Customer reference

Customer: PricewaterhouseCoopers AG WPG

Employees: approx. 9000Country: GermanySector: Auditing and tax consul-

tancy Customer profile

PricewaterhouseCoopers AG WPG (PwC) is one of Germany's leading auditing and consultancy firms. With branches in 28 locations, the company achieves sales of 1.45 billion euros. PwC is a member of the global network of PricewaterhouseCoo-pers companies, which has a presence in more than 150 countries. The experts at PwC are highly specialized in the branch and advise companies of all sizes, as well as private clients, associations and public institutions. Their range of services covers auditing and audit-related services, fiscal advice, deals and consulting.

Advantages of the solution• 3 to 5 times more performance• Running costs reduced by up to 1/3• 3 times shorter response times• Database size is halved from 10 to 5 TB

From Oracle on Solaris to Windows Server and SQL Server

Half the database size, 5 times performance"For our IT strategy, we rely on SAP and Microsoft. With the mi-gration from Oracle to the Microsoft Platform, we achieved all our project and cost targets. Cooperation with Microsoft was ex-cellent, and our users are much happier. “Burkhard Schütte, Chief Information Officer (CIO), PwC AG WPG

Offering high-quality auditing and consulting from a single source: To satisfy these requirements, for a long time now PricewaterhouseCoopers AG WPG (PwC) has em-ployed uniform administrative software and powerful IT solutions. With the need for consolidation and lifecycle management of the Oracle, Solaris and SAP platform, which had grown historically over time, the auditing and consulting company turned to Microsoft and, after a successful proof of concept, migrated to a Microsoft and SQL Server platform in just ten weeks.

"Thanks to the migration, we have stabilized our SAP envi-ronment, And now we have virtually unlimited opportuni-ties for scaling as well as vital power reserves for the future."

Burkhard Schütte

Change of platform optimizes the system

"Our systems had reached the limits of their capacity. Response times were no longer adequate," says Burkhard Schütte, Chief Information Officer (CIO) at PwC, describing the need for action. This was due to the constantly growing quantities of data generated by SAP CRM as well as other SAP systems during the processing of all financial, accounting and booking data, and for customer relationship man-agement.To improve productivity and ensure stable operation, the existing system land-scape was thoroughly tested. It quickly became clear that the old infrastructure could only be scaled up for the required performance through extremely costly hardware upgrades. Therefore, PwC decided to switch to a completely differ-ent platform. The aim was to achieve the required performance by replacing the server operating system, hardware and database application on the one hand, and to permanently protect investments and achieve greater future security on the other hand.

SQL Server migration including SAP Unicode switchover

In addition, its migration to the new plat-form enabled PwC to simultaneously implement the by SAP recommended Unicode switchover for SAP systems, and cover all the system languages in one a single SAP code page. This way, the company avoided a further time-con-suming and expensive migration project which, due to the export and import of SAP databases, would have incurred almost the same expenditure as for the migration to the SQL Server platform. However, with the introduction of the SQL Server database, the Unicode switch at PwC was problem-free and without any additional costs.

SQL data compression halves memory costs

SQL Server showed another of its strengths in this respect: data compres-sion. Because Unicode systems store all data in double-byte format, they need much more hard disk storage space, which has a noticeable effect on operating costs. However, the SQL Server data compression more than compensated for this disadvantage. It halved the required memory, in-cluding for Unicode data, and there-fore also saves nearly 50 % on costs.

A fast and smooth transition over the Easter Weekend

To keep system downtimes to a minimum for users, PwC and Microsoft Services decided to use a long weekend for the migration. Schütte remembers: "So as not to restrict users' productiv-ity unnecessarily due to downtime of the SAP application during the transi-tion and to keep financial losses due to downtime of the SAP application to the absolute minimum, we planned to do the change of the infrastructure during the long Easter weekend. The migration was completely on time for the start of work on the following Tuesday, and the new IT infrastructure functioned per-fectly straight away." The project pro-gressed so well that Microsoft partner connmove decided to offer migrations from SAP systems of this kind at fixed prices. Quotations for this work can be produced on the homepage using an online calculator.

Coherent overall package with numerous advantages

"The price of the overall package, con-sisting of Intel hardware, Windows Server operating system and SQL Server data-base platform was, quite simply, right," explains Burkhard Schütte. Moreover, says Schütte, the decision to switch plat-forms was facilitated by the promise of long-term cost savings. As IT systems can be virtualized with the Microsoft technol-ogy, this produces additional computing capacity and power reserves, allowing PwC to reduce the size of the data center and operate it at lower cost. Another im-portant factor in the decision, according to Schütte, was PwC's positive experienc-es in the U.S., where the company had already successfully migrated SAP appli-cations to an SQL Server platform.For the migration in Germany, PwC re-ceived support from qualified specialists: Microsoft Services not only guaranteed the migration at a fixed price, but also a maximum migration time of ten weeks and the achievement of the necessary performance targets, such as shorter re-sponse times, a smaller sizeddatabase and lower operating costs. To carry out the SAP migration, Microsoft additionally put its trust in its specialist SAP-certified partner, connmove. This firm furnishes additional expertise in SAP and so made sure the migration would conform to SAP stipulations and stan-dards.

Stipulations met, goals exceeded – SQL platform convinces PwC

PwC is now delighted with its stable and reliable SQL Server platform, which meets - and sometimes even exceeds - all stipu-lations and set targets. The company and its users benefit from• 3 - 5 times better performance• 2 - 3 times lower costs during ongoing

operation• 3 times shorter response times• A smaller database, reduced from 10 to

5 TB.

Burkhard Schütte's conclusion is there-fore extremely positive, and above all, he expects further improvements with the new SQL Server version. Cancel the sql 2012 part. "The new SQL Server 2012 functions are very interesting. I can well imagine that the BI Semantic Data Model, Data Analysis Expressions (DAX) and Data Quality Services (DQS), but also Power View and PowerPivot, will further improve data quality and user friendli-ness during data retrieval and analysis."

Software and services

• Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 • Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2• SAP R/3

More information

Reference customer

PricewaterhouseCoopersAktiengesellschaft WirtschaftsprüfungsgesellschaftFriedrich-Ebert-Anlage 35-3760327 Frankfurt am MainGermanyTel.: +49 69 9585-0Fax: +49 69 9585-1000E-mail:webkontakt_anfragen@de.pwc.com www.pwc.de

Microsoft partners

connmove Consulting GmbHHerzog-Georg-Strasse 1b89415 LauingenGermanyTel.: +49 8222 91827-0Fax: +49 8222 91827-50E-mail: info@connmove.dewww.connmove.com

GeschäftskundenbetreuungMicrosoft Deutschland GmbHKonrad-Zuse-Strasse 185716 UnterschleissheimGermanyTel.: 0180 5 672330*

*0.14 euros/min., throughout Germany; Cell phone charges may varyYou can find further customer references online on the Microsoft website: www.microsoft.de/kundenreferenzen

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