E-Plus Mobilfunk GmbH & Co. KG Centralizes Data Warehouse to Prepare for Increase in Data Volume
 
 

E-Plus Mobilfunk GmbH & Co. KG Centralizes Data Warehouse to Prepare for Increase in Data Volume

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E-Plus Mobilfunk GmbH & Co. KG (E-Plus Group), a leader in the German telecommunications market, has successfully transitioned itself over the last few years from a mobile phone network provider to a multibrand enterprise. With its own brands and strong partnerships, the company’s broad product portfolio is tailored to meet the needs of various mobile network customer segments. E-Plus Group services more than 22.1 million customers and is experiencing continued growth.  

Due to its impressive growth, E-Plus’ existing data warehouse infrastructure had reached its capacity. The data warehouse’s performance was below par with low satisfaction among its 500 users. In addition, as a result of the architecture’s complexity, administrative effort was very high. It was also not possible to guarantee service during unexpected disasters or to guarantee operating hours that met the service level agreement (SLA).

To prepare for increased data volume from the proliferation of data-hungry smartphones and applications, as well as to address performance concerns, E-Plus Group centralized its disparate hardware environment into a central platform using Oracle Exadata Database Machine x2-2 HC Full Rack. With the implementation, E-Plus compressed data volume by 55% to prepare for future data growth. In addition, the company reduced month-end closing time by 25% to 80%. To address availability concerns, E-Plus leveraged Oracle Database 11g Release 2, Enterprise Edition with Real Application Clusters  to implement a cost-effective fail-over environment that is deployable and productive for reporting within 24 hours of a disaster striking.

 
 

 
 

Challenges

A word from E-Plus Mobilfunk GmbH & Co. KG

  • “Our goal is to ensure the stability and performance of our data warehouse for the next two to three years. With Exadata Database Machine, we can now handle the rapidly increasing quantities of data typical for mobile phone network providers, without having to carry out additional software optimization projects.” – Andreas Heinrich, Department Manager ERP & BI Technology, E-Plus Mobilfunk GmbH & Co. KG

  • Acquire performance and stability within a data warehouse infrastructure that contains five servers holding 35.5 terabytes (TB) of data
  • Reduce time required to generate monthly reports regarding participant analysis,  telephone evaluation, or preparation of the customer mining center
  • Establish an efficient, high-performing daily reporting system that covers SIM card registration and customer contract cancellations to recognize market changes in real-time
  • Ensure data warehouse availability by upgrading from existing server hardware and storage area network, as well as establish SLAs for operating hours
  • Upgrade hardware to accommodate an expected data increase of 5 to 10 TB in 2012
  • Optimize software to ensure that important reporting processes function properly in the future

Solutions

Oracle Product and Services

  • Implemented a central infrastructure based on Oracle Exadata Database Machine x2-2 HC Full Rack running on Oracle Linux to centralize the data warehouse and eliminate hardware bottlenecks
  • Optimized performance and stability in daily operations and month-end closing processes
  • Reduced month-end closing time by 25% to 80% according to task, providing call participant analysis reports in less than 12 hours, compared to the previous 48 hours required
  • Improved daily reporting performance
  • Leveraged Real Application Clusters 11g Release 2 to implement a fail-over environment—and a second environment used for test and preproduction—that is deployable and ready to produce reports within 24 hours of a disaster striking and that can guarantee SLA operating hours
  • Reduced administrative effort considerably by centralizing the hardware infrastructure
  • Used Oracle Exadata compression to reduce data volume by 55%, which prepares E-Plus for more data due to the increase in the use of smart phones and expansion of the mobile internet