Download Supply Chain Solution Company Raises Performance

Microsoft Windows Server System
Customer Solution Case Study
Supply Chain Solution Company Raises
Performance, Lowers TCO
Overview
Country: United States
Industry: High-Tech, IT Services
Customer Profile
i2 was founded in 1988 by two visionaries
in what is now called the supply chain
management industry. The company has
grown to have more than 900 customers,
with 500 deployments in the last year
alone.
Business Situation
Having built a successful business on UNIXbased platforms, i2 wanted to expand its
sales opportunities by providing products
and solutions to more companies at lower
price-points.
Solution
In addition to maintaining the popular
UNIX-based solutions, i2 now provides
more flexible, core-area solutions based on
Microsoft® Windows Server™ 2003 x64
Editions.
Benefits
 Lower TCO for customers
 Improved performance
 New revenue avenues for i2
“For us, it’s…being able to introduce the cost savings
and the performance benefits of the
Windows…platform to customers.”
Adrian Bird, Senior Program Manager, i2
i2 helps business leaders make better supply chain decisions. The
company’s agile, next-generation solutions are designed to help
profitably manage demand and supply across ever-changing global
business networks. Several years ago, i2 switched to 64-bit
addressing, a decision that caused the company to primarily deploy
in the UNIX environment. With the recent release of Microsoft®
Windows Server™ 2003 x64 Editions, i2 can broaden its reach of
customers and lower its total cost of ownership by offering i2
customers the real value of overall improved performance
alongside 32-bit compatibility. i2 can broaden its reach of potential
customers and increase the marketability of their solutions with the
increased performance, 32-bit compatibility, and low cost of
ownership that the Windows Server 2003 x64 Editions provides.
Situation
i2 was founded in 1988 by Sanjiv Sidhu and
Ken Sharma, two visionaries in what was
later to be coined the supply chain
management industry. Sidhu and Sharma’s
passion was to apply technology and best
practices to eliminating inefficiencies in
business.
“When we did the
testing, we found that
our solution on Windows
Server 2003 for Itaniumbased Systems running
on an Intel Itanium
server offered one of the
highest performing
system configurations
for our latest release.”
Adrian Bird, Senior Program Manager, i2
i2 next-generation solutions are designed to
help today’s enterprises build agile
consumer-driven supply chains that enable
them to win market leadership in an everchanging global business environment. i2’s
next-generation solutions are engineered to
enable the speed, flexibility, quality, and lowcost IT production expected by today’s
businesses. Built and deployed according to
the new software model required by real-time
enterprises, i2 solutions feature
componentization and service-oriented
architecture, an adaptable business process
platform, advanced supply chain optimization
and forecast techniques, and visionary
approaches in supply chain best practices. i2
next-generation solutions are a cornerstone
of the IT infrastructure changes required to
become a real-time supply chain enterprise.
Says Adrian Bird, Senior Program Manager of
i2, “To develop market-leading solutions, we
had two key requirements: We needed the
fastest processor that money could buy, and
we required a lot of memory. Historically,
these requirements have only been available
in higher priced 16-way systems, which
limited the choices for our customers and i2’s
ability to offer a competitively priced solution
across all the channels where we wanted to
sell.”
Solution
In its latest release, i2 has certified many of
its core supply chain solutions to run on the
Microsoft® Windows Server™ 2003 x64
Editions operating system, including i2 Supply
Chain Planner (SCP); i2 Master Data
Management (MDM), and i2 Demand
Manager (DM). Along with 32-bit and 64-bit
versions of Windows Server 2003, i2 is now
offering the Microsoft® Office Excel® 2003
spreadsheet software as one of the main
user interfaces for one of its solutions. i2
plans to expand this to additional solutions in
2006.
Windows Server 2003 x64 Editions provides
high performance for both 32-bit and 64-bit
applications on the same system. The
underlying architecture is based on 64-bit
extensions to the industry-standard 86-bit
instruction set, and allows today's 32-bit
applications to run natively on 64-bit
processors. At the same time, new 64-bit
applications execute in 64-bit mode, which
processes more data per clock cycle, allows
greater access to memory, and speeds
numeric calculations. The end result is an
environment that takes advantage of the
existing wealth of 32-bit applications while
also providing a smooth migration path to 64bit computing.
“For us, it’s about being able to introduce the
cost savings and the performance benefits of
the [Microsoft] Windows® and Intel platform
to customers,” says Bird.
Benefits
Generally, those i2 customers to whom a 64bit edition of Windows Server 2003 makes
sense are large Fortune 100 companies who
have very large supply chain models but are
concerned about IT costs.
“We’re interested in the Windows [Server
2003] 64-bit platform for two reasons: It
allows us to offer the 64-bit-capable platform
or a 64-bit solution on a Windows platform;
and it offers access to all of the normal 32-bit
solutions that customers would expect to be
able to run on the same technology,” says
Bird. “Our customers are interested in the
lower TCO [total cost of ownership].”
Lower TCO for Customers
The 64-bit versions of the Windows Server
2003 operating system have been designed
to run on high-performance 64-bit processors
and, thereby, improve performance and
scalability—often with dramatic benefits.
These advantages—in themselves—help lower
TCO by delivering superior price performance
and reducing administration costs.
“The i2 64-bit Planning
solution, built on
Windows Server 2003
x64…allows customers
access to the lower TCO
option with commoditypriced application
servers.”
Adrian Bird, Senior Program Manager, i2
Windows Server 2003 supports two different
64-bit architectures:
 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise
Edition for Itanium™-based Systems is well
suited for native 64-bit applications
requiring the highest levels of scalability.
 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 x64
Editions allows use of the abundance of
existing 32-bit Windows applications while
also powering the latest 64-bit technology.
Says Bird, “The i2 64-bit Planning solution,
built on Windows Server 2003 x64 Editions
[running] on 64-bit Intel Xeon processorbased servers, allows customers access to
the lower TCO option with commodity-priced
application servers. We already have
customers who’ve expressed interest in our
planning solution. These inquiries have been
driven by IT staffs demanding flexibility in
management of TCO by simply providing them
the choice.”
i2 believes that Windows Server 2003 x64
Editions provide a dramatic opportunity for its
customers to get a much higher-speed
platform—running in a familiar Windows
environment—and to get the processor
performance that they want in a much lowercost platform.
Improved Performance
Designed to run on high-performance 64-bit
processors and, in turn, improve performance
and scalability, Windows Server 2003 x64
Editions help i2:
 Process more data per clock cycle.


