CASE STUDY

MANAGED HOSTING SERVICE

RUNNING SAP HANA AND
OTHER BUSINESS-CRITICAL
APPS HELPS OMANI
CONGLOMERATE MAINTAIN
MARKET LEADERSHIP.
KHIMJI RAMDAS PARTNERS WITH TATA
COMMUNICATIONS TO POWER CLOUD-ENABLED
DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION.

BUSINESS CHALLENGE
Aiming for a digital transformation based on an upgrade to SAP HANA,
along with meeting business requirements more quickly and achieving
a consistent customer experience, Khimji Ramdas was facing a stark
choice. Spend a fortune stripping out and rebuilding its legacy data
centre, or make a bold move into the cloud?

SOLUTION
Bold moves take courage born of confidence. The strength of the
Tata Communications brand and the integrity of its Managed Hosting
Service made up the senior team’s minds. Twin data centres running
SAP HANA offered the assurance Khimji Ramdas was seeking.

BENEFITS
Creditably, the transition to the cloud infrastructure passed
utterly unnoticed by the company’s end users. They got improved
performance and the benefits of mobile apps. Khimji Ramdas itself
escaped a huge CapEx bill, while reducing its total cost of ownership.
The IT team got increased productivity with first-class support and the
ability to focus on growth and expansion plans. Winners all round.

ABOUT KHIMJI RAMDAS

Significant sum Marked drop Twice the output 10 out of 10 The Khimji Ramdas Group is a
in avoided CapEx in total cost of from same IT in key support
ownership staffing levels categories business conglomerate based
in the Sultanate of Oman.
Trusted and respected for over
a century, it has achieved and
maintained leadership in vertical
“From a technical and cultural standpoint, as sectors like retail, infrastructure
well as for assured security, a cloud solution and industrial. The Group
from Tata Communications came out on has four diversified strategic
divisions: consumer products,
top. Equally importantly, the strength of the
infrastructure, lifestyle, and
brand gave us the confidence we needed to projects and logistics.
move forward.” For more information go to:
CHANDRA SHEKHAR JAJWARE [Link].
GROUP CIO, KHIMJI RAMDAS

04/2018
BOLD CLOUD CHOICE
With four diverse groups and over 40 business divisions, Khimji
Ramdas Group depends on its IT infrastructure to keep the
entire organisation acting as one. Having historically run a SAP
environment the company started a digital transformation journey,
including flexible mobile apps for access to backend ERP systems.
But that would take a total upgrade to SAP HANA.

The problem was the SAP software had long been running on
servers that were now creaking at the seams. Lacking the power
and capacity required for SAP HANA, and many other business-
critical apps, those servers would need wholesale replacement.
That could have left Khimji Ramdas facing the huge capital cost
and upheaval of a complete data centre strip-out.

Moreover, Khimji Ramdas was looking for a high availability IT

infrastructure and shorter timelines to meet business requirement,
while ensuring a more consistent customer experience. Chandra
Shekhar Jajware, Group CIO, takes up the story: “For an IT
professional, the cloud seemed the obvious alternative. The time
had come to be bold.”

