Microsoft SQL Server

Customer Solution Case Study

Egypts Bavarian Auto Group Deploys SAP On

SQL Server 2005 to Support Rapid Growth

Overview We felt that our integration efforts would be more

Country or Region: Egypt
Industry: Manufacturing Automotive &
difficult if we were working with DB2 or Oracle as our
Industrial and Retail - Automotive SAP database. We already knew we could easily
integrate using SQL Server.
Customer Profile Dr. Zakaria Elnaggar, IT Director, Bavarian Auto Group
Bavarian Auto Group has exclusive rights
for import, assembly, distribution, sales Egypts Bavarian Auto Group, which is sole distributor of BMW,
and after-sales support of BMW products in
Egypt. The company also has exclusive MINI, Rolls-Royce, and other top automotive lines in Egypt, had a
rights to import and support MINI, Rolls- problem many companies would love to have: how to cope with 400
Royce, and other premier brands.
percent growth over the last five years. The company, which also
Business Situation operates an assembly line for BMWs in Egypt, chose SAP as its
Bavarian Auto Group, preparing to deploy
an SAP enterprise resource planning enterprise resource planning solution, and after considering several
solution, sought the best operating system options decided to deploy SAP on the Microsoft Application
and database software for deployment.
Platform, including Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Enterprise Edition
Solution (64-bit) database software. Bavarian Auto Group chose the solution
After considering several options, including
using an existing DB2 database on an over an existing IBM AS400 system with an IBM DB2 database, and
AS400 system, or hosting SAP data on an over an Oracle-based solution, because it wanted the ease of
Oracle solution, the company chose
Microsoft SQL Server 2005. integration it enjoys with the Microsoft Application Platform, and
determined that it would gain enterprise-grade performance while
Benefits
Ease of integration
enjoying a lower total cost of ownership.
Reliability and high availability
Lower total cost of ownership
Efficient development environment
 Situation growth.
In Egypt, Bavarian Auto Group is the sole
agent of BMW, MINI, Rolls-Royce, and other We have enjoyed tremendous growthin
great automotive brands. In addition to excess of 400 percent over the past five
selling new vehicles and providing after-sales years, says Dr. Zakaria Elnaggar, IT Director
support, the company also operates a BMW at Bavarian Auto Group. To keep up with
assembly plant. such rapid growth we needed a platform with
exceptional scalability and reliability.
Based in Cairo, Bavarian Auto Group has
enjoyed rapid growth, which serves as a sign Bavarian Auto Group considered these
of success yet also places pressure on the deployment options:
companys IT infrastructure. To better support
Deploy SAP application modules on the
its growing business, which now includes
companys existing IBM AS400 system and
4,000 employees, Bavarian Auto Group
host SAP databases on the AS400s IBM
needed a powerful and comprehensive
DB2 database that supported an internal
enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution.
BMW dealer-support application.
Deploy SAP application modules using the
After studying its ERP options, the company
Windows Server 2003 operating system
decided to move its operations onto SAP
and host SAP databases on its DB2
software. But before deployment could begin,
database.
Bavarian Auto Group needed to determine
Deploy SAP application modules using
what was the best technology stack for
Windows Server 2003, and host SAP
BMW in Egypt - SAP running on hosting SAP. It required an operating system
Microsoft SQL Server databases on Microsoft SQL Server
and database that provided exceptional
supports BMW sales and 2005.
performance, high availability, and the ability
service in Egypt. Deploy SAP application modules using a
to scale to keep up with the companys rapid
UNIX operating system and host SAP
databases on an Oracle database.

The Oracle option was ruled out early. Dr.

Elnaggar notes, We saw Oracle as being
expensive to license and support, without
offering performance beyond what we could
get with SQL Server.

