Hitachi Vantara's Seamless Storage Migration: A Case Study on Cost Savings

The customer in this case study is the BMW Group, a renowned automobile manufacturer with production sites worldwide, including locations in Germany, China, and the U.S. The BMW Group had been using Hitachi Vantara's on-demand storage services since 2012, delivered by a 20-member operations and migrations team based in Munich, Germany. The challenge for the BMW Group was to upgrade their existing storage platform, which was nearing its end of life, to new hardware without disrupting production continuity. This was a massive undertaking, impacting 12 sites in eight countries across four continents and involving 1,700 physical servers.

Hitachi Vantara had been providing on-demand storage services to automobile manufacturer BMW Group since 2012. The service was delivered by a 20-member operations and migrations team based in Munich, Germany, and supported all BMW Group production sites worldwide, including locations in Germany, China, and the U.S. However, the existing Hitachi storage platform was nearing its end of life, necessitating an upgrade to new hardware. The challenge was to carry out this upgrade without disrupting production continuity. The project was massive, impacting 12 sites in eight countries across four continents and involving 1,700 physical servers.

The success of the complex storage migration project was ensured by four key factors: an experienced and flexible team, proven processes, Hitachi Vantara’s nondisruptive migration (NDM) technology, and a robust change management framework. The Hitachi migration team worked closely with the BMW Group to create a global migration plan that took advantage of the company’s scheduled downtime windows to avoid disruption to production plants. To minimize the risk of disruption, Hitachi developed a robust migration process for every type of system and conducted intensive tests prior to the actual transition. These processes were thoroughly documented in run books. Strict change management was also key, with two change managers from the Hitachi team responsible for handling any requests from the BMW Group or Hitachi. Many of the individual system migrations were planned for weekends, but last-minute changes to the schedule were inevitable to safeguard business continuity for the BMW Group throughout the project.

• Thanks to the strength of Hitachi’s approach, the migration project was completed without any downtime or disruption to the production processes. The project was completed to budget and ahead of deadline, enabling BMW Group to maximize the benefits of the new storage platform quickly. The new storage platform, Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform G1500, is much more cost-effective and environmentally friendly. As a result, the new platform will significantly reduce storage costs for the BMW Group. The team's flexibility in accommodating last-minute changes to the schedule was crucial in safeguarding business continuity for the BMW Group throughout the project.

• Migrated 12 sites in 8 countries over 4 continents without disruption.
• 70% smaller footprint.
• 80% less power.