English Biscuit Manufacturers (EBM)

About English Biscuit Manufacturers (EBM)

English Biscuit Manufacturers (EBM) is the leading biscuit manufacturer in Pakistan, accounting for almost half of the domestic market. The Karachi-based company has an annual production capacity of over 180,000 tonnes, the largest in the country and one of the largest in the region. Founded as Peek Freans Pakistan Limited in 1966, EBM has been dedicated to over half a century of innovation and quality standards, delighting consumers every day with over 16 well-loved brands.

Source: ebm.com.pk

Sangfor HCI Case Study

Customer Challenges

The customer has a variety of critical workloads running in their environment, including many in-house (self-built) and third-party applications, databases, ERP, domain controllers, SharePoint, and Exchange. These were running on traditional (3-tier) architecture using Microsoft Hyper-V Hypervisor with IBM and NetApp storage. The above architecture created the following pain points and challenges for the customer:

• Old Hardware: Old hardware led to consistent performance issues and hardware failures. Maintaining the warranties of these hardware components led to very high maintenance costs.
• Legacy Infrastructure: Separate servers, switches, storage, SAN switches, and firewalls, which increased the operational costs of the datacenter.
• Complex Management: The customer had to manage every tier in the datacenter separately using complex management consoles that require a high level of expertise.
• Hardware Lock-In: When scaling up and scaling out the environment, the customer could only go back to OEMs from which they previously purchased their products.
• Third-Party Backup and DR: The customer was using third-party backup and replication products for data backup and offsite replication.
• Inefficient Support: Using products from different OEMs resulted in plenty of finger-pointing or blaming rather than getting issues resolved quickly.

Sangfor HCI Solution for English Biscuit Manufacturers (EBM)

The customer purchased a total of 10 sockets HCI licenses in the first deployment phase: 6 on the primary site and 4 on the DR site. Sangfor provided the customer with a full HCI software suite including aSV, aSAN, aNET (hypervisor, virtual storage, network virtualization), and aDR licenses. For the hardware, the customer purchased several units of Sangfor aServer 2305 for the production site and aServer 2205 for the DR Site.

Key Values & Outcomes

• Unified Management: Sangfor provides simplified multi-site management by consolidating compute, storage, network, security, backup, and DR operations into a single pane of glass.
• Reduced Datacenter Footprint: By leveraging virtualization technology for every tier, Sangfor converged compute, storage, network, security, backup, and replication in a single box solution, which vastly improved resource utilization in the datacenter.
• Flexible Scaling: Sangfor delivered a true SDDC architecture that is totally hardware-agnostic. The customer is free to use any x86 platform hardware in future scaling, mitigating the hardware lock-in scenario the customer previously faced.
• Built-In Backup and DR: Sangfor provided built-in backup and DR solutions, so the customer did not need to purchase or renew any third-party solutions or deploy any separate appliances.
• Full Stack HCI without Hidden Costs: Sangfor provided the customer with a single enterprise-grade license model for all the purchased components, including the hypervisor, storage virtualization, and network virtualization, with no hidden feature locking or extra charges.
• Single Vendor Support: By opting for Sangfor SDDC, the customer receives support for every tier and warranty services directly from Sangfor. This helps the customer resolve issues fast instead of facing the finger-pointing and blaming of multiple OEMs.

To learn more about Sangfor Hyper-Converged Infrastructure (HCI) product capabilities, use cases, videos, and success stories, please visit the Sangfor HCI webpage at https://www.sangfor.com/cloud-and-infrastructure/products/hci-hyper-converged-infrastructure.

Sangfor aStor Case Study

Customer Challenges

EBM is currently using three Sangfor HCI clusters to manage distinct workloads. The first cluster hosts a large number of VMs for non-SAP workloads that require regular backups. The second cluster is dedicated to SAP-HANA Test and Development, while the third handles SAP-HANA production workloads.

They were previously using IBM V7000 and NetApp as backup appliances and faced the following issues:

1. Limited Support and Maintenance: IBM’s limited direct support resources led to frequent issues with part replacements and overall support responsiveness.
2. End-of-Life Concerns: The IBM V7000 storage appliance is scheduled for end-of-life by the end of 2025, creating an urgent need for a replacement solution to ensure continuity.
3. High Storage Expansion Costs: The company encountered unexpectedly high costs from IBM to expand their storage enclosure, prompting them to reconsider other vendors.

Sangfor aStor Solution for English Biscuit Manufacturers (EBM)

To address these challenges, EBM deployed six Sangfor aStor nodes—three at the primary site and three at the disaster recovery (DR) site—providing a total usable storage capacity of 80TB. This solution meets the company’s backup storage requirements while offering the advantage of Sangfor’s local in-country support. 

Solution Benefits

1. Sufficient Backup Capacity for VMs: Sangfor aStor provides EBM with the necessary storage capacity to manage backups for VMs hosted on their HCI clusters.
2. Unified Storage for Diverse Workloads: Sangfor aStor offers a unified storage platform that integrates block, file, and object storage. This allows EBM to manage diverse data types and VM workloads effectively within a single, adaptable system.
3. File Sharing for Production Users: Sangfor aStor provides networked file storage to support EBM’s production users, allowing them to access and share files through centralized network drives.
4. Unified Operations and Maintenance: Sangfor aStor provides a unified platform that centralizes management of resource allocation, authorization, capacity expansion, hardware replacement, and troubleshooting, significantly reducing operational complexity and overhead.
5. Simplified Volume Management: The integration of SCP (Sangfor Cloud Platform) for volume mapping streamlines storage management, making it easier and faster for system administrators to handle storage volumes.
6. Comprehensive SLA Coverage and Vendor Consolidation: The entire infrastructure is now covered by Sangfor’s service-level agreement (SLA), so EBM no longer needs to manage multiple vendors or local partners. Sangfor assumes responsibility for all hardware support and spare parts, eliminating the need for the customer to maintain their own local spare inventory.

What we like about Sangfor is the local presence. The local support team is quite supportive. They are quite knowledgeable. The first line of support is good. It's also in their native language, so we don't face a language barrier.

Khawaja Khurram Arshad, CIO at EBM

Final Thoughts on EBM's Storage Transformation with Sangfor aStor

Through Sangfor aStor, EBM resolved critical storage issues, securing reliable backup capacity and unified storage for its diverse workloads. The platform’s file-sharing capabilities support production users, while simplified volume management eases system administration. With Sangfor’s local support and comprehensive SLA, EBM benefits from streamlined vendor management and a sustainable storage solution that ensures continuity beyond the previous solution’s end-of-life.

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