Cros
sing
Oracle CRM Enabling E-Business through
Applications Oracle CRM Editorial
Integration of Oracle CRM and SAP R/3
E-Business is the talk of the day. While many
proclaim to offer such solutions, few understand
the complexities involved and the requirements
that it entails. E-business goes beyond offering e-
commerce–web based sales–solutions. Imple-
mentation of a successful e-business strategy
requires a business model transformation based
on integrated front-end (CRM) and back-end
(ERP) applications. By offering the Oracle
Applications InterConnect 3i, and the Oracle
CRM Pack for Applications InterConnect 3i,
Oracle is uniquely positioned to support you in
developing and implementing such a successful
e-business strategy. While the former product
offers you the capability to build a robust e-busi-
ness infrastructure, the latter contains the pre-
packaged integration mappings for Oracle CRM
Oracle8i 64-bit Option
Oracle8i - The Database for SAP Business
Information Warehouse
Oracle Management Pack for SAP R/3
Oracle Fail Safe, High Availability Solution for NT
Oracle8 for SAP Ready-to-Run R/3
Oracle Consulting Services for R/3 Customers
Oracle Warehouse Integrator for SAP R/3
Oracle and HP at Goodyear, Malaysia
Oracle and HP at Pall Mall, Malaysia
Oracle and Siemens at UAES, China
Imperial Tobacco Ltd., Oracle on Linux
NT Benchmark with Data General
UNIX Benchmark with IBM
N o. 4 O R A C L E - S A P NEWS N O V E M B E R 1 9 9 9
applications for an out-of-the-box integration
with your SAP R/3 enterprise applications.
The Oracle Applications InterConnect 3i is a
comprehensive and flexible set of applications
that enable you to seamlessly integrate your SAP
R/3 applications with the Oracle CRM suite.
The easy-to-use wizard-based visual tool–iStudio–
guides you through the integration process and
provides the flexibility needed to make the chan-
ges necessary when you have tailored your SAP
applications to your business’ needs. The iStudio
tool facilitates all aspects of the modeling and
integration process from specifying the transfor-
mation to setting-up information flows. The net
result is a seamless and reliable integration that
assures maximum uptime while significantly
reducing the integration costs and complexities
compared to a project based consulting engage-
ment.
2 As a complimentary product, Oracle also offers
the Oracle CRM Pack for Applications
2 InterConnect 3i to help you expand markets and
retain profitable customers. By deploying Oracle
2 CRM directly into your enterprise, you realize
the full benefits of a customer-centric approach
3 to doing business. The Oracle CRM suite offers
the industry’s most comprehensive set of appli-
3 cations, sales, marketing, service, business intel-
ligence, designed to enable you to build a suc-
3 cessful e-business practice. This end-to-end and
closed loop process ensures a near real-time
3 customer response and enables you to successful-
ly gather customer intelligence through multi-
4 ple channels of communication with the custo-
mer face-to-face, call center, and the web and
5 share that information with the entire organiza-
tion to gain a true 360 degrees view of strategic
6 selling. By combing hi-touch with hi-tech, you
7 will be able to better service your customers, pre-
dict their behaviors and needs, reduce operatio-
8 nal costs, and improve your revenue and profit,
reducing the bottom-line while improving the
top-line growth.
4,90
NT - 0 SD
see -Use
16,6 page r on
worl 40 SD- 8
d rec U
ord - ser on U
more NIX
on p ,
age
8
Editorial
Oracle for SAP is SAFE-RELIABLE - SCALABLE-
that is the consistent quote from SAP customers.
Every successful relationship is based on the belief
that your partners will support you through thick
and thin and always give you their best. The Oracle
and SAP technology partnership operates on this Gerhard Kuppler
principle, and together we offer a safe and reliable Global Alliance Director
integrated information solution – the same combi- Oracle Corporation
nation used by thousands of successful businesses
around the world. SAP and Oracle have been tech-
nology partners for over 11 years, and are optimi-
zed to run together. In 1988, R/3 development was
started on Oracle Release 6. In 1992, R/3 was first
released to the market on Oracle. SAP R/3 release
4.0 and 4.5, as well as SAP’s Business Information
Warehouse and mySAP.com, were developed on
Oracle8. And, SAP was a beta site for our latest
database version, Oracle8i. World leadding bench-
mark results are confirming this.
• The Oracle Development Center, based in
Walldorf, Germany, is devoted to working
with SAP to ensure that our products integrate
seamlessly with R/3.
• The Oracle Center of Excellence offers Oracle
on SAP consulting and provides second level
support to SAP/Oracle joint customers.
• The Oracle Competence Center is responsible
for world wide business development, presales
activities, training of SAP system Integrator/-
implementation partners and for real life bench-
marking.
This newsletter highlights the Oracle products and
services that have been developed to ensure the
success of our joint customers. We have also fea-
tured just a few of our joint customers from Asia
Pacific. Why do three out of four of SAP’s R/3
customers choose Oracle as their underlying data-
base? Because the SAP/Oracle partnership delivers
enhanced performance, guaranteed quality, and
improved bottom-line results time and time
again. Please join the Oracle booth at Sapphire
Asia Pacific 99 in Singapore; booth#206. I’m
looking forward to meeting you.
 Option
Oracle8i 64-bit Option
SAP R/3 is now available with Oracle8i 64-bit data-
base technology. The 64-bit technology enables
computer systems to be faster and be more man-
ageable. Available on a number of hardware
systems, this technology also enables customers
to increase their database size to multiple tera-
bytes. Because of added memory capacity, the
number of concurrent users allowed to run
against the database increases exponentially as
well.
