2022

Sterling Auxiliaries Resolves SAP Downtime and Boosts Productivity to Fuel Business Expansion on AWS

Sterling Auxiliaries worked with partner Inteliwaves to implement SAP S/4HANA on AWS, automating backup, and saving time with improved system performance.

Overview | Opportunity | Solution | Outcome | AWS Services Used

25–30%

Scaled to support 10x increase in web traffic

2 weeks

Deployed resources in minutes versus weeks

10 hours

Delivered highly available content to millions of users

Low latency

Eliminated hardware upgrades and data center maintenance costs

Support

Receives real-time responses to issues

Overview

Sterling Auxiliaries is an international manufacturer of surfactants and industrial chemicals based in India. To meet its go-live timeline and improve system performance, the company upgraded its on-premises SAP R/3 system to SAP S/4HANA on AWS.

The company worked with AWS Partner Inteliwaves on the SAP implementation and migration and is using AWS Backint Agent with HAQM EBS snapshots to automate backups. The company has improved productivity and employee satisfaction with seamless system performance and achieved 100 percent uptime since migration.

Opportunity | Seeking Fast Deployment with No Downtime

Sterling Auxiliaries is a manufacturer specializing in the production of industrial surfactants and chemicals. Headquartered in Mumbai, India, Sterling Auxiliaries exports to customers in 65 countries. Its domestic and international sales are increasing yearly.

The company has been using SAP software since 2006, with SAP as the foundation for operations at its headquarters and its main factory in the state of Gujarat. The business began migrating from SAP R/3 to SAP S/4HANA at the start of 2022 with the help of Inteliwaves Technologies, but encountered critical issues with its on-premises data center vendors. Infrastructure and provisioning were delayed, threatening to disrupt Sterling Auxiliaries’ project timeline. The business needed to go live with SAP S/4HANA by the beginning of April, the start of the new financial year.

Furthermore, with the older SAP R3 Setup on premises, the business experienced one or two days of downtime each month and regular connectivity challenges slowed down or prevented employees from carrying out their work. For example, when there was a power outage in Mumbai—where Sterling Auxiliaries’ SAP R3 servers were located—factory workers in Gujarat couldn’t access the system, leading to delays in dispatching materials. Backups were also a cumbersome, time-consuming process on premises.

On the recommendation of AWS Partner Inteliwaves, Sterling Auxiliaries deployed SAP S/4HANA on AWS to meet its year-end deadline and improve system performance.

The infrastructure setup and onboarding to SAP S/4HANA on AWS was a smooth process, and we’ve had a great experience with Inteliwaves.”

Vishal Shah
Director, Sterling Auxiliaries

Solution | Improving Productivity with Automated Processes

Within two weeks, Inteliwaves helped migrate Sterling Auxiliaries’ SAP S/4HANA development, quality, and production environments from its data center servers to AWS. With the support of Inteliwaves, Sterling Auxiliaries was able to go live with SAP S/4HANA by the start of the new financial year.

Vishal Shah director at Sterling Auxiliaries, says, “The infrastructure setup and onboarding to SAP S/4HANA on AWS was a smooth process, and we’ve had a great experience with Inteliwaves. Virtual servers in the production and development environments were available when we needed them, which allowed us to meet our deadline.”

Sterling Auxiliaries is now saving time and human resources formerly dedicated to backing up SAP data manually on premises. Inteliwaves helped the company implement HAQM Elastic Block Store (HAQM EBS) snapshots to automate daily backups and SAP-certified AWS Backint Agent to back up and restore SAP HANA workloads running on HAQM Elastic Compute Cloud (HAQM EC2) instances. Two staff members, each of whom spent 4–5 hours daily on backups, have been redeployed to the infrastructure team because backups are now automated on AWS. Anil Chavan, accounts head at Sterling Auxiliaries, says, “Our headaches due to the need to constantly monitor SAP are gone, which is a big relief.”

Since launching S/4HANA on AWS, Sterling Auxiliaries has also eliminated server downtime and delays due to connectivity issues. Improved connectivity has driven a 25–30 percent rise in productivity.

Outcome | Saving Time while Boosting Employee Satisfaction

Since launching SAP S/4HANA on AWS, Sterling Auxiliaries reports significant time savings, faster performance, and improved employee satisfaction with a highly available SAP environment. “We’re saving a lot of time now that we don’t need to wait around during server lags,” says Chavan. We can accomplish the work quicker and use our time for other activities such as SAP system audits and application planning.”

Performance improvements, plus the new implementation of the SAP DMS module on AWS, have also facilitated document transfer among teams. “Overall, our factory and back-office employees are much happier with SAP S/4HANA on AWS. They can retrieve documents, save data, and generate reports faster,” Chavan adds.

When asked about the company’s plans, Shah says, “The success of this project has prompted us to evaluate cloud-based solutions for other legacy systems in 2023. We’re also planning to implement SAP S/4HANA on AWS for other business divisions that have been running SAP on premises.” Sterling Auxiliaries’ export business is growing annually, so having a low-latency SAP backbone will be key as the business expands.

About Sterling Auxiliaries

Sterling Auxiliaries Pvt. Ltd. launched in 1984 in India as a manufacturer of surfactants and other industrial chemicals. The business began its exporting business in 2000, and to date, international customers account for 60 percent of total sales.

AWS Services Used

SAP S/4HANA on AWS

SAP customers can fully realize all the benefits of SAP S/4HANA in the AWS Cloud for systems of all sizes.

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AWS Backint Agent

AWS Backint Agent for SAP HANA is an SAP-certified backup and restore solution for SAP HANA workloads running on HAQM EC2 instances. AWS Backint Agent backs up your SAP HANA database to HAQM S3 and restores it using SAP management tools, such as SAP HANA Cockpit, SAP HANA Studio, or SQL commands.

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HAQM Elastic Block Store

HAQM Elastic Block Store (HAQM EBS) is an easy-to-use, scalable, high-performance block-storage service designed for HAQM Elastic Compute Cloud (HAQM EC2).

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HAQM Elastic Compute Cloud

HAQM Elastic Compute Cloud (HAQM EC2) offers the broadest and deepest compute platform, with over 500 instances and choice of the latest processor, storage, networking, operating system, and purchase model to help you best match the needs of your workload.

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