Microsoft SQL ServerCustomer Solution Case Study

Brewer Increases Efficiency and Insight, Boosts Performance by up to 78 Percent

OverviewCountry or Region: RussiaIndustry: Manufacturing—Food and beverage

Customer ProfileBased in Saint Petersburg, Russia, Baltika Brewing Company is a leading European brewer that manages 37 percent of Russia's beer production. The company is a subsidiary of the Carlsberg Group, a Danish brewer that earned DKK64 billion (U.S.$11 billion) in revenue in 2011.

Business SituationBaltika wanted to increase employee efficiency and insight by boosting the performance of its customer relationship management (CRM) system.

SolutionThe company upgraded its CRM solution to use Microsoft SQL Server 2012 including SQL Server 2012 AlwaysOn.

Benefits Improves efficiency and boosts

performance by up to 78 percent Increases competitiveness and

availability Expands capacity by 40 percent and

minimizes costs

“By updating our CRM solution to use Microsoft SQL Server 2012 including AlwaysOn and data compression, we have increased the system’s transactional capacity by 40 percent without increasing operational costs.”

German Epstein, Vice President of Information Technology, Baltika Brewing Company

Baltika Brewing Company sells 30 brands of beer in more than 75 countries. To help manage operations and services, approximately 7,000 people use a mission-critical customer relationship management (CRM) system that runs on the Microsoft platform. In 2011, Baltika wanted to accelerate CRM performance and reporting, so it upgraded its CRM solution to use Microsoft SQL Server 2012 data management software, SQL Server 2012 AlwaysOn, and data compression. As a result, Baltika boosted efficiency, increased competitiveness, and delivered near-real-time insight. Not only can the CRM system process transactions up to 78 percent faster, but also it takes 99 percent less time to update the reporting server. In addition, Baltika improved availability and it has boosted scalability by increasing CRM capacity by 40 percent without increasing operational costs.

SituationBaltika Brewing Company, a subsidiary of the Carlsberg Group, is one of the largest consumer-goods manufacturers in Russia and is the nation’s leading domestic beer producer. Ten Baltika breweries in Russia and one in Azerbaijan produce 5.2 million hectoliters of beer each month under more than 30 brands. These include Baltica, Nevskoye, Yarpivo, Arsenalnoye, Tuborg, and Carlsberg. The company’s products are available in 75 countries and in 98 percent of Russia’s retail establishments. In 2010, Baltika earned RUB79 billion (U.S.$3 billion) in revenue.

To increase competitiveness and deliver excellent service, Baltika employees and partners use a customer relationship management (CRM) system from Microsoft partner Monolit-Info. More than 1,500 office employees, 5,000 sales representatives, and 300 partners use Monolit CRM as a web-based service from workstations and mobile devices. Users receive assignments, accept orders, check inventory, evaluate accounts, and gather market information such as product pricing. In addition, employees from the Carlsberg Group also use the CRM solution to gain insight into Baltika operations. Before 2012, the CRM solution ran on the Windows Server 2008 R2 operating system and a 1-terabyte database supported by Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise data management software.

Since its founding in 1990, Baltika has rapidly expanded its operations. This ongoing growth has burdened the existing CRM solution with increasing transaction volume. By 2011, the company’s CRM system was processing about 2,000

transactions per second during peak times. Each transaction can include anywhere from a few dozen commands to as many as 9 million commands. As a result, processing just one transaction could take more than 6 minutes. Slowing system response times hindered productivity.

Decreasing system performance also delayed operational insight. Baltika maintained a copy of the CRM database to facilitate reporting. The information in the reporting server was updated using transactional replication in SQL Server 2008 R2. However, because the production system was struggling to process transactions, it could take up to 5 hours to generate a new database snapshot. As a result, employees lacked real-time insight into operations. “The delay in data-transfer speeds significantly complicated the work of distributors and sales employees,” explains Sergei Robozerov, Deputy IT Director at Baltika Brewing Company. “Employees could not immediately double-check whether a transaction completed correctly, and whether the proper information was submitted into the CRM system.”

Baltika sought a solution that could speed efficiency and enhance insight. And because employees and partners need to access the CRM system around the clock, the solution had to be highly reliable.

SolutionIn 2011, Baltika began investigating SQL Server 2012. A long-time user of the Microsoft platform and member of the Microsoft Technology Adoption Program, IT personnel at Baltika were among the first to learn about the database’s new

25

capabilities. Baltika was most interested in SQL Server 2012 AlwaysOn, which can support up to four read-only replicas of a production system in an availability group. The production system and its replicas receive all of the same data feeds almost simultaneously, so the systems mirror each other. Should the primary system fail, any of the other secondary copies can take over. In addition, any of the secondaries can support processes such as reporting and backups.

In August 2011, Baltika engaged Monolit-Info to test its CRM solution with SQL Server 2012 and determine if the new database software could boost system performance. “The main idea behind switching to Microsoft SQL 2012 was to use AlwaysOn to create asynchronous database replicas to support reporting,” says Victor Sivov, Chief Engineer at Monolith-Info. “Preliminary productivity tests showed that data-transfer speeds with SQL Server 2012 AlwaysOn were, in many respects, superior to standard transactional replication in SQL Server 2008 R2.”

Impressed with the fast data-transfer speeds between systems in an availability group, Baltika decided to upgrade its CRM solution to use SQL Server 2012. In September 2011, IT personnel from Baltika began working with developers from Monolith-Info to adapt the CRM solution to use availability groups and also data compression. Sivov explains, “Although data compression was available in SQL Server 2008 R2, we had not taken advantage of it. Rapid data growth and increasing transaction volume induced us to use compression for large tables and indexes to reduce database size and to

increase the effectiveness of database input-output.”