The benefits of 64-bit system and database tech-
nology are now automatically available to the
R/3 application. As a result, the R/3 application on
Oracle8 64-bit is faster and even more scalable
than on a 32-bit database.
“Providing the 64-bit database technology for SAP
R/3 is another outstanding milestone in the
11 year technology relationship between SAP
and Oracle,”
said Gary Bloom, executive Vice President of
Systems Products at Oracle. “Again, Oracle is
taking the lead in making the latest database
technology available to an important set of
customers.”
The 64-bit technology allows more business data
to be stored in main memory by leveraging the
64-bit client libraries of Oracle8. This is of parti-
cular interest within the SAP Supply Chain
Optimization Planning and Execution™ (SAP
SCOPE™) initiative, where new reporting, fore-
casting, planning and optimization functionality
2 entails processing of very large data volumes in
main memory. “With SAP R/3 on 64-bit Oracle8,
SAP is providing customers the most innovative
technology to allow real-time, high-volume pro-
cessing of business data in main memory,” stated
Karl-Heinz Hess, Member of the Extended
Board of SAP AG. SAP R/3 with 64-bit Oracle8
is currently available with R/3 Release 3.1 and
4.0 on Compaq Tru64 UNIX, HP UX 11, IBM
AIX 4.3 and Siemens Reliant UNIX.
Business
Oracle8i –The Database
for SAP Business
Information WarehouseTM
The data warehouse is often the most strategic
system of a company.
Efficient use of a data warehouse requires a data-
base system that is capable of managing and
rapidly analyzing large quantities of data. Oracle
is the undisputed technology and market leader
in the field of data warehousing, with 60% of the
world’s data warehouse applications running on
Oracle databases. “Simplified management is the
key to maintaining premium system performance,”
said Gerhard Kuppler, Global Alliances Director
for SAP. The SAP Business Information Ware-
house (SAP BW™) is an independent compo-
nent of the SAP Business Framework™ architec-
ture. It is designed as an open solution and is de-
livering Business Application Programming
Interfaces (BAPIs) for non-SAP data integration
and third party analysis tools. Oracle8i is the
development database for the SAP BW™.
This ensures use of the most advanced Oracle tech-
nologies for SAP BW and guarantees optimum
performance. Some of the advanced features of
Oracle8 that are available with SAP BW include:
• Partitioning
• Bitmapped Indices
• Star Query Optimization
• Hash Join Optimization
• Cost Based SQL Optimizer
- Parallel Query Technology
- Parallel Access
- Parallel Index Scan
- Parallel Sorting
- Parallel Table Structure with and without Log
- Parallel Index Rebuild
- Index Organized Tables
- Read Only Table Spaces
- Dedicated Temporary Table Spaces
- Variable Database Block Sizes up to 64KB
- Materialized Views
Pack
Oracle Management Pack
for SAP R/3
Available Fall 1999, Oracle Manage-
ment Pack for SAP R/3 builds on Oracle
Enterprise Manager’s host and database
management infrastructure, making
SAP environments much easier to ma-
nage. Administrators will now be able
to monitor different R/3 platforms, R/3
databases and R/3 applications from
one single console. All this results in
lower administrative costs and increased
administrator productivity.
Oracle Management Pack for SAP R/3 allows for
comprehensive monitoring and collection of data
from multiple systems, extending its reach to
provide graphical monitoring of SAP R/3 appli-
cation servers. It includes features for optimum
monitoring and deployment of R/3 across applica-
tion servers, including collection and management
of data relating to system performance and
immediate notification of potential problems
through an advanced event system.
“75 per cent of SAP customers are running their
applications on an Oracle database. Many of
those customers have entered or will shortly enter
the 24-hour economy, and need to be sure that
their systems run as near to 100% as it is possible
with current technology. As the leading provider
of non-proprietary mission-critical data manage-
ment solutions, Oracle is committed to help
R/3 customers meet the challenge of 99.95%
availability, and will continue to expand its data
management offerings to allow these customers
to take advantage of the latest advances in missi-
on-critical computing” said Gerhard Kuppler,
Global Alliances Director for SAP.
SAP’s continuing strategy of closer R/3 integration
with Oracle will eventually enable R/3 users to
benefit from Oracle’s ground-breaking Internet
computing technologies, which will enable enter-
prises to become 24-hour operations. With
Oracle as strategic technology provider, R/3
customers can be sure that their systems will
remain highly available, scalable and manageable
no matter which computing environment they
opt for.

High Availability Solution
for NT – Oracle Fail Safe
for SAP R/3
High availability is one of the key demands of
SAP R/3 customers – regardless of the hardware
and operating system used. As the central node
of the R/3 system’s three-tier architecture, the
database server plays an important role in high
availability and fail-safe operations. Oracle offers
an excellent high availability solution, called
Oracle Fail Safe to companies which run their
R/3 applications on NT.
The foundation for setting up a failsafe database
server system on NT is to configure two NT ser-
vers as two nodes of a cluster. Each of the two
nodes possesses its own, dual-ported disk sub-
system, to which each node has exclusive access
during normal operations. An Oracle Fail Safe
R/3 configuration defines one of the two nodes as
the production system, to which all the R/3
application servers are connected. The second
node of the cluster serves as the fail-safe node,
but can also perform other tasks in the meantime.
