Install using
DataCore SANsymphony™ Software-Defined Storage and Flash supplied by Waterstons, facilitates additional e-commerce sales and employee productivity
gains.
READING, UK., August 31, 2016
– DataCore Software today announced that PWS Distributors, one of the UK’s leading designers and suppliers of 8000
quality kitchen components available to order either on the phone or online, has deployed DataCore SANsymphony™
software. Major processing issues were restricting the growth of orders, first manifesting when new items were added to an existing order or when orders
were changed in the ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system, and this has been transformed by the Always-On Parallel-Powered Software.
Andrew Buckingham, IT Manager, PWS notes
: “The statistics made grim reading given our I/O hungry SQL e-commerce platform was tracking an average product-add delay of over 1400ms. This was
simply unacceptable. We looked to DataCore and Micron Flash for performance optimization and Waterston’s expertise to redefine the system.”
Unacceptably slow order modifications, performance bottlenecks and management reporting:
Aware that providing an effective e-commerce experience with fast transactions was a critical requirement for future growth, PWS looked inward at their ERP
and associated backend Microsoft SQL Server database. The database dynamically checks stock levels as products are added. With PWS’ infrastructure, each
time a product is added to an order over 400 SQL commands are triggered (200 reads, 200 insert/update/deletes) and fired across multiple tables and
databases. With an expanding online catalog, the pressure to handle workloads was especially notable at peak transaction times when performance
bottlenecks emerged in the server infrastructure which simply failed to deliver. Additionally, making modifications to the system was so intensive that the
process could only be scheduled to run late at night, when online trading was minimal. Management reporting on sales was also slow. Running turnover and
best-selling line reports from previous transactions could take up to 30 minutes to process. For internal data processing, PWS faced additional pressures.
Processing of invoicing data again was scheduled overnight, but was still taking over 2 hours to complete. Across the company, employee productivity was
being eroded as staff waited for the system to catch up.
DataCore’s SANsymphony & slot-in Flash, recommended and installed by Waterstons, transforms without re-engineering entire ERP:
PWS contacted DataCore Gold Partner, Waterstons, for advice on optimization without re-engineering the whole ERP infrastructure. Waterstons recommended the
install of the latest version of DataCore’s SANsymphony platform together with affordable Micron P420 PCI-e flash cards for maximum performance enhancement
and to provide continuous availability to boot. Simon Birbeck, Executive Consultant, Waterstons comments:
“PWS were looking for fast transaction enablement and what we achieved was an entire transformation simply by addressing throughput and I/O latency.”
Running in a dual node environment with synchronous mirroring between a pair of server rooms and automated failover, the latest version of SANsymphony was
installed on two Dell T620 rackmount x86 servers using PCI-e flash for hot data and commodity disk for less frequently accessed blocks. This combination
handled SQL back-end read and writes with ease, driving DataCore Parallel I/O with the storage server CPU and leveraging adaptive caching technology
against generous DDR RAM. Application performance was boosted further still by the Micron Flash, fulfilling requests at lightning speeds.
Results:
Now ordering is fast and efficient, 14x faster with the optimized system. Customer Services efficiency has been bolstered, with an active working day
saving of over 2% for every representative waiting for ERP system responses, and users no longer have to wait for the system to catch up with their input.
Making modifications and additions to the system on the fly is also now possible. Previously accomplished using late night changes while utilization was
low, adding fields and modifying SQL under the optimized system can now be carried out even when the system is in use at peak trading times. Nightly
invoice processing has reduced from 2 hours to 20 minutes. Daily management reporting on best-selling lines has been transformed from 30 minutes to an
incredible 10 seconds. Other reports have also been impacted. Aggregated customer statistics queries’ running millions of SQL executions used to take over
24 hours, even in low trading conditions. With this solution, mining takes just an hour.
“The ramifications of this seamless install have been far reaching for PWS trading patterns, from responsiveness of each transaction through to
allowing us to add parameterised product navigation, and expand our entire product portfolio, safe in the knowledge that changes will be implemented
instantaneously giving our clients the best possible experience.”
Andrew Buckingham, IT Manager, PWS Ltd.
Download
the full case study.
About DataCore
DataCore is the leading provider of Software-Defined Storage and Adaptive Parallel I/O Software – harnessing today’s powerful and cost-efficient server
platforms to solve the IT industry’s biggest storage problem, the I/O bottleneck. Visit https://www.datacore.com or
call (877) 780-5111 for more information.
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names or logos referenced herein are trademarks of DataCore Software Corporation. All other products, services and company names mentioned herein may
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CONTACT
For media & PR inquiries:
KPR Global on behalf of DataCore
Sharon Munday
+44 23 9311 4100
smunday@kprglobal.com