Because the CRM system is mission-critical, Baltika performed extensive tests throughout the solution design and implementation phases. “The risks were quite high because we were working with the new version of SQL Server 2012 before it was officially released and we were implementing two new technologies at the same time—data compression and SQL Server AlwaysOn,” says Robozerov. However, because of the excellent test results and collaborative effort of the implementation team, Baltika moved forward with the implementation, using an early release of SQL Server 2012. He continues, “Engineers from Microsoft Services Premier Support actively worked with us to help design the new solution and a Microsoft specialist observed our data-migration process. IT personnel from Monolith-Info also helped to update and test the solution architecture.”

To support the new solution, the team used existing hardware including: One HP ProLiant BL685c G7 server

computer with four 12-core AMD Opteron processors and 256 gigabytes of RAM.

One HP ProLiant BL465c G7 server computer with two 12-core AMD Opteron processors and 256 gigabytes of RAM.

IT personnel configured the servers in one availability group using SQL Server 2012 AlwaysOn. In addition, an existing HP EVA P6500 storage device supports two storage groups:

35

“The stability and predictability of Microsoft SQL Server 2012, even in its early release stage, allowed us to upgrade our mission-critical CRM database in ... about 18 weeks.”

Sergei Robozerov, Deputy IT Director, Baltika Brewing Company

One data storage group includes a redundant array of 130 mirrored disks and 146 gigabytes of RAM.

One journal storage group uses a redundant array of 70 mirrored disks and 146 gigabytes of RAM.

In November 2011, the team transferred the data from SQL Server 2008 to SQL Server 2012. The process took just one day. “Successful adaptation of the new solution did not disrupt the stability of key business processes and was the result of a joint effort,” stressed Robozerov.

In January 2012, Baltika released the new solution into production. Approximately 7,000 people use it. Commenting on the implementation, Robozerov says, “The stability and predictability of Microsoft SQL Server 2012, even in its early release stage, allowed us to upgrade our mission-critical CRM database in a relatively short period of time. The entire migration process—including preparation, testing, and commissioning—only took about 18 weeks.”

BenefitsBy deploying SQL Server 2012, Baltika speeds efficiency, boosts CRM performance by up to 78 percent, increases competitiveness and availability, expands capacity by 40 percent, and minimizes costs.

Improves Efficiency and Boosts Performance by up to 78 PercentBy upgrading its CRM database to SQL Server 2012, Baltika has increased efficiency because system responses times are 75–78 percent faster. “The performance and scalability that we achieve with SQL Server

2012 has exceeded all of our initial expectations,” explains Robozerov. “With it, our existing CRM system can process a transaction that used to take more than 6 minutes in just 90 seconds. In addition, a transaction that used to take almost 16 minutes now takes just 3.5 minutes.”

The new solution also reduces system demand. For example, by using SQL Server 2012 AlwaysOn to maintain the information in the reporting server, the CRM system no longer needs to send transactional updates to the reporting database. Instead, one process updates the CRM database and the read-only replica that supports reporting. As a result, Baltika has reduced the load on CRM disk arrays by 50 percent during peak times. Today, rather than processing 32,000 operations per second, the system only needs to process 16,000. Increases Competitiveness and AvailabilityToday, in just seconds, people can access the information they need to work effectively. With SQL Server 2012, new transactions are written to the reporting server more than 100 times faster. For example, with transactional replication in SQL Server 2008 R2, it took 133 seconds for the production system to send information about a transaction with 1 million commands to the reporting server. With SQL Server 2012 AlwaysOn, the reporting server contains the information about a transaction with 1 million commands in just 1 second. In addition with the previous solution, a transaction with 9 million commands would have taken 950 seconds to write to the reporting server. Today, it is sent in just 3.5 seconds.

45

“The performance and scalability that we achieve with SQL Server 2012 has exceeded all of our initial expectations. With it, our existing CRM system can process a transaction that used to take more than 6 minutes in just 90 seconds.”

Sergei Robozerov, Deputy IT Director, Baltika Brewing Company

With SQL Server 2012, employees and partners can make operational and marketing decisions based on near-real-time data about sales, inventory, and production processes. This increased insight will help Baltika boost its competitiveness and expansion into new regions.

In addition, by using SQL Server 2012 AlwaysOn, the reporting server can take over automatically for the production system if an outage occurs. As a result, Baltika can achieve higher levels of availability.

Expands Capacity by 40 Percent and Minimizes Costs Even though it used existing hardware to support its new solution, Baltika has increased CRM performance and IT scalability. “By updating our CRM solution to use Microsoft SQL Server 2012 including AlwaysOn and data compression, we have increased the system’s transactional capacity by 40 percent without increasing operational costs,” says German Epstein, Vice President of Information Technology at Baltika. “As a result, we will be able to offer more services to our employees and to the other companies within the Carlsberg Group.”

Microsoft Server Product PortfolioFor more information about the Microsoft server product portfolio, go to:www.microsoft.com/servers

55

For More InformationFor more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (877) 568-2495. Customers in the United States and Canada who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to:www.microsoft.com

For more information about Monolit-Info products and services, call (7) (812) 334-9595 or visit the website at: www.monolit.com/en

For more information about Baltika Brewing Company products and services, call (7) (812) 326-6267 or visit the website at: www.baltikabeer.com

This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.

Document published April 2012

Software and Services Microsoft Server Product Portfolio− Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise− Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Enterprise

Services− Microsoft Services Premier Support

Hardware HP ProLiant BL465c G7 server computer HP ProLiant BL685c G7 server computer HP EVA P6500 disk array

Partners Monolit-Info