case study Breakthrough: CooperVision Establishes Clear Vision for Future.

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1 case study Breakthrough: CooperVision Establishes Clear Vision for Future.

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3 Imagine It When CooperVision acquired Ocular Sciences, Inc. in 2004, the company became the world s third largest contact lens company. The acquisition dramatically increased the demands on CooperVision s IT infrastructure and staff. Done Thanks to the new 64-bit solution from Unisys, Microsoft and Intel, CooperVision has realized profound performance improvements enabling the company to maintain its global data center model without incurring additional subsidiary site costs. Results: Managing Growth and Enabling Future Agility CooperVision deployed a scale-up solution using Unisys ES7000 servers with Intel Itanium 2-based processors, Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Datacenter Edition, and Microsoft SQL Server This allowed the company to remain a 100-percent Microsoft shop while providing enhanced processing support as well as backup and disaster recovery for its SSA ibaan enterprise resource planning (ERP) application. Metrics Cost: Avoided $400,000 in anticipated costs for additional equipment per subsidiary site Strategic Growth: Provided a scalable foundation for continual growth Reliability: Delivered enhanced backup and disaster recovery Performance: Enabled monthly invoices to be processed in half the time it took prior to the upgrade Business Challenge: IT Infrastructure Experiences Growing Pains CooperVision has been helping contact lens wearers see beyond the ordinary since The company has long been recognized as a market leader for toric lenses manufacturing premium-quality soft lenses that help people with astigmatism and spherical vision conditions see more clearly. With the acquisition of Ocular Sciences, Inc. in 2004, CooperVision became the third largest contact lens company in the world. Based in upstate New York, CooperVision now maintains a network of facilities in 14 countries and plans to grow even more. Of course, with rapid growth come major challenges for any company s IT team. CooperVision is no different. In 2004, the IT team was supporting 550 concurrent users in three countries and about 14,000 orders per day. But by 2006, the firm expects to have about 1,550 concurrent users in 14 countries and to process about 50,000 orders per day. Clearly, enhancing the company s IT infrastructure was critical to the success of the OSI acquisition. In fact, as Lorrie Watson, CooperVision s vice president of Global IT, explains, The IT hardware and people resources at CooperVision were identified by the business as the biggest risk for our integration process. With that in mind, Watson and her team knew they d have to make wise choices to support the integrated and much larger operations. CooperVision decided to remain committed to its version of the SSA ibaan ERP application. But the company needed to upgrade the existing database server a 16-processor Unisys ES7000 server employing 2.0GHz Intel Xeon processors MP running in a Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Datacenter Edition and SQL Server 2000 environment. Back in 2003 during the selection process for the 16-processor ES7000 CooperVision had considered a switch to UNIX. As Watson explains, We needed something that would scale beyond eight processors and thought we might have to switch over to a UNIX solution, which we didn t want to do. We re a 100-percent Microsoft shop and 3

4 very comfortable with the Microsoft environment. We tried very hard to find a solution that could be scalable, allow for continued growth and keep us in the Microsoft family. The option that fit us perfectly was the Unisys ES7000 server. When faced with another upgrade, CooperVision again considered UNIX but soon decided to stay the course with a 64-bit server solution from Unisys, Microsoft and Intel. Solution: Aligning IT to Boost Performance, Meet Growth and Disaster Recovery Demands In a word, CooperVision needed power. And that s what they got with the Unisys ES7000 servers employing Intel Itanium 2 processors running in a Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Datacenter Edition and SQL Server 2000 (64-bit) environment. We migrated to 64-bit technology as a natural progression from the 32-bit technology we were on previously, Watson says. By continuing on the Intel platform now on the Itanium 2-based system it allows us to realize the continued cost advantages we had on the previous Intel systems. Indeed, the Intel Itanium 2-based ES7000 server allows CooperVision to maintain its strategy of centralization. We have a central data center model; we wanted to keep that, Watson says. Upgrading to the 64-bit processor allowed us to realize that plan and avoid spending about $400,000 per site for additional servers and infrastructure in individual country locations. CooperVision s IT executives also appreciated the self-healing capability of the ES7000 server running Unisys Server Sentinel system management software. With operations that stretch across five continents, 24/7 system availability is critical. Unisys Server Sentinel monitors the ES7000 server, assessing performance and proactively taking action to correct problems and notify technical staff if necessary. To support the significant growth of the company, CooperVision also wanted to enhance disaster recovery capabilities. Thus, the company purchased a second 24-processor ES7000 server employing Intel Itanium 2 processors running the Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Datacenter Edition operating system and SQL Server 2000 database. The new ES7000 servers are clustered in an active/passive node configuration using Microsoft Cluster Services. The active node supports the ERP production environment. Located offsite, the passive node is divided into a 16-processor partition for the database and an eightprocessor partition for the application. No longer relying on tape backup, CooperVision uses log shipping from the production server to the backup server. Every 15 minutes, all transactions are sent across the network and applied to the offsite backup database. Profile: CooperVision Based in upstate New York, operates a network of facilities in 14 countries across five continents. The world s third largest contact lens maker and the number one manufacturer of toric lenses A business unit of the Cooper Companies, Inc., a rapidly growing specialty healthcare company Solution At a Glance Unisys ES7000 enterprise servers Unisys Server Sentinel system management software ES7000 implementation services High-availability services and training Migration services Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Datacenter Edition Microsoft SQL Server 2000 (64-bit) Microsoft Cluster Service Intel Itanium 2-based processors EMC Symmetrix DMX Series storage solution EMC CLARiiON storage Partners Microsoft Intel With our new disaster recovery strategy, we re able to assure upper management that we would be able to continue the business in the event of a major disaster, says Frank Manzo, manager of Global Systems Support. 4

