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Larry H. Miller Group Saves Over $650,000 through WAN Optimization and Application Acceleration with Windows Server® on WAAS
Business Challenge
The Larry H. Miller Group (LHM) is one of the largest privately owned companies in the United States. Founded in 1979 as an automotive dealership, LHM has subsequently expanded to become a collection of diverse business enterprises including ownership of the Utah Jazz basketball team, the EnergySolutions sports arena, Megaplex movie theaters, KFAN radio station, and KJZZ television station. Based in Sandy, Utah, LHM employs 7,500 people in six states.
Slow Application Performance Hinders Branch Operations
The automotive division of LHM consists of 43 dealerships across Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, New Mexico, Oregon, and Utah. These locations are supported by two state-of-the-art data centers, one in Salt Lake City, Utah, and one in Chicago, Illinois. Each data center hosts the ADP Dealer Services dealer management application software on two large servers, which also run Microsoft SQL Server 2008. Several other SQL Server-based custom applications and Microsoft Exchange 2007 also run in these locations.
"These applications are profoundly important to our branch employees," says David Austin, IT director for LHM. "They need access to information, and they need it quickly. However, these applications were running very slowly."
For example, service advisors use MOC1 Solution's Wireless Service Advisor (WSA) to greet customers at their vehicle when they arrive at the service department. WSA uses mobile technologies to streamline and standardize the repair order process, but advisors had to wait 40 seconds for customer information to populate on the wireless device.
Furthermore, accessing data through the ADP Dealer Management System (DMS) was also sluggish. The automobile pricing guide returned search results after a 10-second delay, and accounting employees waited 45 minutes for large, business-critical reports to process and print.
In addition to reduced application performance, branch site backups to the data center could take between 12 and 15 hours, often extending into the next working day and further slowing application response time.
"If we continued doing business as usual with slow application response times, we would have had to hire additional staff in our accounting department to handle the daily workload," Austin says.
Increasing Complexity Burdens IT Staff
One possible option for increasing application performance was to install Microsoft SQL Server at each of the branch locations. However, during the past few years, LHM has focused on consolidating applications and the associated infrastructure into its data centers where a strong IT architecture already exists. Decentralizing would only make IT operations more complex.
From a cost perspective, Austin estimates that LHM would have had to install 30 additional SQL servers to adequately support the WSA application. "We were looking at a one-time cost of $91,000 for hardware and software licensing, not to mention the ongoing expenses," Austin says. This was in addition to the servers that were already in branch locations that had to remain there due to legacy applications that could not be centralized.
LHM also struggles with the expenses associated with supporting IT at the dealer locations. "We have 4,000 users spread out over six states," Austin explains. "We wanted to keep the SQL server-based applications in the data centers so that we could more easily manage and maintain them, versus branch locations where IT cost and complexity is higher."
Increased Demand for Bandwidth Drives Up Costs
Because of the increased Internet usage by employees across the company, the broadband connection from the Salt Lake City datacenter to their Internet Service Provider was almost completely saturated. Because of this, LHM anticipated that it would need to install a second digital signal 3 (DS3) line at a cost of $5,500 a month.
In the branch, consolidating applications to the data centers yielded an ever-increasing demand for wide area network (WAN) bandwidth. LHM was prepared to install an additional multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) T1 line at each office for an ongoing expense of $23,000 a month, and a one time cost of $40,000 for hardware improvements to handle the new bandwidth.
Network Solution
To improve application performance, maximize IT efficiency, and reduce bandwidth utilization, LHM realized that it needed a solution based on WAN optimization and application acceleration technology. The company had recently evaluated Cisco® Wide Area Application Services (WAAS), a comprehensive WAN optimization solution that accelerates application traffic over the WAN, delivers video to the branch office, and hosts branch-office IT services. Using Cisco WAAS, LHM could centralize applications and storage in the data centers while maintaining LAN-like application performance at the dealerships.
And with the recent release of Windows Server® on WAAS, which includes Microsoft Windows Server 2008 running on the WAAS appliance in the branch, LHM found this solution to provide an additional critical benefit: the ability to further consolidate server hardware within the dealerships. Based on the combined benefits from Cisco WAAS and the new Windows Server on WAAS offering, LHM moved ahead with the Cisco and Microsoft joint offering.
Windows Server on WAAS
Windows Server on WAAS reduces the cost and complexity of supporting branch office IT operations. Specifically it reduces the hardware footprint in branch locations and optimizes the performance and reliability of centralized applications by combining locally-provisioned Windows services with WAN acceleration technology. Branch employee productivity is increased by offering LAN-like performance of centralized applications and increasing the efficiency and availability of printing, authentication using the read-only domain controller, and DNS/DHCP services. This jointly developed and supported program from technology leaders Microsoft and Cisco helps increase branch IT architecture flexibility while reducing total cost of ownership.
Windows Server 2008 includes several features designed to improve efficiency of branch office server deployment and administration. The Server Core installation option, for example, provides a minimal operating system environment and command-line interface for administration, which reduces , management and security threats, and hardware resources required to host Windows Server.
Business Results
By deploying Windows Server on WAAS, LHM has significantly improved application performance, with some programs running as much as 40 times faster in the case of the WSA application. The company has also streamlined IT operations, increased database server capacity by 25 percent, and reduced bandwidth utilization by as much as 96 percent. LHM estimates cost savings exceeding $650,000 in the first year.
Improved Application Performance, Branch Efficiency
With Windows Server on WAAS, branch employees report that their centralized Microsoft SQL Server-based applications perform up to 40 times faster than without the new solution, and with the same speed as if they were hosted on-premises (see Table 1). "The General Managers at the dealerships say that the difference in application performance is like night and day," Austin says. "Now the WSA devices populate customer information instantaneously. The user experience is the same with the DMS pricing guide application; the information is there as soon as you press the Enter key."