In case of failure of the production database server,
Oracle Fail Safe immediately switches all neces-
sary resources from the production node to the
secondary cluster node, and restarts the Oracle
instance there.The R/3 application servers auto-
matically establish a new database connection to
the Oracle instantly on the failsafe node, without
requiring intervention by the end user or database
administrator.
“We are pleased with the high availability,
robustness and ease of use of the Oracle Fail
Safe database solution. In SAP stress tests
with up to 300 users, the Oracle8 Fail Safe
database was up in a minute after both plan-
ned and unplanned failovers,”
said Karl-Heinz Hess, Member of the Extended
board of SAP AG. “SAP customers immediately
benefit from this highly-available, cost-effective
solution.” Oracle Fail Safe is included in every
Oracle database license for R/3 on NT from
Oracle7 Release 7.3.3 onwards, and is supported
from R/3 Release 3.1G and later , including R/3
Release 4.0 and 4.5 with Oracle8.
Ready Integrator
Oracle8 for SAP
Ready-to-Run R/3
SAP has developed a solution package, Ready-to-
Run R/3,™ that is especially adapted to the requi-
rements of small and mid-sized businesses. With
the objective of considerably reducing the intro-
duction and implementation phase and minimi-
zing the administration needs of R/3 solutions,
SAP and its partners have put together a pre-in-
stalled, pre-configured packaged solution. This
solution makes it easier, quicker and more eco-
nomical for small and midsized businesses to
introduce the R/3 solution. Oracle is one of the
databases currently available with the SAP
Ready-to-Run R/3 solution. The Oracle and SAP
components have been optimized to work to-
gether and with special configuration files and
database procedures operation of the Oracle data-
base is largely automated. Customers can now
benefit from Oracle’s industry-leading database
with solutions from Compaq, Hewlett-Packard,
IBM, Siemens-Nixdorf and NCR.
Services
Oracle Consulting Services
for SAP R/3 Customers
Oracle offers extensive R/3 database services for
SAP customers. The expertise available has deve-
loped through day-to-day work with R/3 solutions
at SAP, and it ensures that you receive the best
possible support for running your R/3 solution
smoothly. Through the Oracle Center of Excel-
lence for SAP, Oracle Consulting offers a com-
prehensive set of services including core techno-
logy consulting, workshops, also migration and
integration services.
Core Technology Consulting offers expertise in
the areas of performance optimization, Oracle
Parallel Server, hot standby databases, table setup
and reorganization especially for management of
very large databases, and backup/restore/recovery
for mission critical systems. Workshop themes
include R/3 specific standard and customized
training for database administrators .
Migration Services are available for companies
which want to migrate their SAP R/3 installation
from a non-Oracle database to Oracle.
Integration Services provide tools and services
for accessing R/3 data. Customers can create data-
base links to access R/3 tables from other appli-
cations. The Oracle Center of Excellence for SAP
has also created an interface to connect directly to
the R/3 applications, enabling customers to con-
stantly write to and read from the database. This
interface is called the Oracle Transactional Bridge
for SAP.
Oracle Warehouse
Integrator for SAP R/3
The Oracle Warehouse Integrator (OWI) for
SAP R/3 provides an easy-to-use interface to the
SAP data repository, integrating the R/3 system
as a data source to an Oracle data warehouse.
Customers can utilize the full range of Oracle
warehousing technology, while taking advantage
of SAP-certified interfaces to access R/3 metadata
and generate SAP-certified BAPI calls and SQL
code to extract data from SAP R/3.
The OWI for SAP R/3 enables customers to:
• View the SAP data-dictionary – providing acc-
ess to English definitions of table and column
names from the original German-language
abbreviations
• Browse SAP's Business Objects Repository
(BOR)
• Extract, using the Remote Function Call facility
• Support SAP's BAPIs
Using metadata-driven design and generation,
the OWI for SAP R/3 reduces the risk, cost and
time required to develop and maintain extracts
from SAP for an Oracle data warehouse.
Leveraging the Performance and Scalability of
Oracle8i
A data warehouse capable of providing quality
analysis for the kind of Business Intelligence and
Decision Support necessary to enhance your com-
petitive position relies on both scalability and
performance. Oracle8i offers both features, conti-
nuing the tradition of ongoing advancement in
anticipation of marketplace demands, and the
ever-increasing requirements of data warehousing.
Now you can leverage Oracle8i’s new functiona-
lity in several major areas directly related to the
demands of data warehousing, among them:
• Summary Management
• Performance Improvements
• Data Management
• Data-Movement Infrastructure
3
 Built on the foundation of Oracle8i, the Oracle
family of warehouse products includes Oracle
Warehouse Builder (OWB), an integrated system
for design, implementation and ongoing mana-
gement of enterprise data-warehouse and data-
mart solutions; and Oracle Discoverer and Oracle
Express server and tools for reporting, querying,
and analyzing metadata.
Management tasks, including generating and
building the warehouse, scheduling jobs, crea-
ting extracts, viewing job status, and restarting
jobs, are all managed via the Oracle Enterprise
Manager (OEM).
SAP on Oracle: SAFE – RELIABLE – SCALABLE
Goodyear’s
HP’s scalable NetServers win the day at
Goodyear’s Asiawide project
Meeting your business goals with Hewlett-
Packard
Goodyear continues to lead in the market
with cutting edge solutions from HP and
SAP on Oracle
The scalability and high availability of Hewlett-
Packard’s NetServers running Windows NT, as
well as the company’s extensive presence in Asia,
have become critical success factors for Goodyear
Asia’s rollout of its SAP R/3 enterprise resource
planning (ERP) system throughout the region.
