using a dell-intel-oracle solution, the danish national railway agency

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Danish National Railway Agency
BACK ON
TRACK
I
n Europe, railways are big business.
grew. Because trains on the Danish
Every day, European railways allow
railways must run like clockwork, the
people and business freight to traverse the
Railway Agency decided to engineer a
continent, and the state-owned railway in
cost-effective solution that would keep its
Denmark is no exception. After the 1997
trains running on time.
breakup of Danske Stats Banen (Danish
wanted to establish a new organization
Laying the tracks for the
IT infrastructure
that would open up the Danish railroads to
To begin the upgrade, the Railway Agency
spirited competition, giving more freight
decided to replace its traffic planning
companies access to the Danish market.
system, which required manual coordina-
State Railway Authority), the government
tion of train times based on data from various platforms and operators.
U S I N G A D E L L - I N T E L - O R AC L E S O L U T I O N , T H E
DA N I S H N AT I O N A L R A I LWAY AG E N C Y S TO P P E D
To ensure that employees could keep
the trains in sync, the Railway Agency
chose P_Base, an application that
provides a single point of access for
B E I N G T H E L I T T L E R A I LWAY T H AT C O U L D A N D
traffic planning data. Railway coordination is a complicated production, and
B E C A M E T H E L I T T L E R A I LWAY T H AT D O E S
P_Base gives railway employees an
instant, easily accessible overview of the
traffic information they need to fulfill
As more and more companies climbed
58
DELL INSIGHT FEBRUARY 2003
their roles.
aboard the Danish railroads, the Railway
Like airplanes, trains must depart on
Agency discovered that it needed a more
time to avoid sending a ripple of disrup-
reliable, high-performance IT system to
tions throughout the railway network. But
manage the increased traffic. In addition,
if the P_Base application were to run on
the Railway Agency’s many activities—
an unstable platform, Denmark’s trains
managing railroad operations, mainte-
could remain stuck in the stations. That’s
nance, rail capacity, and train-freight
why the Danish National Railway Agency
tolls—became more expensive as traffic
carefully examined its hardware options.
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Danish National Railway Agency
[
Customer Spotlight
DANISH RAILWAY
» CHALLENGE Develop a cost-efficient infrastructure that provides a complete overview
of data, secure and reliable operations, high
scalability, and 24×7 availability
“We had already decided four to
five years ago to go with Dell as
our hardware supplier. That
means we have become quite
competent on Dell systems.”
» SOLUTION Intel Pentium III Xeon™
processor-based Dell™ PowerEdge™ 6450
servers, a Dell|EMC FC4700 Fibre Channel
storage array, and Oracle9i™ Real Application
Clusters software
Backed by this solution, the P_Base application provides top reliability and allows
the Railway Agency to standardize its IT
» BENEFIT Reliable traffic planning and
an attractive price/performance ratio
shop on Dell servers and Microsoft®
Windows® operating systems.
The new IT infrastructure consists of
Customer Spotlight
two Intel processor-based Dell PowerEdge
6450* servers running Oracle9i RAC soft-
Dell configured, built, and tested the
Climbing aboard with Dell and Oracle
ware, one 3Com switch, and a storage area
solution at the Dell customer center in
IT Operations Manager Kim Remmer over-
network (SAN). The SAN uses a Dell|EMC
Ireland. There, Dell specialists helped
sees the team that runs the day-to-day
FC4700 Fibre Channel storage array.
ensure that the system matched the qual-
system operations for the Danish National
®
Remmer says the Dell-Intel-Oracle
ity and concise requirements outlined by
Railway Agency. He explains that the
system has helped the organization move
the Railway Agency. After that, the instal-
supplier, WM-data, would only guarantee
from an outdated traffic planning system
lation at the Danish National Railway
the stability of the P_Base application on
to a modern system that can grow in the
Agency was a smooth ride.
certain platforms—including Dell. Remmer
future. “The cluster solution gives us
says this requirement was right on track
various benefits,” Remmer says. “We load
Gaining steam for the future
with the organization’s existing plans.
balance between the two servers, which
By providing a secure platform for the
yields greater stability and scalability. The
P_Base application, Dell, Intel, and Oracle
years ago to go with Dell as our hardware
“We had already decided four to five
system now has two nodes and is scalable
have enabled the Danish National Railway
supplier. That means we have become
up to four, so there is plenty of room to
Agency to run an efficient, cost-effective
quite competent on Dell systems. Through-
grow over the next several years.”
traffic planning system.
out all these years we have only had good
Danish National Railway Agency CIO
“From this experience, we have learned
experiences with Dell, and Dell delivers
Kenneth Lau Rentius says another benefit is
that both Dell and Oracle have a good
professional solutions that yield a high
that the costs to purchase and maintain the
understanding of our requirements,”
return on the investment.”
solution created an attractive bottom line.
Remmer says. “Our joint effort with these
To meet its latest need, the Railway
“The combination of Oracle and Dell on
two companies has run without difficulty.
Agency chose Dell and Oracle and their
a Windows-based, Intel architecture plat-
Oracle assisted us with the final system
partnership platform consisting of Intel®
form is a supreme solution compared with
configurations. Dell provided us with a
Pentium III Xeon processor-based Dell
many other technical alternatives and has
system that was ready to run when it
PowerEdge™ servers and Oracle9i™ Real
given us a powerful system with a great
arrived. As a result, we did not need much
Application Clusters (RAC) software.
price/performance ratio,” Lau Rentius says.
assistance from Dell Copenhagen.”
®
™
™
* Newer models available at www.dell.com
FEBRUARY 2003 DELL INSIGHT
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