training and staff. Thanks to improved server productivity and efficiency, batch-processing performance has been significantly increased.

Analyses, using commercial processing workload (CPW) measurement parameters, have resulted in a 70 percent increase in batch processing performance and a 750 percent increase in interactive processing speed. The simplified system also enabled Allied to reduce the IT staff by one full time employee and lowered training and administrative costs by the equivalent of another full time employee. Tivoli help desk calls were also reduced.

Beyond the obvious economic advantages of moving to a far more streamlined IT system based on newer technologies, the server consolidation effort has positioned Allied to easily handle a significantly increased level of growth in the months ahead.

Allied is now moving forward with an aggressive growth strategy that includes acquisitions designed to take the company into new business areas as well as driving further expansion within current markets.

"Our ability to sustain a high level of growth is directly related to the ability of our IT systems to handle the information processing demands created by that growth. Scalability and adaptability will be mission-critical requirements in the coming months and that means continued reliance on the support we get from MSI. We now think of MSI as an extension of our IT department," says Mudd.

He also makes it clear that Allied is pleased with MSI performance in stating that, "I would wholeheartedly recommend MSI to anyone looking for expertise delivered with a high degree of integrity."