The company was reluctant to deploy using

its existing AS400/DB2 infrastructure
because it liked the ease of integration and
internal development it had found in other
areas of its operations working with the
Microsoft Application Platform. After speaking
with Microsoft reference companies with
similar deployments, and studying white
papers and other documents, the company
decided to deploy SAP on the Microsoft
Application Platform.
We have used SQL We had plenty of capacity on our AS400 and Server 2007. The presentation tier is
DB2, says Dr. Elnaggar. But over the years supported by Window Server 2003 Internet
Server from version 7 we have moved more and more of our Information Services (IIS) Web server
onward, so we are eager operations onto the Microsoft Application technology.
Platform, and been impressed with its Application Tier. The company hosts all of
to move SAP to SQL enterprise-grade performance, including the its SAP application modules on computers
Server 2008." power of SQL Server. running Windows Server 2003 Enterprise
Edition for 64-Bit Systems R2. Bavarian
Islam Farrag, IT Development Team Leader, Solution Auto Group has also created internal
Bavarian Auto Group Bavarian Auto Group deployed SAP ERP on applications, some of which access SAP
the Microsoft Application Platform, including applications. All internal development is
SQL Server 2005 Enterprise Edition (64-bit). performed using Microsoft Visual Studio
The company, which has already deployed 2008 and the Microsoft .NET Framework
SQL Server 2008 in other parts of its 3.0. The company uses its AS400/DB2
enterprise, plans a rapid upgrade of its SAP infrastructure to host a BMW dealer-
database to SQL Server 2008. support application.
Database Tier. All SAP data is stored on
We have used SQL Server from version 7 servers running SQL Server 2005, soon to
onward, so we are eager to move SAP to SQL be updated to SQL Server 2008 Enterprise.
Server 2008, says Islam Farrag, IT SQL Server also supports a data mart for
Development Team Leader at Bavarian Auto BMW dealer-support information imported
Group. We really like SQL Server 2008 from that applications DB2 data store on
Reporting Services, and so are eager to the AS400.
upgrade just to take advantage of that. ETL Tier. All extract, transform, and load
(ETL) processes are performed using SQL
SAP modules deployed include Financial, Server Integration Services.
Controlling, Material Management, Sales and Analytics Tier. The company performs
Distribution, and Production Planning. The analytics on data, including information
SAP modules should help Bavarian Auto from the BMW dealer-support application
Group reduce costs, monitor shop floor hosted on the AS400/DB2 stack. After
activities online, easily control finished being imported into a SQL Server data
products, and consolidate financial mart, using SQL Server Integration Services
statements. to perform ETL, information is structured
into multidimensional data cubes for faster
Bavarian Auto Group used Microsoft Office analytics using SQL Server Analysis
SharePoint Server 2007 to create an Services.
intranet portal giving employees centralized, Reporting Tier. Recurring and ad hoc
role-based access to applications and data reporting of non-SAP data is supported
stores, including SAP. using SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services.
Microsoft ProClarity business analysis
The company has a general enterprise software is used for reporting against the
architecture that includes: data mart.