Following a recently announced joint venture with
Sumitomo Rubber Industries of Japan, Goodyear
is set to become the largest tyre manufacturer in
the world. Goodyear, which has been operating
in Malaysia for the past 25 years, was the centre
of this regional deployment, and the first to go
live last December. The rest of its operations in
Asia, Japan and India will follow suit through-
out this and next year, ending with Goodyear’s
operations in Greater China by 2001.
“We worked for 15 months to develop an IT
strategy that could be consistently implemented
across all our operations in the region,” said John
Wronkovich, Goodyear’s Information Systems
Manager (Asia). “We put together a cross-func-
tional team and surveyed the business require-
ments in the region. We also assessed the exi-
sting IT infrastructure and benchmarked the
available hardware and software solutions.”
Goodyear’s IT operations throughout Asia had
evolved independently over the years, with each
site implementing its own system.
The only common system was a global accoun-
ting suite running on an IBM AS/400 system.
“As we set our strategy for the future, it became
4 painfully obvious that we cannot implement a
regional IT system with different legacy
systems,” said Mr Wronkovich. “The common
accounting system was transaction-based, and
could not provide critical management informa-
tion needed for decision making.”
Mr Wronkovich benchmarked leading ERP and
hardware vendors before deciding on a combina-
tion of the SAP R/3 system running under
Windows NT on HP NetServers.
“We had zero Unix experience in the company,
and our research shows that NT is a viable ope-
rating platform. It’s a big move from our AS/400
and RPG environment, but the transition was
easier as NT was already making inroads through
our client PCs and the local area network.”
Goodyear’s strategy was to implement SAP R/3
in Malaysia, with the supply chain, order fulfill-
ment, human resource management, production
management and Financial modules. These would
automate more than 1600 internal business pro-
cesses, and integrate with a custom production
scheduling system.
"We had zero Unix experience in
the company, and our research
shows that NT is a viable opera-
ting platform. It’s a big move
from our AS/400 and RPG envi-
ronment, but the transition was
easier as NT was already making
inroads through our client PCs
and the local area network."
- Mr John Wronkovich
Information Systems Manager Goodyear, Asia
Scalability wins the day.
The object was to develop a common template
that could be deployed across all other sites in
Asia. However, Mr Wronkovich was also mind-
ful of the fact that Goodyear’s computing requi-
rements would differ from site to site.
After extensive evaluations, Goodyear selected
HP as its hardware vendor. “We were impressed
by HP’s strong regional presence and local sup-
port capabilities,” he said. “Our evaluations also
showed that HP and SAP was a proven combi-
nation.”
The scalability of HP NetServers was also a cri-
tical success factor in the regional deployment.
For example, Goodyear Malaysia uses two HP
NetServer LX Pro. The multi-CPU systems are
based on Pentium Pro processors. Similar systems
were installed in Japan. In India, Goodyear bro-
ught in the country’s first HP NetServer LXr
8000 system with the latest Pentium III Xeon
processor.
“The scalability of the NetServers allowed us to
use the latest processors available, and still leave
room to grow to future processors as our needs
dictate,” said Mr Wronkovich. “Our experience
running the HP NetServer LX Pro for 150 users
shows that the performance has been good. The
Xeon processor will give us enough headroom to
grow for the next three years, but we’re also exci-
ted about the forthcoming Merced processor.”
Goodyear Malaysia operates on a 24 X 7 basis,
with its 700 employees working on three shifts.
That leaves little room for computer downtime.
“The HP NetServers have features for high avai-
lability, but we have also signed up for HP’s Call
to Repair (CTR) service package which will ensure
minimum down-time,” said Mr Wronkovich.
“The CTR package guarantees a six-hour turna-
round on any hardware problems.” With the
regional deployment, Goodyear Asia is well on
its way to a higher level of performance. “We’ll
have more information for decision support, and
greater consistency in our business processes,” he
said. “We’ve done our benchmarks and the next
6 to 12 months will provide measurable proof of
the benefits of this new system.”
“The infrastructure we’ve put in place will ena-
ble us to extend our business into the Internet,
and into business-to-business e-commerce,” he
added. “This may increase our computing
overhead as Internet transactions increase, but
we’re confident that we can scale easily with our
HP NetServers.”

HP Builds New-Age IT Infrastructure
Pall Mall
to Spur Growth of Rothmans of Pall Mall
Malaysia) Berhad
Meeting your business goals with Hewlett
Packard and Oracle
Industry
• Manufacturing
Challenges
• Rapid business growth of over the past 10
years pushing IT systems to the limit;
• Legacy systems on IBM AS/400 ageing and
highly customised making upgrades to lat
versions extremely difficult;
• Sales offices linked in slow network, making
real-time market information inaccessible
Solution
• Rebuild the entire IT infrastructure to create
an integrated enterprise system based on SAP
R/3;
• Speed up time to market by implementing
SAP R/3 using SAP’s implementation tool
Accelerated SAP (ASAP);
• Ensure best-in-class solutions through separate
tenders for enterprise servers, networks and
system integration;
• A fully integrated IT infrastructure consisting
of High Availability HP 9000 servers, Frame
Relay links for sales offices and a comprehen-
sive range of OpenView network and desktop
management tools from HP;
• Manage risks by building in Risk Mitigation
Plan within the contracts;
• Develop Service Level Agreements (SLAs) with
the business to manage internal customer ex-
pectations and embody the SLAs into Vendor
contracts.
