Sequent Data Center Servers Fuel Ford's Global Warranty Data Warehouse
26 April 1999
Sequent Data Center Servers Fuel Ford's Global Warranty Data Warehouse
BEAVERTON, Ore.--April 26, 1999--to identify product trends and improve quality
Sequent Computer Systems, Inc. today announced that Ford Motor Company, the world's second-largest vehicle manufacturer, has upgraded its Analytical Warranty System (AWS) with new second-generation NUMA-Q(TM) 2000 servers from Sequent. Ford's AWS is a corporate-wide data warehouse that combines all vehicle and warranty claims and related parts information on Ford cars and trucks from the past 10 years into a single searchable repository analysis. It is Ford's largest decision support data warehouse.
"Sequent delivered a data center environment for Ford's Analytical Warranty System that surpasses the abilities and functionality of a mainframe," said John McAdam, president and COO for Sequent. "Sequent's scalable servers have enabled Ford to consolidate multiple systems from different geographies onto a single platform, reducing costs and allowing Ford to search and query its data corporate-wide for warranty trends that ultimately improve quality."
AWS is a key component of Ford's focus on quality, allowing engineers and quality control staff to quickly identify and address quality trends and issues, such as product defects. In addition to improving customer satisfaction, more efficient quality control has reduced warranty costs for Ford.
AWS Mainframe Migration
Ford migrated AWS from a batch-mode mainframe platform to Sequent servers for online real-time performance starting in 1995, resulting in a more flexible user interface and a larger capacity to manage data from geographies beyond North America. Initially Ford migrated all US warranty data to Sequent servers. The system's success lead Ford to then consolidate three disparate decision support warranty systems into one to track warranty data from the US, Canada and Europe. As a result, Ford was able to significantly reduce annual expenditures by unplugging both the US and European mainframe systems.
The latest upgrade, bringing all of the global data onto the single AWS platform, was based on Sequent's second-generation NUMA-Q 2000 server running the Intel Pentium II Xeon processors. With more than two terabytes (TB) of capacity, AWS today supports employees from finance, engineering, manufacturing, purchasing and quality with as many as 145 concurrent users. AWS runs on NUMA-Q 2000 servers with a total of 40 processors with the Oracle database and EMC disk arrays.
NUMA-Q 2000
NUMA-Q 2000 data center servers are designed to deliver mainframe performance levels at a fraction of the cost. NUMA-Q 2000 is a robust, scalable next generation SMP server that minimizes customers' risk of implementing complex business applications in an open systems environment. The basic building block of Sequent's NUMA-Q architecture is the four-processor (quad) Intel Pentium II Xeon processor baseboard, which Sequent has enhanced and hardened to meet enterprise computing requirements. Current NUMA-Q 2000 systems support up to 64 processors via an innovative interconnect technology called IQ-Link(TM).
The introduction of the second generation NUMA-Q 2000 systems in October 1998 enabled Sequent to post leading industry standard benchmark results for data warehouse query and online transaction processing performance. The launch further established Sequent's technology leadership with the industry's first 10 kilometer switched fibre channel distance capability and new partitioning capability in its Application Region Manager(TM) software enabling performance tuning, workload management and server consolidation
About Sequent Computer Systems, Inc.
Sequent Computer Systems , the leader in Intel-based solutions for the data center, is committed to the success of its end-user and system integrator customers. Sequent's platform architectures and services are optimized for the scalability, availability and manageability requirements of corporate and institutional data center environments leveraging industry-standard technologies and best-in-class partnerships. Sequent supports more than 10,000 installations worldwide, including many of the world's largest and most sophisticated OLTP, DSS and RDBMS applications. For further information, phone Sequent at (503) 626-5700 or (800) 257-9044, or visit our Web site at www.sequent.com.
Trademarks
Sequent is a registered trademark and NUMA-Q, IQ-Link and Application Region Manager are trademarks of Sequent Computer Systems, Inc. All brand and product names appearing in this release are registered trademarks or trademarks of their respective holders.