There is an article at SearchSAP.com describing how SAP infrastructure changes to databases, servers yield quick returns. The article quotes Derek Prior of AMR Research who says that “some are finding it cheaper to swap Oracle databases in a more Unix-oriented environment to DB2” and that companies are “realizing payback within nine to 10 months“.
This is consistent with what we are seeing at IBM. Here are a selection of quotes from organizations who recently swapped the database software for their SAP applications to DB2:
“The migration to DB2 was completed in three months. We estimate that database operational costs have been cut by 68 per cent… The migration was smooth and completed absolutely without a hitch.“—Ralf Rohrer, Head of Server and Storage Operations at Industrielle Werke Basel (IWB)
“Thanks to DB2, we are saving around 25 per cent on software licensing and maintenance fees – which means we have more money in the IT budget to spend on solutions that deliver additional competitive advantage for our business.“—Ozcan Soke, IT Manager, Borçelik
“Our database is now 43 per cent smaller than before, and some of the largest tables have been reduced by up to 70 per cent. Despite the compression, there has been no impact on batch performance, and our most important online transactions are actually 20 per cent faster with the new version of DB2.“—Roland Heim, SAP Basis Administrator, INTER Versicherungen
“Choosing DB2 has delivered significant benefits for our organization: database size has been reduced by 40 per cent and performance is 15 per cent above our targets.“—Brian Visser, IT Operations Director, Central Services at KONE
“We expected an improvement of around 20 per cent in terms of system response time, but we found that the new system was actually 40 per cent faster. The DB2 database is even more efficient than we had anticipated. This means that the investments in new server and storage hardware will actually last longer than planned, contributing to a better-than-forecast return on investment, which is very pleasing.“—Peter Boegler, Solution Architect at SAP IT
There are many more such quotes in the DB2 for SAP case studies.