Address more memory.
Run faster numeric calculations.
For workloads that are memory-intensive or
compute-intensive, the performance and
scalability benefits are often dramatic. For
example:
Large data sets can be loaded entirely into
memory, reducing the need for slower disk
access.
 Complex calculations that take hours to
complete on 32-bit systems can be done in
minutes.
 Workloads that once required large server
farms can be deployed on a single server.

“When we did the testing, we found that our
solution on Windows Server 2003 for
Itanium-based Systems running on an Intel
Itanium server offered one of the highest
performing system configurations for our
latest release,” says Bird.
New Revenue Avenues for i2
For i2, the advent of 64-bit processing in a
Windows and Intel environment has opened
new avenues for revenue because the
company no longer needs to limit itself to
those customers who are committed to UNIXbased architectures. This broader flexibility
supports i2’s overall strategy to offer more
solutions running on Windows and helps to
expand its customer base.
Says Bird, “Now Windows Server 2003 x64
Editions has leveled the playing field. We’re
going from being able to run [our products]
only in a UNIX environment to suddenly being
able to run in both. This automatically
expands our market opportunities.”
For More Information
For more information about Microsoft
products and services, call the Microsoft
Sales Information Center at (800) 4269400. In Canada, call the Microsoft
Canada Information Centre at (877) 5682495. Customers who are deaf or hard-ofhearing can reach Microsoft text telephone
(TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234 in
the United States or (905) 568-9641 in
Canada. Outside the 50 United States and
Canada, please contact your local
Microsoft subsidiary. To access information
using the World Wide Web, go to:
www.microsoft.com
For more information about i2 products
and services, call 469-357-7551 or visit
the Web site at:
www.i2.com
Microsoft Windows Server
System
Microsoft Windows Server System integrated
server infrastructure software is designed to
support end-to-end solutions built on the
Windows Server operating system. Windows
Server System creates an infrastructure
based on integrated innovation, Microsoft's
holistic approach to building products and
solutions that are intrinsically designed to
work together and interact seamlessly with
other data and applications across your IT
environment. This helps you reduce the costs
of ongoing operations, deliver a more secure
and reliable IT infrastructure, and drive
valuable new capabilities for the future
growth of your business.
For more information about Windows Server
System, go to:
www.microsoft.com/windowsserversystem
Software and Services
Hardware
Windows Server System™
− Microsoft Windows Server 2003 x64
Editions
− Microsoft Windows Server 2003 for
Itanium-based Systems
 Microsoft Office System
− Microsoft Office Excel 2003


© 2006 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT
MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS
SUMMARY. Microsoft, Excel, Windows, the Windows logo,
Windows Server, and Windows Server System are either
registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in
the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks
are property of their respective owners.
Document published February 2006
64-bit Intel Xeon™ processor-based
servers
 64-bit Intel Itanium processor-based
servers