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ERP is a class of business management software that integrates many facets of a
manufacturing business, including planning, inventory management, workflow on the
manufacturing floor, financial reporting and other aspects of fast moving businesses.
HP has partnered with most of the ERP vendors and supports the hardware needs of their
software. (Several success stories about these installations are available on the HP
web site.)
Two trends are changing the nature of ERP
applications. Software suppliers continue to expand
the breadth of functionality to areas such as human
resources, supply chain management and sales force
automation. E-Commerce and intra-business
capabilities via the Internet, including Web-based user
interfaces, are being added. These additional
capabilities require more data processing power
concentrated at database and application servers.
ERP vendors are also downsizing their offerings,
making them more attractive to companies requiring
little or no customization. Companies may be already
running their servers with Windows NT and are looking
to improve their overall effectiveness by deploying
ERP applications. In fact, ERP is one application area
that is becoming more “NT-centric”, due to the
potential sales volume. The overall ERP software and
equipment market is growing at approximately 25%
per year, while the market for NT-based server
systems is estimated to be growing at a 50%
compounded annual growth rate.
ERP applications are large and complex, requiring
server system resources adequate to process
transactions from all points in the business value
chain. Referring to table 1, we see that these
applications need high CPU power and large memory
configurations to support the community of users.
Growth is also a significant factor, both in terms of
volume of transactions as a business grows, but also
in terms of additional application functions and the number of active users. Note that the
users’ community is now expanding to those outside a company (Extranet) as well as those
inside (Intranet). Server systems need to be sized not only for today’s needs, but also in
anticipation of near future additional computing demands. HP’s NetServer LXr 8500 is a
wise choice given the capability to scale from one to eight processors and to grow the
system memory. Furthermore, the advent of Microsoft Windows 2000 data center edition
will bring larger memory access where the capability of the LXr 8500 to accommodate up to
32 GB of RAM will provide years of load carrying capacity.
Issues to Consider
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Is the organization aware of the benefits
of managing both NOS and applications
with a convenient set of tools? Are there
clustering management requirements?
Is this data center a heterogeneous
environment that needs tools that can
manage a variety of devices and plat-
forms? Is it a distributed environment
that can benefit from remote
management options?
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Does the vendor have a proven track
record of making customers successful
with demanding enterprise environments
and applications? Is the vendor capable
of consistently manufacturing high-
quality, tested, integrated products that
minimize failure opportunities? Does the
vendor have the necessary expertise
and support capabilities that are required
for the enterprise data center
environment?
