Shanghai Municipal Science and Technology Commission Cuts System Power Consumption by 30%, Reduces Data Backup Time by up to 93%
 
 

Shanghai Municipal Science and Technology Commission Cuts System Power Consumption by 30%, Reduces Data Backup Time by up to 93%

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Established in 2004, Shanghai R&D Public Service Platform (Shanghai R&D Platform) is a cloud-based research and development center that enables the storage and public exchange of technical data, research, and resources to support science and technology innovation in Shanghai. It is managed by Shanghai Municipal Science and Technology Commission. Comprising 10 systems, Shanghai R&D Platform allows individuals and enterprises to publicly share technical data and facilities, and transfer technical skills, knowledge, and development methods, supporting industrial enterprises that develop and launch new products. The platform now houses more than 75% of the city’s technical documents and resources.

TShanghai R&D Platform is an initiative of the Shanghai Municipal Committee and Shanghai Government under the “Shanghai Middle and Long Term Science & Technology Development Plan Outline (2006–2020).”

With a steady increase in user numbers and the amount of technical documents and other information resources it handled, Shanghai R&D Platform had continual data bottlenecks, increasing the risk of it crashing as it reached maximum capacity. To improve system performance and user satisfaction, Shanghai Municipal Science and Technology Commission deployed Oracle Exadata Database Machine to ensure the security and availability of data storage and database services, and provide the capacity to expand its cloud-based research and development center.

The new database machine has improved Shanghai R&D Platform’s system response speed by 5x to 10x and reduced data backup time from three to five hours to less than 20 minutes. It also lowered the amount of power its uses to run its database and cooling systems by 30%. In addition, the new machine provided a flexible IT framework to support a large-scale Shanghai Technical Resource Data Center, as well as future business expansions.

 
 

 
 

Challenges

A word from Shanghai Municipal Science and Technology Commission

  • “Oracle Exadata is an ideal solution for our large-scale data center, as it helps us ensure system security, stability, and reliability and will support future business expansion at a lower cost. We can now back up data up to 93% faster and have improved system response speeds by 5x to 10x.” – Tan Ruicong, Director, Shanghai R&D Public Service Platform, Shanghai Municipal Science and Technology Commission

  • Establish a large-scale data center on an integrated database platform to deliver high-performance, low-cost data storage and database services for platform users
  • Eliminate bottlenecks in system applications to ensure a growing number of concurrent users can access large volumes of the city’s data, technical documents, and resources
  • Deliver a system framework that can be rapidly deployed, easily integrated, and expanded at low cost to meet future growth of the platform

Solutions

Oracle Product and Services

  • Accelerated data backup time by up to 93%—from three to five hours previously to less than 20 minutes—by more efficiently processing large quantities of system data
  • Reduced database and cooling system power consumption by 30%, by integrating hardware and software efficiently to share system resources
  • Increased system response speed for some business systems hosted on the platform by 5x to 10x, by ensuring applications can still connect to the database during peak access periods, when there are more than 200,000 concurrent users
  • Generated system reports more efficiently by reducing data query times
  • Reduced troubleshooting and maintenance activities by using the database machine’s management, maintenance, diagnosis, and tuning functions to improve system administration across the company’s entire IT environment
  • Allowed the platform’s basic framework to be scaled rapidly at a low cost to ensure the security and availability of the city’s data storage and services, and provide the capacity to expand the cloud-based research and development center

Why Oracle

Shanghai Municipal Science and Technology Commission chose to implement Oracle Exadata Database Machine to ensure the security, stability, and processing performance of Shanghai R&D Platform’s technical data storage and database service system.

“Oracle Exadata provided a solution that optimizes both online transaction processing and online analytical processing to meet our business and data processing needs,” said Tan Ruicong, director, Shanghai R&D Public Service Platform, Shanghai Municipal Science and Technology Commission. “It has significantly improved our data processing capacity, as well as system availability, stability, and reliability, due to advanced redundancy features. We can now support more than 200,000 users at one time.

“The new database machine will enable us to expand our systems to support future business growth without incurring significant IT costs,” he said.

Implementation Process

Shanghai Municipal Science and Technology Commission previously operated a database cluster and NetApp storage system, using a six-node Oracle Real Application Clusters system in its PC Server. In June 2011, it implemented Oracle Exadata Database Machine Quarter Rack. The process of commissioning, installing, deploying, and debugging the new database machine, as well as migrating data across to it, took 12 months to complete.

The Oracle Exadata–based Shanghai R&D Platform went live in May 2012.