Shenhua Group Cuts Cost of System Maintenance and Operations by 80%, Shortens Implementations by as Much as 500%
 
 

Shenhua Group Cuts Cost of System Maintenance and Operations by 80%, Shortens Implementations by as Much as 500%

Printer View Printer View

Shenhua Group Corp. Ltd. (Shenhua Group) is the largest modernized coal production enterprise in China, and the largest coal dealer in the world. The company provides end-to-end production, transportation, and sales services in the coal-to-liquids, coal-to-chemicals, electricity, thermal power, ports, railways, and shipping sectors. Its business operations include processing natural resources from Chinese, state-owned assets and conducting state-authorized coal exploration. Shenhua Group also coordinates and manages the operation and production of its subsidiaries in each these sectors.

 
 

 
 

Challenges

A word from Shenhua Group Corp. Ltd.

  • “We chose Oracle Exadata over products from other vendors for its cost-efficiency; reduced hardware, data center, and energy requirements; and faster implementation times. We have established a centralized, enterprisewide, private-cloud platform for our core business applications and cut system maintenance and operational costs by 80%.” – Ding Tao, Vice General Manager, Information Management Department, Shenhua Group Corp. Ltd.

  • Establish a single, secure, and highly reliable enterprise, private-cloud platform to integrate various SAP databases and an Oracle Siebel CRM system used to manage coal and energy production data
  • Stem and reduce cost of expanding IT system operations and management
  • Provide reliable and comprehensive support for management’s decision-making and the analyses of coal production, sales, and transportation data
  • Enhance database capacity and ensure the company has sufficient IT resources required to operate and manage its informatization, IT-development project (which will improve online access to coal- and energy-related data)

Solutions

Oracle Product and Services

  • Cut system operation and maintenance costs by 80%, by centralizing management of the Oracle and SAP systems, so only one or two database administrators are required 
  • Reduced implementation time by 300% to 500% compared to conventional IT infrastructure, by using the pre-optimized configuration and out-of-the-box, balanced architecture
  • Lowered total cost of ownership while increasing database capacity by integrating mission-critical applications used to manage coal and energy production data on a centralized, enterprisewide, cloud platform
  • Ensured 24x7 system availability, optimized disaster recovery, and minimized the loss of critical coal- and energy-related data, by taking advantage of advanced redundancy features 
  • Reduced hardware, data center, and energy consumption costs by consolidating previously separate IT systems and eliminating resource wastage 
  • Ensured efficient IT resource allocation by sharing the same database service for critical coal and energy production applications and the informatization project, rather than using different systems
  • Allowed managers to quickly and concurrently access large volumes of secure, reliable coal- and energy-related data for reporting, decision-making, and analytics by simultaneously optimizing online transactional processing and online applications processing
  • Laid a solid foundation for future low-cost IT infrastructure expansion by having various configurations, such as quarter-, half- or full-racks, available for business growth

Why Oracle

Shenhua Group needed a robust IT infrastructure to integrate enterprise information and management, improve system response times, and support its business growth. It also wanted to conform to international IT development trends.

“We evaluated various domestic and international IT vendors but chose Oracle Exadata for our private cloud platform, due to its cost-efficiency; reduced equipment, data center, energy, maintenance, and management requirements; and faster implementation times,” said Ding Tao, vice general manager, information management department, Shenhua Group Corp. Ltd.

Implementation Process

Shenhua Group completed the Oracle Exadata implementation and database migration in several stages.

In May 2011, the company implemented Oracle Exadata Database Machine Quarter Rack and configured Oracle Linux and a third-party hard drive to build its private cloud database platform. It also deployed Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c.

The company then seamlessly migrated Oracle Siebel CRM and other important resource planning systems onto the database machine.

In October 2012, Shenhua Group worked with Oracle Diamond Partner Accenture to complete the project by deploying the critical SAP enterprise management systems onto Oracle Exadata.

Partner

Shenhua Group chose to work with Accenture, due to the company’s strong reputation and extensive experience.

“Accenture had provided consultation services for many large, state-owned enterprises in China, and it had rich experience in implementing Oracle and SAP products,” said Tao. “This experience guaranteed the smooth implementation of Oracle Exadata.”

Resources