Benefits
• Faster closing of accounts – from seven to 1.5
days
• Better information management and decision
making as a result of accessing real-time
information
• Accomplish more with same number of people
The tobacco industry operates on a highly inela-
stic demand curve. Rothmans of Pall Mall (Ma-
laysia) Berhad continues to record rapid growth
year on year. Established in 1961, this Malaysian
listed company commands a whopping 59 plus
percent market share in the country. Managing
rapid growth presents fresh challenges for a
long-established company like Rothmans, whose
information systems are strained to meet the
business needs for timely, accurate and rapid
flow of information.
For many years, Rothmans ran a mix of legacy
packages such as Computer Associate’s PRMS
package for manufacturing and product costing,
and a number of custom applications such as
sales statistics and merchandising “all on a pro-
prietary IBM AS/400 system.”
“The company is growing at such a rate that it
was difficult to translate the changing business
needs and rapid growth into our highly customi-
sed systems,” said Angelo Grasso, Information
Services manager at Rothmans. “We didn’t even
have e-mail links between our sales and head
offices!” Substantial new investments were
required, not just in its manufacturing and dis-
tribution operations, but also in the vital IT infra-
structure. This included the enterprise applicati-
ons servers as well as the nation-wide and inter-
national networks that linked its offices together.
The need to solve the Millennium Bug problem
also made a review of the IT infrastructure needs
timely.
Project ASAS
“We realised that we needed to go back to our
basic needs and build upon them,” explained Mr
Grasso. For that, Rothmans came up with
Project ASAS (or Foundation, in Bahasa Malaysia).
However, the enormity of this project made it
vital to have careful planning, evaluation and
execution. Rothmans commissioned PriceWater-
houseCoopers to undertake a Business Process
Review and to outline an IT masterplan. The
review confirmed our internal view that mana-
ging such rapid growth would require timely
and accurate information.
It also demanded an integration of all the busin-
ess processes and systems to get a full and com-
plete picture, and the ability for top manage-
ment to gain access to this information as and
when they needed it. The IT infrastructure, en-
compassing the applications, computers and net-
works, had to integrate information and operate
across the enterprise. At the application layer in
particular, the enterprise system had to have
built-in best practices. In a way, the choice of
enterprise application had already been made.
Rothmans decided to standardise on SAP R/3
enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution,
which had been installed in more than 20 other
Rothmans sites around the world. To ensure
smooth and rapid implementation, the company
adopted a blend of the Accelerated SAP R/3
“ASAP R3” implementation tool and Summit-D
IT Project Management methodology.
The IT Infrastructure
With that choice made, Rothmans was able to
focus on other parts of the IT infrastructure.
“It was important for us to define the standards
from the start, and to have a well-defined met-
hodology in evaluating and selecting our vendor
partners,” said Mr Alfred Sava, Technical Services
Manager, at Rothmans. Because Rothmans opera-
tes around the clock, the mission-critical systems
had to run on a Unix platform in a High Availa-
bility environment. Less strategic systems could
run on lower-cost Windows NT servers. To ensu-
re seamless connectivity, the networks are based
on the TCP/IP protocol. To attract the best of
class vendors in each “layer” of this infrastructure,
Rothmans decided to issue three separate ten-
ders. Four vendors were evaluated but only one
was chosen – Hewlett Packard. The enterprise
servers included three HP 9000 K-class and two
D-class servers in a High Availability configura-
tion. HP also installed disaster recovery facilities,
which switched processes to a backup system over
a high-speed ISDN line. It also committed to a six-
hour turnaround for system failures. Rothmans
also installed 10 LAN Servers running Windows
NT and 150 new desktop systems to augment
the existing PCs. The LAN servers support the 10
sales offices throughout the country. These offices
are linked to the head office by high-speed Frame
Relay links. “We operate in a 24 X 7 environment,
and no downtime is tolerated,” said Mr Sava.
"HP recognised our anxiety to get the project
done on schedule, and corrected the problem
on its own accord. HP showed genuine good-
will and respect, and shared our commitment
to make our project a success."
- Mr Angelo Grasso,
Information Services Manager, Rothmans of Pall Mall (Malaysia) Berhad
Indeed, HP’s ability to commit and deliver a
high system uptime was a critical success factor,
as shown by subsequent events. The evaluation
of the network vendors was equally rigorous.
“Our network partner had to have the right
expertise, both in local and wide area networks as
well as in network management,” said Mr Sava.
The national Wide Area Network based on Frame
Relay was won by a consortium of Telekom
Malaysia Berhad’s subsidiary – COINS (CorpOrate
Information Network Service) and HP. HP also
won the third tender – the system integration to
create Rothmans” new IT infrastructure. It also
provided a comprehensive range of network and
desktop management tools based on HP Open-
View. The evaluation of the separate tenders was
as rigorous as the specifications. Mr Grasso and
his project managers visited reference sites and
even evaluated the resumes of the post-sales staff
who would service them. “We were not just eva-
luating the products but also the expertise of the 5
 people behind them,” he said. “This is a better
way of ensuring you get high-quality support.”
“There was a separate team evaluating each ten-
der,” explained Mr Grasso. “That HP won them
all speaks volumes of their capabilities.”