5 CooperVision s IT team worked closely with Unisys and Microsoft consultants to plan the migration from the 32-bit technology to the new 64-bit ES7000 and Windows Server 2003, Datacenter Edition platform. The planning paid off, and the migration took just a day. We were able to bring the system down for no more than 24 hours to do the migration, Manzo explains. And then we were up and running on the new box which was seamless to the users. Watson concurs: As with the original installation of the first ES7000, the Itanium 2 installation went very smoothly. Performance improvements were noticeable by everyone from Day One. Users have only reported positive remarks in their gratitude that we upgraded the system for them. Leveraging High Availability Program Support Windows Server 2003, Datacenter Edition, running on the Unisys ES7000 gives CooperVision more than just a scalable and reliable platform. The Datacenter High Availability Program, a partnership between Microsoft and server manufacturers such as Unisys, complements the server and operating system with a mainframe-style support model that helps CooperVision keep its mission-critical ERP solution up and running. The program offers numerous benefits: A single point of contact for all hardware and operating system issues with direct involvement of the Microsoft High Availability Resolution Queue for Datacenter issues. Certification of software updates on CooperVision s unique hardware configuration before those updates are delivered. Mainframe-style change control processes that help reduce unnecessary downtime and maximize solution availability. Manzo appreciates the peace of mind and simplicity the program offers: The Datacenter High Availability Program allows us to have a single resource for all technical support, hardware and software. It also confirms that the software is certified on the hardware. All of our problems can go to one resource and we get them fixed in the same place. With the recent growth that CooperVision has enjoyed catapulting ourselves to number three in the marketplace in contact lenses we really have to rely heavily on our systems. I have a lot of confidence in Unisys. I have a lot of confidence in Microsoft and in Intel. I m glad that we re partnering with them. They ve proven to us over and over that these solutions work and that we can run largescale, high-volume transaction business on those platforms quite successfully. Lorrie Watson Vice President of Global IT CooperVision 5

6 Results: Gaining Competitive Advantage through High-Performance Platform Since the new Itanium 2-based ES7000 server and Windows Server 2003, Datacenter Edition solution has been deployed, CooperVision has experienced significant improvements in terms of performance, cost savings and reliability. Ability to improve a number of key performance indicators (KPI), including processor utilization and the speed of order processing and invoice generation Scalability to support increasing transaction volumes Highest levels of availability to support worldwide operations Greatly reduced costs by continuing to maintain a single datacenter to support worldwide operations Some of the performance goals that we measure here at CooperVision revolve around CPU usage, which we like to see no higher than 50 percent, Watson says. Currently, the CPU runs at about 20 percent, and that is largely because of the upgrade to our new ES bit technology. This performance boost ensures that online order processing and report generation in the SSA ibaan ERP application run much faster. That, coupled with high system availability, has greatly increased the confidence that CooperVision employees have in the system. However, CooperVision employees aren t the only ones who have noticed the difference. Our customers appreciate our new systems because when they call to place an order, the order process goes very fast, says Watson. We also keep a lot of patient order history on the ES7000 that we need to search through to answer questions about previous orders. This system provides the performance we need to do these complex searches quickly. Watson says they ve seen other improvements, as well. For instance, the firm is now able to process monthly invoices in half the time it took prior to the upgrade. And, perhaps most important, they re positioned well for future growth. The competitive advantage we ve gained with our new Unisys, Intel Itanium 2 and Microsoft solution is that we can now confidently grow our business, Watson notes. Watson emphasizes that CooperVision s experience is a lesson for other companies that run SSA Baan applications and view UNIX system-based platforms as the only way to go in a high-volume/high-transaction level environment. We have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that you can run SSA ibaan ERP with Microsoft Datacenter Server, SQL Server and Unisys ES7000 servers, she says. And, with the power of Intel s Itanium 2-based processor technology, We know that these systems will keep up with business flow. We can handle increasing transaction volumes, she says, adding, We have absolutely no reason to switch to anything else. The Relationship: Power of Partnership In tackling IT challenges associated with integrating Ocular Sciences, CooperVision is fortunate to work with tightly integrated technology partners: Unisys, Microsoft and Intel. In fact, Watson says that the companies partnerships were a major factor in evaluating potential solutions. As part of our decision making, the Unisys and Intel partnership provided us with predictability and reliability on the 64-bit technology, she comments. Equally important, she says, The Microsoft and Unisys partnership provided us with a stable platform to be able to run our 1.3 terabyte SQL database. The competitive advantage we ve gained with our new Unisys, Intel Itanium 2 and Microsoft solution is that we can now confidently grow our business. 6 Lorrie Watson Vice President of Global IT CooperVision

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8 2008 Unisys Corporation. All rights reserved. Unisys is a registered trademark of Unisys Corporation. Microsoft and Windows are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. Intel, the Intel logo and Itanium are registered trademarks of Intel Corporation. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners. Printed in U S America 06/08 *BL * BL