From 7 servers and 7 strategies to one single minded IT system and a business for the future

Imagine If We Could Create the Leading Light in Utilities

Positioned in the centre of Europe is the historic city of Ljubljana. Dating back to before the Roman period, Ljubljana is the political and cultural heart of Slovenia and a thriving European commercial, business, exhibition and congressional hub.

Ensuring the smooth running of the city is Javni Holding Ljubljana (JHL), an established business that has over 2500 employees, tasked with providing efficient mandatory public utility services that include water, energy, sewage, traffic, waste, parking and traffic light management and cemetery services for some 300,000 people across an area of 275 km2.

Through prudent management and investment policy, JHL is compelled to ensure the expansion of utility systems to the benefit of the population, while at the same time improving the environmental conditions with particular attention paid to the monitoring and regular control of natural resources.

Challenges

Reflecting on its formation in 1994, JHL was originally charged with managing seven separate companies that provided essential utilities tothe city. Managing seven very independent organisations meant the flow of information was slow and disjointed. The ability to respond to technical issues involved multiple teams, multiple work processes and with each, a completely separate and independent IT infrastructure.

The major challenge faced by JHL was how to bring simplification and efficiency into the business; how to manage and consolidate the 7 separate IT departments, systems, processes, data centres, while at the same time, improving essential services to the citizens of Ljubljana.

Solution

In 2010 a radical reorganization of the business took place. The seven businesses consolidated their services under the holding company of JHL. This in turn necessitated a consolidation of the day-to-day management and operations including IT systems and departments.

This strategic repositioning meant that the newly formed business needed a whole new enterprise resource planning solution and one that was world class. As JHL was a public company, finding such a solution required a process of public tender and thorough investigation. This being the case, they took to the market and approached the leading vendors.

In finding the right solution and determining the most effective approach to migrating from the old to new system, Bojan Judnič, Chief Information Officer of JHL, instructed the engineering team within the business, alongside trusted solutions partner NIL, a leading provider of data center, cloud and information security services, to carry out extensive investigation and testing of SAP HANA solutions and the various deployment options: Appliance, TDI (Tailored Data Centre), and cloud solution offerings.

It proved to be a masterstroke as the team quickly revealed that SAP HANA, run on Cisco UCS infrastructure, demonstrated the most impressive results both in terms of ease of implementation and the deployment and management of the migration from the old to new system. Furthermore, JHL also sought references and firsthand insights from other customers running SAP HANA on Cisco infrastructure, which confirmed their findings.

Confident in the knowledge, JHL turned to their trusted partner NIL who implemented the new system with the predicted minimal disruption.


“It didn’t feel like there was a big change for this level of migration; it was so painless, so smooth.”

Zdenka Grozde, CEO, JHL


“Overnight, we went from seven servers and seven strategies to one single minded IT system and a business for the future.”

Bojan Judnič, Chief Information Officer, JHL


Outcome

Today the SAP HANA platform provides JHL with real-time analytics, enabling the organization to analyze large volumes of varied data in real time. It offers a flexible, multipurpose, data-source-independent architecture running various SAP business software components, optimized to run on Intel-based hardware delivered by Cisco UCS.


“In the face of technological adversity came real-time simplicity.”

Bojan Judnič, Chief Information Officer, JHL


For the 1500 plus users the new SAP HANA platform provides responsiveness and real-time reporting, the likes of which JHL has not previously experienced. Providing the speed and agility needed to power everyday analytics at outstanding performance levels.

Billing, which is in the region of 210,000 invoices a month is fulfilled in a matter of hours and from one source. For the first time, there is a true sense of control across all areas. A full understanding of what is happening now and what will happen next.

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