Managing the Risks
A project of this scale – which encompasses local
and nation-wide implementations – is not with-
out its inherent risks. “To manage these risks, we
insisted on a Risk Mitigation Plan (RMP) which
anticipates problems and minimises them,” said
Mr Grasso. “our board of Directors signed off the
Service Level Agreements (SLAs) which together
with the RMP forms an important part of the
vendor contracts.” Indeed, Rothmans” foresight
in establishing SLAs, which link to the RMP,
prevented any major problems. Two weeks before
the systemÕs cutover, a major fault occurred in
one of the systems. Foreseeing the impact, HP
was able to nip the problem in the bud before it
eventuated and averted any potential disasters.
“In spite of this, HP recognised our anxiety to get
the project done on schedule, and corrected the
problem on its own accord,” Mr Grasso recalled.
“HP showed genuine goodwill and respect, and
shared our commitment to make our project a
success.” “To me, this was partnership at it’s best.”
Making a Big Difference
Project ASAS will make its impact felt at the
very core of Rothmans’ business, especially in its
ability to access and manage information. “The
most visible impact will be in our ability to shor-
ten the closing of our monthly accounts – from
seven days to only one and a half days,” said Mr
Grasso. “This means faster reporting and conso-
lidation across all levels of the organisation.” The
new IT infrastructure will also enable Rothmans
to exchange information more effectively with
all its offices throughout the country. This will
enable managers at the head office to see the per-
formance of each business unit or territory in
real-time. “With greater integration of our busi-
ness processes and timely information, we can
make more accurate and in-depth analyses of our
sales performance based on up-to-the-minute
6 information,” said Mr Grasso.
Most importantly, the new IT infrastructure will
enable Rothmans to accomplish more without
any staff redundancies. “We can get more work
done with the same number of people,” he
added. “This is vitally important in the current
economic conditions.” Mr Grasso credits the speed
and capabilities of the new infrastructure to the
partnership philosophy of the company that is
also shared by HP. “We’re committed to the
mutual success and growth of our respective
companies,” he said.
“HP has amply demonstrated that throughout
this project, and this has more than vindicated
our choice and confidence in them.” “Commit-
ment and personal involvement from both
Rothmans” and HP’s top management was a cri-
tical success factor for the project.”
Technology
UAES -On the way to the top with SAP R/3 on
Oracle Technology and Siemens
When United Automotive Electronic Systems
was founded in 1996, the managers of the young
enterprise proved both foresight and determina-
tion to meet and exceed market requirements. As
General Manager You Yichen says, “Quality,
Service and Price” were identified as the three
critical factors to make the Sino-German Joint
Venture the market leader in its field. UAES’-
renowned parents are Zhong-Lian Automotive
Electronics Co, Ltd., member of the SAIC group,
and Robert Bosch GmbH.
“We produce world-class Engine Management
Systems which not only improve the engine’s
performance but also reduce fuel consumption
and pollution”, adds Thomas Schoenenberg,
First Deputy General Manager. “With Chinese
regulations for environmental protection approa-
ching the strict European norm, we are well pre-
pared to meet the demands of the growing auto-
motive sector.” The Pudong-based high-tech
enterprise is the automotive parts enterprise
with largest investment ever in China and has
been listed as one of the key development pro-
jects in Shanghai. But UAES’management also
knew that high-tech products alone will not
guarantee success in an increasingly complex
environment. “Only quality management can
ensure good service and quality products. This is
why we decided to use state-of-the-art Enter-
prise Resource Planning software to increase
transparency and efficiency of our operations,”
continues Schoenenberg. After rigorous evaluati-
on of available software packages, UAES decided
to go for SAP R/3 on Oracle8. What was the rea-
son? “It’s easy: We want to be the market leader,
that’s why we chose the market leader. And SAP
R/3 on Oracle may be more expensive, but all
other packages have limited functionalities
which would not have supported all of our pro-
cesses,” explains the General Manager. “And,
what’s more, SAP R/3 on Oracle was the only
one to offer a full Chinese version.” One of
UAES’main assets are its highly qualified staff,
however, “we did not have enough expertise to
do the implementation all by ourselves. We deci-
ded to work with experienced consultants from
Siemens Nixdorf to help us with the modeling of
our business processes and the implementation
itself,” says Thomas Schoenenberg. Siemens
Nixdorf, which is wholly owned by Siemens, has
been the very first SAP implementation partner
in China and possesses comprehensive consulting
experience in various industries, especially in
manufacturing. It was also the only SAP partner
with a proven track record for full scale imple-
mentation services.
Furthermore, Siemens Nixdorf was able to offer
UAES a total solution, including high-perfor-
mance Primergy 560 and 760 NT servers.
The fact that UAES had just recently been foun-
ded and did not have firmly established business
processes, yet turned out to be an advantage: “We
did not need to do any business process reen-
gineering, but had the possibility to get a fresh
start,” says Project Manager Wu Ying.
Which was UAES’ approach to R/3 implementa-
tion?
Schoenenberg: “Since we did not have much
experience, we asked our Siemens Nixdorf con-
sultants to ‘take us by the hand’. We wanted to
keep everything simple in the first step in order
to allow for ‘learning by doing’. Our plan is to
expand the use of more advanced functionalities
as we learn more about the system.”
In the first phase, modules FI, CO, SD and MM
and PP are implemented for the baseline busin-
ess processes. Additionally, PM and QM will be
introduced in Phase 2. UAES’ additional plants
in Wuxi and Xi’an will also be included in the
R/3 rollout after the pilot project in Shanghai
has been completed.

The FI/CO modules were prepared in just two
months and have been productive since January
1998. On June 30th, UAES celebrated its “Ready
to go Live” ceremony, where sample workflows
such as the creation of a purchase order were
demonstrated to an interested audience. After
some additional user training, the actual “Go
live” was scheduled for September 1st, 1998.
