Metia CEP Netherlands-Based Oil Company Drives Growth with Highly Consolidated, Virtualised Pla

Microsoft Server Product Portfolio Customer Solution Case Study

Netherlands-Based Oil Firm Drives Growth with Consolidated Virtualised Environment

Overview “The truth is that 99.9 per cent availability, including Country or Region: The Netherlands scheduled maintenance, is our minimum requirement—and Industry: Oil and gas we’ve always reached that goal with Microsoft and HP Customer Profile North Sea Group, headquartered in the solutions.” Netherlands, operates in the downstream Patrick Mast, IT Manager, North Sea Group oil market. It has a global workforce of more than 350 and an annual turnover of around €6 billion in 2009. North Sea Group—which delivers products and services to the oil

Business Situation market—was formed in 2009 after the merger of Van der Sluijs The group wanted to consolidate its two Groep and FNR+ Holding. To help drive growth, the group existing IT infrastructures down to a single, virtualised platform to support the wanted to consolidate the IT infrastructures of the merged whole organisation. companies to a single, virtualised platform, delivering IT services

Solution to its offices and shipping vessels worldwide. The group chose a North Sea Group worked with Microsoft combination of Microsoft and HP solutions to build the and HP to create a reliable, high- performance infrastructure based on infrastructure, and worked with Microsoft Gold Certified Partners Windows Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V Innovativ and Communicativ during deployment. Today, North and HP ProLiant servers. Sea Group continues to expand and personnel maximise their Benefits productivity thanks to Windows Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V, High productivity Continued growth Microsoft Exchange Server 2010, and Microsoft Dynamics NAV Greener IT running on energy-efficient HP hardware. The IT team, which Improved efficiency Maximum performance centrally manages IT for the group’s offices and ships, is more productive, with additional time to focus on strategic projects. Situation management simplicity and reliability. North Sea Group is one of the largest “There are just four systems administrators private companies in the Netherlands, with and three service desk staff to guarantee a workforce of more than 350 and an round-the-clock availability to all of our annual turnover of around €6 billion in 350 employees, and particularly our trading 2009. The company is a major player in the division. We wanted to avoid complexity so downstream oil market in western Europe. that IT personnel could easily manage the It combines storage and distribution with infrastructure’s software, hardware, and the international trading and sale of network apparatus,” says Mast. mineral oils and biofuels. North Sea Group was established in 2009, after the merger of Solution Van der Sluijs Groep and FNR+ Holding. Mast assessed multiple providers and their offerings, but decided to build the new The organisation conducts multiple platform on Microsoft and HP solutions. “I operations. Among them, it supplies fuel to have had very good experiences with both the shipping industry, sells oil products and companies over the years. I worked at one logistics services to resellers and major oil of the first companies in the Netherlands to companies, trades in fuel oils, and run Microsoft software on HP ProLiant transports mineral oils from refineries to servers,” says Mast. retailers. With so many time-sensitive operations, even minor disruptions can The organisation—which participates in the cause expensive delays that affect the firm’s Technology Adoption Programme, an early revenue. This is why North Sea Group adopter initiative from Microsoft—began invests significant resources in IT solutions working with Microsoft Gold Certified that help employees deliver its products Partners Innovativ and Communicativ to and services. build the platform. First, it put the Windows Server 2008 R2 operating system with North Sea Group predicts continued Hyper-V technology at the heart of its growth, particularly in markets such as centralised infrastructure. Then it installed biofuels, and believes IT will play a crucial Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 for email role in helping employees seize new and messaging, Microsoft Dynamics NAV business opportunities. With this in mind, for business processes, and Microsoft the group considered the benefits of System Center Virtual Machine Manager consolidating the infrastructures of the 2008 R2 for monitoring. newly merged companies to support expansion more effectively. Patrick Mast, IT To support the Microsoft software and a Manager of North Sea Group, says: “We trading application called CXL, the decided that we could achieve our goals organisation constructed a fully redundant and reduce costs if all partners in the group hardware platform based on HP. It features operated on one platform.” eight HP ProLiant BL460c server blades located in a HP BladeSystem c7000 The firm wanted to build a virtualised enclosure and connected to iSCSI-based HP infrastructure for IT personnel to manage LeftHand P4500 storage. To help IT recover all offices from a single, redundant quickly in an emergency, North Sea Group datacentre at the headquarters in distributed the infrastructure between the Dordrecht. Key requirements included

