Microsoft Windows Server System Customer Solution Case Study

Ashok Leyland Finance Improves Performance and Utilizes Its Resources Better

Overview “The new features in Windows Server 2003 Country or Region: India optimize resources so that we don’t need to invest Industry: Nonbanking Finance in new hardware. This has helped us reduce the Customer Profile cost of acquisition and TCO [total cost of Ashok Leyland Finance Limited (ALF) was founded in 1982 to provide asset financing ownership].” for the organization’s vehicles. Today ALF S. Umapathy, Managing Director of IT, Ashok Leyland Finance Limited offers a comprehensive finance support package for a range of automobiles and Ashok Leyland Finance Limited (ALF), a part of the Hinduja industrial equipment. Group conglomerate, standardized on the Microsoft® Windows®

Business Situation operating system as early as 1996. This decision was the result ALF had standardized on the Microsoft® of extensive research conducted by the organization. Since then Windows® operating system in 1996. To support business and IT growth within the ALF has reaped rich dividends from the technology company, it felt the need to upgrade its IT infrastructure. infrastructure to a more powerful operating system. ALF, a mid-sized business, continues to grow at a fast pace. Solution ALF decided to upgrade its infrastructure to Competing with the large enterprises, it requires a highly Microsoft Windows Server™ 2003, with its scalable and robust solution that is available 24 hours a day, enhanced security, high availability, and easy manageability. seven days a week. Microsoft Windows Server™ 2003 operating system, part of Microsoft Windows Server System™ Benefits  More secure integrated server software, proved to be the obvious choice.  Better availability  Better manageability  Better resource utilization  Improved capabilities to handle load Situation data without the involvement of the “While earlier systems Ashok Leyland Finance Limited (ALF), a administrators at headquarters. With the were also quite stable, pioneer in the nonbanking financial introduction of this solution, the network services field in India was set up in 1982 by usage increased significantly making it a we could not achieve Ashok Leyland to finance its vehicles in challenge for higher reliability, stability, and 24x7“Our investmentavailability. inBut, the India. ALF is in the business of availability. IT infrastructure has providing fund-based financial services, with the migration, we such as hire purchase, fixed deposits, Solution havealways been helped able us to leasing, bill discounting, securitization, and Evaluation Process improve our business loans against shares. Upon evaluation of the various options, achieve our target.” Microsoft® Windows Server™ 2003 efficiencies in terms of Nine years ago in 1996, the senior operating system, part of Microsoft S. Umapathy, Manager of IT, Ashok management of ALF decided to use Windows Server System™ integrated performanceLeyland Finance Limited and Microsoft software for all its IT server software, along with Internet lowering the total cost requirements. To this effect, the IT team at Information Services (IIS) version 6.0 as of operations.” ALF works closely with Microsoft to the Web server seemed to meet the current understand and implement new software and future business needs of ALF. that can benefit business functions. S. Umapathy, Manager of IT, Ashok The organization was looking for a solution Leyland Finance Limited “Our investment in the IT infrastructure has that could scale easily to meet enterprise- always helped us improve our business wide requirements and at the same time efficiencies in terms of performance and provide a solution that was secure and lowering the total cost of operations,” easy to manage. explains S. Umapathy, Manager of IT at Ashok Leyland Finance Limited. The administrators managing Microsoft Windows NT® Server version 4.0 operating As a young and fast-growing business, the system and Windows Server 2003 found continuous challenge for the ALF IT team that the learning curve was easy. The was to create an infrastructure that would familiar user interface and a clearly defined meet the increasing demands of existing migration process made the deployment users as well as adding new users as per process easy and fast. changing business needs. Over the last few years, the IT infrastructure saw a 25 The nonbanking financial application that percent increase in usage. forms the IT backbone of the company was based on Microsoft software such as Initially, the system architecture was Microsoft Visual Basic® version 6.0 designed to maintain individual servers at development system, Active Server Pages each location. Data was consolidated at (ASP), and Microsoft SQL Server™ 2000, each location and sent to the head office in part of Microsoft Windows Server System tape drives. Therefore, the team at the integrated server software, making the head office spent most of its time collating migration process nondisruptive. data and logistics, and had little time for other critical jobs. The Implementation Process The organization has migrated Windows The IT team decided to create a centralized NT 4.0 and Microsoft Windows® 2000 