Red Hat Customer Success Stories: Migrating to SAP S/4HANA with RHEL for SAP Solutions and more

Automation and management are important tools for organizations looking to modernize, improve efficiency, and expand their IT systems without having to add staff. When faced with these problems, some companies turn to Red Hat to help them use enterprise open source to solve their problems. See how Mann & Schröder Cosmetics, Swiss Federal Railways, and Česká spořitelna worked with Red Hat to improve their IT. 

Migrating to SAP S/4HANA with Red Hat Enterprise Linux for SAP Solutions and Red Hat Satellite

Mann & Schröder Cosmetics is a mid-size consumer goods manufacturer that exports more than 2,000 hair and body care products to more than 70 countries. Technology has become increasingly critical to the company’s successful growth, but expanding IT systems to meet new business needs was challenging for its small IT department. Additionally, the company’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, based on a Visual Basic application supported by a database, was not built to scale.

“Our company was growing dynamically,” said Yvonne Purkert, SAP Project Manager at Mann & Schröder Cosmetics. “One of our biggest challenges was our multisystem landscape. New servers needed to be set up and provisioned quickly to support our growth.”

In 2016, Mann & Schröder Cosmetics transitioned to SAP ERP. However, companies using this software risk losing support if they do not migrate to SAP S/4 HANA by 2027. After evaluating several solutions, Mann & Schröder Cosmetics decided to add two Red Hat products to its enterprise Linux environment, Red Hat Enterprise Linux for SAP Solutions and Red Hat Satellite to efficiently manage and update its Red Hat technology. 

Read the entire case study and learn more about how Mann & Schröder Cosmetics migrated to SAP S/4HANA years ahead of the vendor’s deadline as an early user of SAP S/4HANA in a production environment. 

Reducing device configuration times up to 90% with Red Hat Ansible Automation

Swiss Federal Railways (SBB) plans to invest close to US $1 billion annually in new and modernized trains to create a smart, safe, and highly efficient rail network. For example, new trains will include intelligent features such as dynamic LED information displays, digital seat booking systems, CCTV safety monitoring, and WiFi access. However, managing the devices supporting these features was difficult due to high volume and a lack of central control.

“Previously, we had to physically go onto every train to manually check, update, or fix each device,” said Sascha Berger, System Engineer at SBB. “There was no room for innovation because we had to painstakingly deal with each device and their individual suppliers.”

SBB sought an enterprise open source management platform and decided to work with Red Hat. “One of the decisive considerations was availability of long-term support,” said Berger. “Red Hat was one of the few vendors that could claim ten years of support for its operating system.”

RHEL is at the core of SBB’s updated device environment, and Red Hat Ansible Automation helps SBB automate complex deployments and centrally control its IT infrastructure through a visual dashboard with features such as role-based access, scheduling, integrated notifications, and graphical inventory management. 

With help from Red Hat Consulting SBB's new application environment was operational in just three weeks. Read the entire case study to learn more about how RHEL, Ansible Automation, and Red Hat Consulting have reduced configuration times up to 90%. 

Accelerating development in the largest Czech retail bank

Česká spořitelna (CSAS), part of Erste Group Bank AG, is the largest retail bank in the Czech Republic. To support its shift to focus on digital services, the bank sought to simplify development and eliminate task duplication. CSAS worked closely with Red Hat Consulting to learn best practices and migrate to Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform.

In 2016, CSAS developed a public cloud strategy to gain scale, flexibility, and cost advantages for its services. To support this technology approach, the bank sought to adopt more agile application development and production approaches and simplify its application environment.

“Digital transformation is more than an IT or technology issue. It requires a complete restructuring of how we operate and how we serve our customers,” said Petr Lipka, Enterprise Architect at Česká spořitelna. “We have around 250 applications, with a great deal of duplication.”

To speed and streamline its application creation approach, CSAS sought to create a centralized development platform based in a hybrid cloud environment that could provide reliable performance — whether in its datacenter or the public cloud. The bank also wanted an enterprise open source solution that would balance community innovation with the stability of business technology for this strategically critical project. 

After working with ELOS on its initial on-premise deployment of OpenShift Container Platform, CSAS engaged Red Hat Consulting for a three-week workshop at its Prague head office to test and optimize the solution, as well as confirm its design and implementation plans for expanding to public cloud.

The bank’s initial migration to OpenShift included several customer-facing digital banking applications, with plans to scale the migration as teams become more familiar with the new environment. “We wanted insight from someone who had done this sort of implementation at an enterprise level,” said Lipka. “This project was too important to us to leave to trial and error. Red Hat’s experience in public cloud with global enterprises gives us the confidence we’re heading in the right direction.”

Read the entire case study and learn more about the outcomes for CSAS, and where they're going from here with Red Hat.

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Every month, Red Hat publishes case studies and success stories to help illustrate how our products and services can help organizations solve their problems and improve their environments. Stop by our Red Hat Success Stories page and find out how companies like yours use Red Hat technologies to find success.