Future Proof Investment Progressive Infotech devises an Itanium-ready, PA-RISC server solution for a leading handset manufacturer
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he Indian subsidiary of a leading global telecommunications company has ambitious plans to increase its handset production capability in India. The organization runs its own homegrown application, Manufacturing Execution System across all its manufacturing facilities across the globe. It was originally developed for the Windows platform, and now has been ported and tested to run in the Unix environment. The Unix version is also up and running in two facilities outside India.
Increasing Production Manifold
In Brief Challenge The organization wanted to move from a production capacity of 300,000 handsets per month to 1.5 million units a month, and change the platform from Windows to Unix. It also wanted to be able to manufacture 5 million handsets per month in the foreseeable future. Solution Progressive deployed two HP PARISC servers which could support the increased production capacity, and which could be easily moved to the Itanium platform when needed, by simply replacing the processors. Benefits The organization is now ready to handle the increase in production requirements, while having future proofed their investments in an end-of-life technology.
From its current capacity of 300,000 handsets a month in India, the organization wants to move to 1-1.5 million units a month, and eventually move up to 5 million units. The organization also wants to move to the Unix environment, while increasing its production capacity. Progressive had set up the organization’s hardware setup in 2005 as per the norms followed in their global centers. So the organization asked Progressive how they could handle this quantum leap in manufacturing in a new environment.
Beating Obsolescence
One of the obvious solutions before the organization was to invest in an Itanium configuration. But since their MES application has not yet been ported for Itanium, this was not a feasible option for them. The team at Progressive came up with a solution for this. The Solution Architect from Progressive says, “We suggested that servers on which the application would run, be replaced with PA-RISC servers. And when they would need to increase the production capacity to 5 million units, they could use the same box, same chipset and upgrade to the latest Itanium processor available at that time.” Progressive helped the organization understand that though PA-RISC was an end-of-life technology, such a solution would be able to meet all their current needs, while staying geared up for the future as well. And in the future, when the organization would be ready to move to Itanium, the infrastructure setup would only need a processor upgrade, and not a re-investment for servers. copyright © 2007