Enduring Value Realised
We define success as lasting improvements in enterprise performance, not quick wins. For over twenty years, we've improved IBM Power environments.
Clear Benefits
We see clear benefits, including:
- More capacity
- Improved operational margins
- Saved capital
- Increased strategic agility
These results come from a deep understanding of the client's industry. We also have a clear grasp of their workflow and long-term goals. This insight informed our approach before implementing any changes.
Long-term Benefits
Benefits build up over time. They often show as:
- Lower costs
- Faster responses
- Steady growth
You can achieve this without needing more infrastructure.
Illustrative Engagements
A well-known South African bank has used AIX for years. Depending on AIX for important batch processing and transaction workflows. However, after migrating to Power10, batch jobs began to exceed their time limits by a large margin. This situation risks SLA penalties and raises executive concerns.
Key Improvements
To address these challenges, we implemented several strategies:
- Adjusted LPAR CPU allocations to improve hypervisor overhead
- Optimised PowerVM settings for better core efficiency
- Fine-tuned network and I/O performance for lower latency
Results
The outcome was smoother and more predictable operations:
- Batch jobs finished 40% faster
- Core utilisation improved to 85%, up from 50%
- Licensing exposure decreased, cutting SLA risks and boosting operational margins
These improvements allowed teams to focus on strategic priorities instead of fixing problems.
We helped a financial services firm leverage their Power10 refresh to implement IBM Power Private Cloud with Shared Utility Capacity (PEP 2.0), to modernize their resource management and improve platform agility.
Results
After the migration, transaction capacity and system performance increased significantly. Because PEP 2.0 keeps all cores and memory active from Day 1, the firm unlocked the full memory-to-CPU bandwidth that remains restricted in a "dark core" PEP 1.0 environment.
Financial Impact
Maintenance Savings: By shifting to the Shared Utility model, the firm now only pays hardware and software maintenance on base licenses. Capacity credits for "bursting" include maintenance in the metered usage, resulting in massive savings over the maintenance period.
Operational Intelligence: Through the IBM Cloud Management Console (CMC), the firm gained per-minute resolution into CPU, memory, network and I/O use.
Streamlined Compliance: The CMC’s integrated patch planning and capacity dashboards have simplified audit readiness and future growth planning.
This approach allowed the firm to support aggressive client growth and instantaneous DR readiness, and advance towards hybrid-cloud readiness.
For a large investment bank, creating new AIX LPARs typically involved a manual process that required multiple departments and took about three weeks to finish. With a major Oracle migration project looming, which demanded the quick deployment of over 150 LPARs within a strict deadline, the bank's old provisioning methods had become a major risk for the project's success.
Analysis and Improvements
Provisioning needed manual coordination between the compute, storage, and networking teams, which led to configuration drift and human error.
To meet the migration deadline, we proposed modernizing their virtualization layer using IBM Power Virtualization Center (PowerVC). By implementing this OpenStack-based management solution, we transformed their infrastructure into a modern private cloud.
Key Benefits & Transformation
The shift to PowerVC provided the bank with the automated orchestration necessary to handle the Oracle migration at scale:
Rapid Automated Deployment: We replaced manual installations with Image-Based Provisioning. Administrators could now capture a "Golden Image" of a hardened AIX/Oracle instance and deploy it across the fleet in minutes.
One-Click SAN-zoning and storage provisioning: PowerVC automated the complex tasks of Fiber Channel zoning and storage allocation.
Self-Service & Resource Optimization: The bank gained a centralized "single-pane-of-glass" view, allowing for dynamic workload balancing and ensuring the 150+ new LPARs were placed on the most efficient physical hosts.
Elimination of Configuration Drift: By using standardized templates, every LPAR in the Oracle migration was identical in its configuration, significantly reducing the time spent on post-deployment troubleshooting and compliance audits.
The Results
The impact was immediate. The build time for a production-ready AIX LPAR dropped from three weeks to under 30 minutes. The bank successfully completed more than 80 lpar builds in the first two weeks after PowerVC went live.
This modernization didn't just solve a temporary capacity problem; it provided the bank with a scalable, software-defined infrastructure that serves as the foundation for their future hybrid cloud strategy.