Stadtwerke Düsseldorf
UC4 Manages Stadtwerke Düsseldorf
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“The features we value most about UC4 Workload Automation Suite are its deep support for a variety of operating systems, its monitoring functions, integrated event control, and the easy-to-use graphical user interface."
Christian Ramm, Team Coordinator, DB Management Stadtwerke Düsseldorf AG
Customer Snapshot
Company: Stadtwerke Düsseldorf AG
Business/Industry: Utilities
Company Headquarters: Düsseldorf, Germany
Presence: national/regional
Webpage: www.swd-ag.de
Technical Environment: SAP Business Suite, SAP IS-U, SAP BI, SAP XI, HR Access, IBM P590 Regatta servers under AIX, Windows servers, databases: Oracle and Microsoft SQL, Legato Networker data security solution.
The Company
Stadtwerke Düsseldorf AG is one of the largest communal utilities companies in Germany. It employs 2500 people and in 2005 achieved sales of approximately 1.2 billion euro with a profit of more than 47 million euro. As a high-output energy supply company, Stadtwerke depends on a growth strategy based on its expansion as a regional infrastructure service provider.
The Challenge
IT resources enjoy a high priority at Stadtwerke Düsseldorf, with two redundant computing centers running Unix and Windows systems providing the highest possible operational security. An SAP solution running on IBM Regatta P590 servers lies at the heart of the company's internal data processing. After switching the operating system platform in early 2000, at which time AIX replaced the existing MVS, the SAP application ran in a separate control system during a transitional period while other applications were controlled via operating-system functions, particularly scripts under AIX or Windows batch programs.
But even before the migration to AIX, managers at Stadtwerke recognized that elevated requirements would require implementation of a uniform job-control program, which in turn would necessitate moving batch processing out of SAP. After an in-depth evaluation of available solutions, they chose UC4 Workload Automation Suite from Austrian manufacturer UC4 Software. The system has now been running productively for several years on an AIX machine with an Oracle database. Since its implementation, UC4 Workload Automation Suite has efficiently controlled things like reports from SAP solutions, notifications, and FTP functions. It is mainly responsible for processing complex jobs during the night hours – from seven in the evening until six in the morning.
Another area where UC4 Workload Automation Suite has proven useful is in personnel administration, where it works in conjunction with the popular HR Access software from HR Solutions, a subsidiary of Fidelity Investments. Among other things, HR Access administers all employee source data, accounting for salaries and travel costs, vacation requests, and time recording. UC4 Workload Automation Suite controls all processes in HR Access in a time and event-dependent manner, including all accounting systems. It even triggers tape robots to back up data using security software Legato Networker without requiring manual intervention.
Continuous expansion of the system landscape is business as usual for system administrators. In 2004 Stadtwerke Düsseldorf implemented IS-U, an SAP module developed especially for the utilities industry. Since that time, this customer-information and accounting system has effectively supported daily business. Based on their positive experiences so far, IT managers at Stadtwerke plan to add SAP IS-U to the list of programs controlled by UC4 Workload Automation Suite.
The Solution
During implementation it was already apparent that UC4 Workload Automation Suite was the ideal tool for controlling the SAP IS-U module. Thanks to the program's uniform logic, a five-person team led by Christian Ramm, Coordinator of Database Management, could quickly start transferring the control solution to SAP IS-U. In fact, several processes could only be automated once SAP IS-U was in place, including accounting and dunning. UC4 Workload Automation Suite, working in conjunction with SAP R/3 and SAP IS-U, made it possible to trigger regular but extensive printing jobs during nighttime accounting procedures.
UC4 Workload Automation Suite has since been expanded with additional interfaces in the process chain so it also controls how the SAP solutions interact with important external applications. Examples of this include network-management solutions like PSI Passage II and applications for checking meter readings. Some large customers like Düsseldorf Airport now employ a remote meter-readout system and UC4 Workload Automation Suite plays a central role in its control.
Like the rest of the industry, Stadtwerke Düsseldorf expects strong future growth, which will require continued expansion of their IT infrastructure. Of course, this will also affect the UC4 enterprise automation software. The next project planned in Düsseldorf is to expand use of UC4 Workload Automation Suite to the SAP Business Information Warehouse, known as SAP BW for short. This data warehouse solution is part of the SAP NetWeaver infrastructure and provides especially data-management and user-query functions. Until now, the process chains in SAP BW were controlled with SAP tools. But conversion to SAP global is expected to provide a high degree of uniformity throughout the entire SAP implementation. The project will get started in the first quarter of 2007.
UC4 Benefits
- Centralized control of SAP R/3 and SAP IS-U
- Control over HR Access
- Control over all batch processing
- Replaces script-based control
- Scheduling across various platforms
- Centralized administration with a user-friendly GUI
- Control over SAP BW process chains