Web-based solution, through which users Server operating system, part of Microsoft across locations could directly send in their Windows Server System integrated server software, to Windows Server 2003. The availability. But, with the migration, we optimization of resources such as CPU, have been able to achieve our target,” memory, and date or time schedules by explains Umapathy. “Minimum Windows System Resource Manager administrator intervention has helped allows ALF to reuse its existing hardware improve employee productivity,” he adds. even though the system load and number of users has increased by 25 percent. Improved Manageability The “Manage Your Server Wizard” With the new Active Directory® service consolidates configuration tools and features in Windows Server 2003, ALF features into one place. This allows improved network administration and administrators to set up and manage management further. It is currently in the profiles for one or more servers centrally. process of implementing a single sign on Administrators can use the single console (SSO) facility. Software restriction policies to manage basic tasks, such as file and are being used by the administrators to print services, to remote access. gain tighter control of the network. Windows Server 2003 supports "open file ALF also upgraded its Web server backup," which uses shadow copies to infrastructure to IIS 6.0 to benefit from the ensure that any open files being accessed tight integration with Windows Server 2003. by users are also backed up. Servers can continue to work even while backups are New features increase throughput and being taken, further improving availability of capacity of applications while managing the the server. This has been a big boon for hardware resources better. This has again the ALF IT team. helped reduce the need to upgrade hardware and prevents one application or Saving Cost and Time site from disrupting other applications or With the number of online users increasing sites on the server. rapidly and regular software upgrades, a key area of concern was the investment in Benefits hardware. “The new features in Windows More Secure Server 2003 optimize resources so that we With the new security features in Windows don’t need to invest in new hardware. This Server 2003, users can securely access has helped us reduce the cost of resources in other forests while using the acquisition and TCO [total cost of SSO user ID and password. This provides ownership],” explains Umapathy. flexibility for ALF divisions to have their own forest, yet maintain the benefits of Confirmed Scalability Active Directory. In addition, a new ALF is also confident that this system can Credential Manager in Windows Server manage the growth at least for the next few 2003 also provides a secure store of user years. While the current servers work with credentials. 8 gigabytes (GB) of memory, it can scale to 32 GB. The current four-processor server is Improved Availability being efficiently utilized by Windows Server Today, the IT team at ALF is able to 2003. confidently commit a 99.99 percent uptime. “While earlier systems were also quite stable, we could not achieve 24x7 For More Information For more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at 1600 111100. To access information using the Future Plans World Wide Web, go to: With the extraordinary capabilities offered http://www.microsoft.com/india/ by Microsoft products and the excellent support provided by the Microsoft team, For more information about Ashok ALF is adopting more Microsoft software. Leyland Finance’s products and services, Plans are currently underway to migrate all call +91 44-24356676 or visit the Web key applications to the Microsoft .NET site at: http://www.alfinance.com connection software.

Microsoft Windows Server System Microsoft Windows Server System is a comprehensive, integrated, and interoperable server infrastructure that helps reduce the complexity and costs of building, deploying, connecting, and operating agile business solutions. Windows Server System helps customers create new value for their business through the strategic use of their IT assets. With Windows Server operating system as its foundation, Windows Server System delivers dependable infrastructure for data management and analysis; enterprise integration; customer, partner, and employee portals; business process automation; communications and collaboration; and core IT operations including security, deployment, and system management. For more information about Windows Server System, go to: www.microsoft.com/windowsserversystem/

Software and Services Hardware  Microsoft Windows Server System  Compaq ML server 570 − Microsoft Windows Server 2003  Compaq ML Server 370 © 2005 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. − Microsoft SQL Server 2000  Compaq ML Server 350 This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT  Technologies MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY. − Active Directory Microsoft, Active Directory, Outlook, Visual Basic, Windows, the Internet Information Services 6.0 Windows logo, Windows NT, Windows Server, and Windows Server − System are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners.

Document published December 2005