“We are already benefiting from the improved
information flow. And with the whole system
productive, we will not only have an excellent
cost controlling tool, but many opportunities to
serve our customers even better,” says Wu Ying.
Which advice would General Manager You
Yichen give to other companies thinking about
using SAP R/3 on Oracle? “Do it, and pay much
attention to defining processes and customizing,
ensure top management commitment and make
sure everyone is on board.”
With SAP R/3 on Oracle up and running, plus
the ISO 9001 and ISO 14000 (environment) cer-
tificates which are currently being prepared,
UAES is also in an excellent starting position for
its planned growth. From currently over 400
employees, UAES plans to grow to more than
2500 staff, and to generate revenues of 700
Million RMB.
Oracle on Linux
Linux
Oracle8 for Linux for
SAP R/3 available
40,000 Linux Developers running on Oracle8
Leveraging their industry leadership positions
further to meet customer business requirements,
Oracle Corp. and the Oracle/SAP Competence
Center in Walldorf have announced this spring
that Oracle8 for Linux is available. Oracle also
opened Internet developer registration for Oracle8i
on Linux via the Oracle Technology Network
(OTN), and announced that the first 20,000
registrants will receive a free early access CD.
Through this special offer OTN members can
register at http://technet.oracle.com and have
an Oracle8i on Linux CD shipped to them directly.
As part of the previously announced Oracle
Partner Program First-to-Market initiative for
independent software vendors (ISVs), SAP has
chosen the Oracle dataserver as one of their major
Linux database platforms. Intensive tests at SAP
with Oracle8 on Linux have confirmed Oracle’s
position as the leading provider of database pro-
ducts for the ERP market. The availability of
Oracle8 for SAP R/3 on Linux will allow custo-
mers to choose a proven alternative operating
system for their Intel-based database servers. It
expands the scalability of their SAP environment,
and increases performance and high availability.
Imperial
Imperial Tobacco Ltd.
Even for the most profitable of companies, these times
hold the greatest of uncertainties. Shifting customer
preferences, stiffening government regulations,
skyrocketing information demands – each alone
could dampen the fire of corporate growth. Many
of today’s most foresighted companies have leapt
ahead of such stagnation by implementing the
robust power of an enterprise information mana-
gement solution from SAP and Oracle.
With a commanding two-thirds domestic market
share, Imperial Tobacco Ltd. (ITL) handily ranks as
Canada’s largest tobacco company. Headquartered
in Montreal and with seven plants in Canada,
ITL employs more than 2,000 people and earned
CA $800 million on CA $1.7 billion in 1998
revenues. Integrating that kind of heady success,
however – and preparing for even more to come
– threatened to overwhelm the firm’s disparate
information management systems.
Challenge
ITL’s success had brought about the challenge of
managing ever-increasing volumes of information.
In the past, ITL sometimes hired temporary help
to overcome the inefficiencies of its systems. This
was getting more difficult to do. “We were at a
point where hours of work became weeks of work
and our information systems just couldn’t keep
up with, much less integrate, our exceptional
effort,” acknowledged Margret Nodwell, Imple-
mentation Services Manager for Imperial Tobacco
Ltd. “With six distinct inventory systems, asking
for an inventory status would soon take a couple
of days. We simply had to fix our systems.”
Solution
ITL integrated its systems by implementing the
SAP R/3 ERP suite of applications, including
financial, materials management, payroll, HR,
and production planning. The solution gives more
than 800 users real-time access to a 180-gigabyte
Oracle7 (and soon to be Oracle8) database.
Oracle8 is the world’s leading universal data ser-
ver, enabling simple, cost-effective, and reliable
network computing. ITL also makes extensive
use of Oracle’s Designer tools to design data-
bases for complementary applications.
“The SAP and Oracle solution has
done Imperial Tobacco a great ser-
vice and will continue to help us
move ahead.”
– Margret Nodwell, Implementation Services
Manager, Imperial Tobacco Ltd.
Why Oracle and SAP
“SAP people really knew their application and
that gave us great confidence in the functionality,”
explained Paul Goyetche, Manager of Data and
Application Integration at ITL. “On a higher
level, we also knew that SAP would help us
streamline our business processes by replacing
redundant systems and applications. When it
came to the database, Oracle’s engine offered the
most robust, most mature database management
system. We’ve never had a problem with Oracle
in three-and-a-half years. Oracle runs smoothly,
it’s like it’s not even there.”
Benefits
Reduced financial cycle time
Integrating data from throughout the company,
the new system has reduced the time needed to
generate crucial management reports. This is
clearly seen in accounting. “Both our month-end
and year-end processing have been reduced dra-
matically,” reported Goyetche. “Year end used to
take us well into February; now we’ve got it done
by mid-January.” 7
 Imperial Tobacco Ltd. from Page 7
mproved Teamwork
Being able to share information has brought
together formerly distant segments of the com-
pany. “We were a very divisional company,” ex-
plained Nodwell. “Everyone had their own
systems. Divisions now share any information
that will help us all to understand the business as
a big picture.”
Increased inventory accuracy
The solution has eliminated redundancy and
increased inventory accuracy. A single bill of
materials – instead of four – allows raw materials
to be inter changeable between products and fac-
tories. “There was time when our products sel-
dom changed, now they change often for market,
regulatory, or quality reasons. The system has
simplified this transition.”
Improved regulatory compliance
Keeping up with the government can be tough,
but ITL is doing so more efficiently than ever.
