Optimizing SAP workloads for the UK’s largest mail company
The largest mail company in the UK partnered with HCLTech and Intel to identify opportunities for optimizing their SAP workloads and reducing infrastructure costs. Despite limited visibility into current system details and utilization metrics, the team delivered insightful recommendations aimed at driving efficiency and long-term cost benefits.
The Challenge
The client faced considerable constraints due to the lack of detailed information about their SAP application requirements, system configuration and real-time utilization. This made it difficult to pinpoint optimization areas or determine the right cloud infrastructure to support evolving business needs.
The Objective
The collaboration aimed to:
- Provide instance-level optimization recommendations despite limited system insights
- Identify potential areas for cost reduction, especially across SAP applications
- Explore server consolidation opportunities to reduce overall IT spend
- Lay the groundwork for deeper sizing and efficiency planning
The Solution
HCLTech conducted an initial assessment of the client’s existing CPU and memory provisioning and provided actionable recommendations tailored to various SAP workloads:
- Instance optimization recommendations
- Portal application and SAP router: Recommended migration to memory-optimized instances to improve performance and resource utilization
- OBA–PI application: Proposed a uniform instance type across production and pre-production environments to maintain consistency
- SAP BW and SAP Enterprise Portal: Suggested memory-optimized instances to meet high memory demands effectively
- Further optimization opportunities identified
- SAP CRM application sizing: A full sizing assessment could potentially consolidate up to 48 servers, unlocking substantial savings
- SAP BW, ECC and enterprise apps: Highlighted as candidates for server consolidation and cost reduction
- RAM reduction exploration: Evaluating a 5–10% RAM reduction could yield additional cost and resource optimization
The Impact
Though in early stages, the insights provided by the Intel ecosystem team paved the way for measurable benefits:
- Cost optimization potential: Memory-optimized instance recommendations and server consolidation pathways point to significant cost savings
- Improved resource utilization: Right-sizing instances based on estimated workload characteristics drives better infrastructure efficiency
- Strategic alignment: Recommendations position the client to further explore SAP workload sizing and long-term infrastructure planning
As the next step, deeper SAP sizing exercises and utilization assessments are expected to maximize these benefits and unlock full optimization potential.