Table 1. Windows Server on WAAS Approximate Application Performance Improvements
The accounting reports, which used to take 45 minutes to process and print, now take only five minutes. "After we deployed Windows Server on WAAS, the help desk received numerous calls from the accounting offices," says Austin. "The employees were convinced that the reports weren't running correctly because they were done so much faster than before. Even the nightly backup is done in less than a third of the time. They were amazed."
Before the Windows Server on WAAS deployment, LHM planned to hire additional accounting staff to keep up with increasing workloads. However, based on employee productivity gains associated with the DMS application running 8-10 times faster, LHM expects to maintain its existing headcount for the next 24 months.
Streamlined IT Management, Reduced Costs
LHM continues to boost IT efficiency by consolidating applications and infrastructure into the two high-performance, state-of-the-art data centers. Rather than installing Microsoft SQL Server at each branch location, a single Windows Server on WAAS appliance in each branch allows for this IT infrastructure to be located in the data centers, saving an estimated $91,000 in hardware and licensing costs.
Further, with Windows Server on WAAS, the company can glean even more efficiency from its existing data center architecture. For example, after deploying the solution, LHM noticed that the database server capacity increased by 25 percent due to fewer and smaller requests to the server. "Now we can serve 25 percent more users per box," Austin explains. "Additionally we were close to running out of server rack space in our Utah data center and in need of another air conditioning unit. But with Windows Server on WAAS, we don't have to increase our air conditioning capacity. That's a $70,000 savings."
LHM has also retired approximately one physical server in each of the 43 dealerships and moved the Windows Server 2008 based auto dealer applications onto the new Windows Server on WAAS appliance in each location. By reducing branch IT footprint, LHM can more easily handle remote IT management. "Windows Server on WAAS is very easy to deploy and configure versus the servers that we had before," says Austin. "We basically just turn it on and we're ready to go and are performing just like full-blown Dell servers would. We haven't noticed any difference."
From eliminating the need for 43 additional branch servers and consolidating existing Windows Server 2008 based applications from standalone branch servers onto the Windows Server on WAAS appliances, LHM estimates the capital cost savings to be $2500 for one new sever at 43 dealerships, or $107,500. Further, the operating cost savings from this consolidation is estimated to be $15,000 for hardware support costs plus the staffing cost to maintain these servers (see Table 2).
Table 2. Windows Server on WAAS Cost Avoidance in First Year
Austin also cites Cisco SMARTnet® Service as a tremendous benefit to operational efficiency. This service provides award-winning technical support that offers direct, anytime access to rapid problem resolution. "If we ever need to replace a Windows Server on WAAS appliance, we're guaranteed to receive the replacement hardware within four hours," Austin explains. "SMARTnet is much faster and easier to use than other server companies' technical support."
Regarding overall IT management activities and associated costs, Austin says, "Windows Server on WAAS provides a much more elegant IT architecture than we previously had at LHM."
Reduced Bandwidth Utilization
Using Windows Server on WAAS to optimize WAN traffic, LHM has experienced a dramatic reduction in bandwidth utilization (see Table 3). Windows Server on WAAS caches Internet traffic within its storage system, so there are fewer Internet queries going to the ISP, and thus the company no longer needs to add a second DS3 line in its Salt Lake City data center. The cost savings equals $66,000 a year.
And decreased demand for WAN bandwidth translates into cost savings for the branch locations. LHM no longer needs to add additional T1 lines at each office, saving the company $276,000 a year in telecommunication expenses and an additional $40,000 for needed hardware upgrade costs and installation.
Table 3. Windows Server on WAAS Bandwidth Savings
In conclusion, Austin says, "With Windows Server on WAAS, we can improve employee productivity, boost IT efficiency, and reduce our hardware costs. It's a simple solution with tangible results, which made it easy to sell to our board of directors. We literally drew a picture on a white board and said, `The benefits are stacked. And with Cisco SMARTnet, we have support 24 hours a day, seven days a week.' The board's response was, `Well, of course we want to do that.' It's been a huge win all the way around."
Technical Implementation
Believing that an integrated Cisco WAN optimization and Microsoft Windows Server solution would address the current challenges, LHM turned to its IT partner Automatic Data Processing (ADP) for deployment assistance. And given ADP's applications and network solution experience, and depth of knowledge in the automotive industry, they became an important part of the project's success. "After a close evaluation of LHM's needs, we realized that the Cisco, Microsoft solution, Windows Server on WAAS, would be the optimal solution," says Michael Jurica, Manager-Systems Engineering, ADP. "Selecting ADP was a wise decision," adds Austin. "Their end-to-end knowledge of WAN optimization and our Dealer Management System allowed them the ability to address a wide scope of our business and IT challenges."
ADP deployed the Windows Server on WAAS solution in all dealerships using Cisco Wide Area Virtualization Engine (WAVE) 574 and Cisco Wide Area Application Engine (WAE) 674 appliances. The branch appliances run the Windows Server 2008 Server Core installation option on the Cisco WAAS platform, which communicates over the WAN to Cisco WAAS appliances in the data center (see Figure 1).
LHM has also retired approximately one physical server in each of the 43 dealerships and moved the Windows Server 2008-based auto dealer applications onto the new Windows Server on WAAS appliance in each location. Because these applications run with the same effectiveness as they had on the standalone servers, LHM has been able to save hardware, maintenance, and power expenses related to this branch footprint consolidation.
Figure 1. Windows Server on WAAS Deployment Architecture
For More Information
To find out more about Cisco WAAS, go to http://www.cisco.com/go/waas.
To find out more about Windows Server on WAAS, go to http://www.windowsserveronwaas.com.