To enable its new, omnichannel and customer-led business model, Groupe Chantelle needed a new technology platform that would support faster and more efficient interactions at every level, from supply chain to customer service. The company decided to adopt the SAP HANA database both for its existing SAP ERP environment and to support future SAP S/4HANA applications. The company engaged its long-term technology supplier, IBM Business Partner Novahé, to scope out a new hybrid platform that would enable it to run both the existing and newer elements side-by-side on the same infrastructure.
“We outlined what we wanted to achieve in business terms, and Novahé created a technical solution that met our precise needs and at the same ongoing cost as our previous platform,” says André Wei. “By choosing IBM Power Systems, we gained the ability to run both IBM i and Linux on the same platform. We also avoided the significant cost and risk of replacing our existing, well-adapted SAP ERP environment. And moving forward with IBM Power Systems, we can choose the best platform for whatever solutions we select based on business needs rather than technology constraints.”
Jean-François Fine, Presales Engineer at Novahé, says, “Drawing on our long experience with the IBM Power platform, we knew that the latest generation of IBM systems would give Groupe Chantelle all the technological capabilities it needed today and for the future.”
François Delbrel, Client Director at Novahé, adds, “The combination of IBM technology and our expertise in designing and delivering business solutions enables us to bring great ongoing value to our clients.”
Novahé’s proposal called for the deployment of two IBM Power Systems S914 servers running the IBM i operating system for the production landscape, one dedicated to the SAP central instance and one to SAP Retail. Groupe Chantelle also deployed an IBM Power Systems S922 server that will run SAP HANA on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications (link resides outside of ibm.com), ready to introduce the SAP S/4HANA for Fashion and Vertical Business solution. These servers feature IBM POWER9 processors, which offer both more cores and 26 percent higher per-core performance for SAP than Groupe Chantelle’s previous processors, while the IBM Power Systems S922 server has a full 2 TB of memory to support the in-memory HANA database.
The IBM servers are complemented by an end-to-end NVMe flash storage environment on IBM FlashSystem storage servers. Certified by SAP for use with SAP HANA, IBM FlashSystem storage accelerates application performance and enhances business productivity, and on-the-fly data compression provides greater capacity within the same footprint.
“Our relationship with Novahé is built on trust and we have total confidence in their knowledge of the IBM Power Systems architecture,” says André Wei. “We’re not an enormous organization, and we don’t have the resources to be experts in every single technology. For advanced platforms like IBM Power Systems, it makes sense for us to take advantage of experienced external partners in this way.”