Presentation Tier. Bavarian Auto Group

The solution is deployed on an HP ProLiant
employees access SAP and most other
DL380 G5 server with 16 gigabytes (GB) of
applications through an intranet portal
RAM. Storage is on a storage area network
created using Microsoft Office SharePoint
(SAN) with 1 terabyte of space. The company
Weve enjoyed faultless also has two HP ProLiant DL380 G5 servers, integrated solutions that otherwise could be
each with 8 GB of RAM, dedicated to testing quite difficult to piece together using other
performance with and quality assurance. databases and third-party applications.
Windows Server and
Benefits Reliability and High Availability
SQL Server. We havent Deploying SAP on the Microsoft Application Bavarian Auto Group has enjoyed flawless
had any unscheduled Platform has helped the company gain the stability hosting SAP on the Microsoft
ease of integration it wanted in order to make Application Platform. The company wasnt
downtime. best use of SAP information across the surprised by this, as it has steadily moved
Dr. Zakaria Elnaggar, IT Director, Bavarian enterprise. The company is enjoying system nearly all of its IT infrastructure to the
Auto Group stability, having experienced zero Microsoft Application Platform in recent
unscheduled downtime for SAP. Additional years.
benefits include a lower total cost of
ownership than other platforms considered, To help enhance reliability and high
and an efficient development environment. availability, Bavarian Auto Group used
Windows Server clustering technology to
Ease of Integration deploy SAP on a two-node active-active
When Dr. Elnaggar speaks of the decision to cluster. The nodes are configured for failover,
host SAP on SQL Server, the first reason he so if one of the physical servers fails, the
gives is integration. It would have been easy other continues to provide service until the
for us to have simply used our AS400 and other node is brought back online.
DB2 for SAP, but we knew that when we
deployed SAP it wouldnt be just a stand- Weve enjoyed faultless performance with
alone system, Dr. Elnaggar says. We knew Windows Server and SQL Server, says Dr.
that we would be integrating our own internal Elnaggar. We havent had any unscheduled
applications with SAP to make best use of the downtime.
information. We felt that our integration
efforts would be more difficult if we were Lower Total Cost of Ownership
working with DB2 or Oracle as our SAP Bavarian Auto Group could have enjoyed an
database. We already knew we could easily initial savings on hardware by deploying SAP
integrate using SQL Server. on its existing AS400 system. Even though
his group had to purchase new server
The company appreciates the ease with computers to deploy SAP on the Microsoft
which it can integrate SAP with its SharePoint Application Platform, the company
Server portal, which also provides access to determined that the Microsoft option
the companys extensive reports created provided a lower total cost of ownership
using SQL Server Reporting Services and with because of lower licensing and system
the data mart analytics created using SQL administration costs.
Server Analysis Services and queried against
using Microsoft ProClarity. We had to look beyond having to purchase
hardware for the deployment, because
We are using SQL Server Analysis Services everything else is less expensive with the
and Reporting Services to create BI [business Microsoft Application Platform, says Dr.
intelligence] and then making all of this Elnaggar. From our perspective SQL Server
accessible through our SharePoint Server has more attractive licensing than does
site, says Dr. Elnaggar. The Microsoft Oracle. We find that UNIX boxes cost about
Application Platform makes it easy to create twice what a similarly equipped Intel-based
Every way we looked at server computer does. And it is more difficult other options it explored, by deploying its
to find Oracle administrators here in Egypt, solution on the Microsoft Application
alternatives, we and once found they can be considerably Platform, including SQL Server.
determined that our more expensive.

lowest total cost of The company also felt that its internal
ownership would come application development and systems
integration would be more expensive if it had
from deploying SAP on brought in a new type of operating system
the Windows Server and database. We are very comfortable
creating solutions with the Microsoft
operating system and Application Platform, says Farrag. And in
the SQL Server regards to ongoing systems administration,
SQL Server 2005 is very easy to manage.
database.
Dr. Zakaria Elnaggar, IT Director, Bavarian Dr. Elnaggar notes, Every way we looked at
Auto Group alternatives, we determined that our lowest
total cost of ownership would come from
deploying SAP on the Windows Server
operating system and the SQL Server
database.

Efficient Development Environment

The companys internal developers enjoy
working with Visual Studio 2008, the
Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0, SQL Server
2005, and SharePoint Server 2007 in
creating better solutions for their users at
Bavarian Auto Group.

We have excellent internal developers who

are adept at using Microsoft development
tools and SQL Server to give our internal
users the information they need, says
Farrag. We use SQL Server Integration
Services extensively to move data to
wherever it is needed, and then use Analysis
Services and ProClarity to perform analytics
and Reporting Services, and SharePoint
Server to provide access to the results. We
feel we have the tools to give our users
whatever IT solution they may need.

Summary
In summary, Bavarian Auto Group gained an
optimal infrastructure for hosting SAP, and a
lower total cost of ownership compared to
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For more information about HP products from their business information and achieve
and services, visit the Web site at: faster results for a competitive advantage.
www.hp.com And, because its part of the Microsoft server
product portfolio, SQL Server 2005 is
For more information about Bavarian Auto designed to integrate seamlessly with your
Group products and services, visit the Web other server infrastructure investments.
site at: www.bag-eg.com
For more information about SQL Server
2005, go to:
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Software and Services Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Analysis

Microsoft Server Product Portfolio Services
Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Reporting
Edition for 64-Bit Systems Services
Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Enterprise Microsoft ProClarity
Edition (64-bit)
Microsoft Office Partner
Microsoft Office SharePoint Server HP
2007
Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Hardware
Technologies HP ProLiant DL380 G5 servers
Microsoft Internet Information Server
6.0
Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0

This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT

MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS
SUMMARY.

Document published December 2008