MOVING FORWARD WITH CONFIDENCE “We learned that Tata

In preparing senior managers for a strategic decision of such Communications is genuinely
magnitude – for example, the implications of running computer a solutions provider rather
systems and storing business data offsite – the IT team conducted than a run-of-the-mill seller of
a careful market survey to contain the risk.
infrastructure commodities, so
“From a technical and cultural standpoint, as well as for assured we joined hands with them as
security, a cloud solution from Tata Communications came out on a strategic partner.”
top. Equally importantly, the strength of the brand gave us the
confidence we needed to move forward,” continues Shekhar. “We CHANDRA SHEKHAR JAJWARE
also learned that Tata Communications is genuinely a solutions GROUP CIO, KHIMJI RAMDAS
provider rather than a run-of-the-mill seller of infrastructure
commodities, so we joined hands with them as a strategic partner.”
SPECIALLY ENGINEERED AND MANAGED FLEXIBILITY COMES WITH FINANCIAL
DIVIDENDS
Tata Communications proposed a Managed Hosting Service
across two data centres: one for production and the other In terms of cost optimisation, the Tata Communications
as a DR facility. This infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) pay-as-you-go IaaS model eliminated CapEx investment.
solution was specially customised for Khimji Ramdas. As an Khimji Ramdas avoided spending a significant sum, while
innovative two-tier virtual/physical architecture, it would at the same time realising a marked reduction in total
use network-attached storage to ease the transition by cost of ownership. Meanwhile, being able to scale the
closely matching what went before. infrastructure up or down makes the business more flexible
in the face of economic swings.
Another example of innovation by Tata Communications
was a custom-designed IP backbone capability. A global Shekhar puts that in perspective: “To help us cope with
MPLS network would have been a costly way to connect peaks and troughs, our legacy hardware estate was over-
the 2,000+ users to the data centres. Instead, dual high- designed and nearly double the capacity we actually
capacity Internet circuits were installed in both data needed. Now we can flex compute capacity to match our
centres and at a Khimji Ramdas point of presence. Specially exact needs. Those changes take place in days rather than
engineered to always choose the shortest path, these links months; and we only pay for what we use.”
overcame contention and latency issues.
GUARDIAN ANGEL CHANNELS BEST PRACTICE
CLINICAL TRANSITION INVISIBLE TO END USERS
As a strategic reference customer, Khimji Ramdas meets
Detailed preparatory work was crucial to delivering the the Tata Communications criteria for the services of a
project without disruption. “That investment in time was technical account manager (TAM). Akin to a technological
the single biggest contribution to our success,” says guardian angel, the TAM runs improvement plans and
Shekhar. “It was amazingly clinical. The system’s complexity channels best practice. Examples include monitoring CPU
demanded detailed testing, while a lot of planning was utilisation to head off service-affecting problems and
involved to avoid downtime.” Tata Communications arranging DR tests, so the business stays always-ready for
professional services people offered strategic support and unexpected emergencies.
practical advice whenever challenges occurred.
“Such matters are discussed at monthly meetings with the
In the event, the transition to the cloud and the IP TAM, where a shared slide deck keeps everything on track,”
backbone ran like clockwork. “Users were unaware such a says Shekhar. “The value to Khimji Ramdas is immense.”
massive change had occurred. We told them three weeks
later, when they noticed the performance improvements
and were introduced to the business and personal benefits
of mobile apps,” recalls Shekhar.

“It was amazingly clinical. Users were unaware such a massive change had
occurred. We told them three weeks later.”
CHANDRA SHEKHAR JAJWARE, GROUP CIO, KHIMJI RAMDAS
MANAGING THE ENTIRE IAAS STACK
The cloud service is monitored 24/7/365 from the Tata
Communications managed services operations centre (MSOC) ABOUT OUR MANAGED
in Chennai. That covers the entire IaaS stack of virtual servers, HOSTING SERVICE
operating systems, the network, and security aspects. The TAM,
meanwhile, advises on security patches to assure cybersafety.
Whatever an organisation’s size,
“Since the start of the Tata Communications service, no serious
cyberattacks have penetrated our security shield,” says Shekhar. infrastructure, or growth ambitions, Tata
Communications Managed Hosting Services
Tata Communications also configured an end-to-end proactive can be tailored to meet its exact needs.
alert management system. Integrating the existing Khimji Ramdas
Infrastructures are hosted in state-of-the-
trouble ticketing application with the one running in the MSOC,
this automatically updates progress on both systems. That not only art data centres built to TIA 942 Tier-3
eliminates manual interventions but also speeds time to rectify standards for enhanced performance and
problems. reliability. Tata Communications takes care
of everything to ensure smooth, always-
SLAs cover availability and mean time to resolve (MTTR). Targets
are set at 99.99 per cent and four business hours respectively. successful hosting. The Managed Services
Meanwhile, recovery time objective (RTO) and recovery point Operations Centre offers 24/7/365 support,
objective (RPO) are two of the most important DR plan parameters. while delivery and management processes
These are measured during regular non-disruptive DR tests.
adhere to ITIL service delivery guidelines.
Shekhar confirms: “Tata Communications meets and exceeds all
contractual obligations.” Find out more at: [Link]
[Link]/services/cloud/
REMARKABLY INVENTIVE THINKING
infrastructure/hosting
That level of round-the-clock support from Tata Communications
is in stark contrast to the business-hours maintenance service that
went before. It takes a weight off the minds of the IT team and
allows them to focus on more strategic priorities. “In fact,” says
Shekhar, “we’re now able to do around twice as much work with
the same staffing levels as before.”

Throughout the project, Khimji Ramdas and Tata Communications

people have learned much from each other, sometimes surprising
SAP with the inventiveness of their thinking. Mutual regard
between the teams is remarkably high.

Shekhar concludes: “I’d rate the support provided by Tata

Communications as nine out of 10 across the board, and literally 10
out of 10 in some cases. Believe me, that’s unusual in our industry.
The company is blessed with very many excellent people.”

“I’d rate the support provided by Tata Communications as nine out of 10 across
the board, and literally 10 out of 10 in some cases. Believe me, that’s unusual in
our industry. The company is blessed with very many excellent people.”
CHANDRA SHEKHAR JAJWARE, GROUP CIO, KHIMJI RAMDAS

[Link]
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