“We’re closely regulated by both the federal and
provincial governments,” concluded Nodwell.
“We pay CA$3.5 billion in taxes and they want
to know exactly where it’s coming from – SAP
on Oracle lets us get to information quickly and
reliably.”
Increased vendor flexibility
The new system’s ability to handle multiple lan-
guages and currencies also allows ITL to pur-
chase globally. “The solution has facilitated pro-
curement, sped up billing, and helped in our
negotiations with vendors,” added Nodwell.
Increased MIS productivity
The new R/3 system has also freed IT staff to
spend less time programming and more time
analyzing the business. “We used to have a lot of
manual work interfacing and troubleshooting,”
detailed Goyetche. “Since we have eliminated
more than half of our distinct systems, the
number of interfaces has reduced drastically.
Additionally, through SAP’s configuration, the
user can customize things that formerly involved
changes at the programming level.”
Y2K saving
Switching to a new R/3 solution saved ITL sig-
nificant costs related to the Y2K bug. “Because
we were running on an old mainframe platform,
Y2K compliance threatened to become a huge
problem,” relayed Goyetche “We figured that,
by eliminating the lines of code that we would
have had to rewrite, we saved CA$15 million by
being on SAP and Oracle.
R/3 NT Benchmark
DG Record
with Data General on
Oracle 8
Record breaking results - surpassing 4,900 SD
Philadelphia, September 13, 1999 - Oracle has
once again proven itself as the underlying high
performance database by beating previous per-
formance results for SAP R/3 with Data General
on an 8-way 8,900 platform.
“These outstanding results demonstrate that the
Oracle8 database on Data General provides the
maximum performance and scalability for SAP
R/3 solutions. This combination delivers the pro-
ven reliability, scalability and flexibility deman-
ded by large SAP R/3 implementations,” said
Donald Haig, Vice President of Corporate
Accounts, Oracle Corporation. “Both the Oracle
and Data General have worked together as a
seamless team to achieve this fantastic bench-
mark result,” Haig continued.
The user number was achieved with SAP's R/3
Sales & Distribution (SD) standard application
benchmark running on Data General's AViiON
enterprise servers using Intel's Pentium III Xeon
processors and Data General’s CLARiiON full
fibre channel storage solutions.
"We are also very pleased with this result of both
teams, and the value implications it has for
customers,” said Rich Clifton, Vice President of
Applications Competency Centers at Data
General Corporation. “By applying the latest
Oracle8i technology, our 8-way 8900 platform,
and our expertise in large ERP configurations,
we were able to set this significant new record
with a much smaller configuration. This result is
more than 8.6% higher than the previous best
NT result, and it was done with 1/3 fewer CPUs.
When coupled with the industry leading High
Availability characteristics and performance gua-
rantees we offer for this environment, we have
now pushed cost effective computing based on
Windows NT, Intel, and Oracle to new heights
of enterprise computing.”
Ask for more information at the Oracle booth at
Sapphire US, #515, Data General #332 or send
an e-mail to orasapcc@de.oracle.com.
UNIX SD Benchmark
World Record 16,640
User with IBM on Oracle
Oracle Corporation and IBM Corporation today
announced the highest performance results ever
for the SAP R/3 4.0 application suite running on
an UNIX server. 16,640 Sales & Distribution
users with 4,908.433 dialogsteps/hour and an
average response time of 1,9 seconds is the new
world leading benchmark.
This record-setting performance was made possi-
ble by IBM RS6000 S80 with 24 CPUs, CPU
type RS64 III and 32 MB total L2 cache on
Oracle8.05.
“We are especially proud of this world record
benchmarks because compared to previous relea-
ses of SAP R/3, version 4.0 has a 30% higher
consumption rate and generates more load to the
database. So the fact that we have a higher number
of users in this configuration proves onces again
that Oracle8 provides the scalability and high
performance that SAP customers need”, said
Donald Haig, Vice President of Corporate
Accounts, Oracle Corporation.
For more information ask at the Oracle booth
#515 or send an e-mail to orasapcc@de.oracle.com.
Imprint
Imprint
Published by:
Oracle /SAP Competence Center
Altrottstr. 31
69190 Walldorf, Germany
Tel. ++49 (0) 6227-7 -31 252
Fax ++49 (0) 6227-7 -31 299
Albrecht Haug
ahaug@de.oracle.com
Internet: http://www.oracle.com/st
http://www.sap.com/partner/index.htm
Additional Contributors to his issue:
D. Bryant, Jürgen Führer, Donald Haig, Uwe Heinz,
Knut Hofmann, Jan Klokkers, Gerhard Kuppler,
Tom Stickler, Burkhard Thomas
Translationservice,
Falkner Translationservice, Munich, Roswitha Greig
Logistics:
Cretschmar Cargo, A. Lotzwick
Lithos by:
G+A Repro, Oeffingen
Photos:
Photos on Page 2-8 from SAP archives, Uwe Heinz
Printed by Gaiser GmbH, Schwaebisch Gmuend
Printed on bleached, chlorine-free paper
Designed by:
Gross Art, Stuttgart
Reproduction allowed only with the publishers
express permission
Oracle, Oracle8, Oracle8i, Oracle Express, Discoverer,
Designer, Developer, and the Oracle Logo are trademarks
or registered trademarks of Oracle Corporation.
SAP, R/3, and all SAP product names mentioned are used
for identification purposes only, and may Copyright©
Oracle Corporation 1999. All rights reserved.