24 new data centre and a secondary site 10 kilometres away in Geertruidenberg. Driving Growth with Scalable Solution Personnel also gain access to new services The work needed a high level of expertise, fast, and the IT team can easily support but the group avoided any delays due to sudden increases in transactions due to the the experience of its Microsoft Gold Microsoft virtualisation technology. With Certified Partners. Mast says: Windows Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V, IT “Communicativ had a deep understanding administrators can add virtual servers to of the latest Microsoft solutions, the physical hosts in minutes, and scale the particularly Jaap Wesselius, who has platform quickly to support growth. “There received the Microsoft Most Valuable is no limit to the number of transactions Professional (MVP) for Exchange Server.” the infrastructure can process,” says Mast. Innovativ sent Microsoft MVPs for System “Furthermore, the current infrastructure can Center to help North Sea Group implement easily deal with sudden growth, particularly the management software, and installation in our operations in biofuels such as work was finished in one weekend. ethanol. In this domain, we’re also working together with the World Wildlife Fund to Benefits implement our activities in a socially With a single infrastructure, North Sea responsible way.” Group can drive growth, providing employees with the IT support they need to Greener IT Using Energy-Efficient take advantage of business opportunities. Solution Personnel maximise their productivity Importantly for a business committed to thanks to the performance and reliability of sustainability, North Sea Group has the Microsoft solutions running on energy- reduced the power consumption of its IT. efficient HP hardware. The IT team—which The organisation has established a single, now centrally manages IT for the group’s high-density platform to serve the whole offices and ships using broadband and company, and deployed in-row cooling mobile connections—is more productive, units within the server rooms to lower and has additional time to focus on temperatures. The task of reducing power strategic projects. use is also helped by the servers’ thermo- efficient design and multicore processors Maximised Productivity with Reliable from Intel. Mast says: “We now have much Platform less hardware and a highly efficient Employees can be highly effective because Microsoft environment.” the new platform delivers their business- critical solutions reliably. Mast says: Increased IT Productivity Through “Downtime in the IT infrastructure would Simple Administration disrupt employees and quickly lead to IT personnel can focus more on innovation significant costs because our transactions and strategic work because the new are time sensitive and high in value. The platform is simpler to manage with System truth is that 99.9 per cent availability, Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2. including scheduled maintenance, is our They use the solution to manage the minimum requirement—and we’ve always physical and virtual servers centrally— reached that goal with Microsoft and HP planning, deploying, and optimising the solutions.” infrastructure. Mast comments: “We provide business-related projects with

34 more support because we spend less time Microsoft Server Product Portfolio on routine management. All components For more information about the Microsoft are fully hot pluggable, and we can rapidly server product portfolio, go to: provision and optimise the virtual machines www.microsoft.com/servers/default.mspx with System Center Virtual Machine Manager.”

Tight Integration with Enhanced Performance North Sea Group can develop safe in the knowledge that it has a reliable, high- performance IT platform built on Microsoft and HP solutions. Mast says: “The benefit of standardising on Microsoft and HP is that their solutions integrate well to deliver the support that employees need.” In addition, the company has just two points of contact for hardware and software, further reducing management time. Mast has particular praise for the Microsoft partner programme and the quality of its Microsoft Gold Certified Partners Innovativ and Communicativ. “We’ve taken on the role of early adopter of Microsoft solutions, so having access to such expertise is really important,” he says.