Case study Fadis - SEH Technology, Inc.

October 2009
SeH CaSe Study
Smart
network
Solutions
FadIS Fahrzeug distribution Services GmbH

2
SeH CaSe Study
FadIS – ISd300
Fadis Fahrzeug distribution Services GmbH
(FadIS automobile distribution Services) –
Print Job Management via ISd300
Frederik Hennig (SEH) and Egbert Pälike (FADIS) in front of
FADIS Headquarters in Friedberg
FADIS Fahrzeug Distribution Services (FADIS
Automobile Distribution Services) GmbH at a Glance
FADIS Automobile Distribution Services with headquarters
in Friedberg, Germany, was founded in 1996 and is part
of the import division of the Emil Frey Group, a Swiss com -
pany with a longstanding tradition in the automobile market.
The company primarily supports automobile import companies
like Subaru Germany and Hyundai Motor by taking
care of all back office services. FADIS handles all tasks relating
to warehousing and parts logistics which are not directly
market- and marketing-related. FADIS taps into the central
administration and logistics divisions of the Emil Frey Gruppe
for efficient synergy effects. The FADIS data processing center
in Friedberg provides its back office services for the IT departments
of Subaru in Friedberg, Hyundai in Neckarsulm as well
as for seven additional import companies in the neighboring
countries.
FADIS Fahrzeug Distribution Services GmbH (FADIS Automobile
Distribution Services) was founded in 1996 as service
company of the Emil Frey Gruppe (Emil Frey Group), a Swiss
company operating in the automobile market since 1924.
FADIS was to provide service for the German import companies
of the automobile brands Subaru and Proton and
has since grown continually to evolve as the back office
service provider for further import companies of the Emil Frey
Gruppe and others. Today FADIS attends to the needs of five
import companies of the Emil Frey Group in Germany, France,
Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic, as well as four
import companies in the Benelux countries which are not
part of the Emil Frey Group.
The FADIS data processing center provides IT services for
distribution, customer relationship management, and parts
logistics for all connected car dealers. In Germany alone, there
are about 1,000 dealers. In addition to this, FADIS deals with
Europe­wide consignments e.g. to the Benelux countries,
France, and Eastern Europe. During all this time the printing
volume grew much faster than the IT infrastructure. As a result,
this infrastructure became less and less able to meet the
demands of network printing at FADIS. The ISD300 print spool
appliance appeared to be a suitable solution.
There is much traffic between car dealers and their suppliers:
Parts are ordered, returned, repaired, invoiced, delivered etc.
Accordingly, there is much to print on paper: business letters,
agreements and contracts, order forms, bills of delivery,
invoices, credit notes, customs declarations etc. On top of
that, there are all the print jobs of daily office life. In the
early days of FADIS this was still manageable as all print
jobs were processed in the large area network (LAN) of
the FADIS headquarters in Friedberg. However, today the
print jobs are sent across a wide area network (WAN) which
connects nine locations, seven of which are abroad.
The IT services provided by FADIS include the complete back
office from financial controlling and logistics to all required IT
services for automobile distribution, customer relationship
management, and parts logistics. The printing volume
exploded even though the Internet provided opportunities
for the car dealers to download many forms such as order
forms and bills of delivery from the FADIS Infonet and print

them themselves. FADIS is still left with a very high print
volume due to invoices, demand and credit notes which are
still printed in large numbers directly out of the internal ERP
system. If there is a printer failure or an error in the system
there will be serious complications. The FADIS staff needs to
verify whether all invoices have been printed; that they have
been printed correctly and completely; and to check that
nothing has been sent twice. Such situations can have grave
consequences.
Grown IT InFrASTrucTure
The company's development is mirrored by how its IT in fra -
structure has grown: Originally based on the Linux operating
system, several PCs were cascaded to function as a cluster file
server. All network printers were set up on two Windows 2000
servers, which were attached to this system via Samba. High
volume print jobs were at first handled by large Océ office
printers which have since been continually replaced by more
modern output devices. As the number of network-attached
printers grew, this system became more prone to errors.
Today, the FADIS IT infrastructure is divided into two systems.
The warehouse management is covered by a UNIX-based
system. The commercial departments operate an ERP system
created by Dr. Thomas & Partner called AFSI, which was
especially designed for FADIS. Car dealers connected to
FADIS are able to use the FADIS Infonet to order online.
They are able to see whether the required parts are available.
All orders placed before 5.00 pm will be delivered during
the following night. All necessary forms, e.g. order forms,
are available online. All invoices for FADIS customers are
managed centrally and printed directly from this ERP system
to the printers. However, in case of a voluminous print job
of about 500 invoices with several pages the Linux general
purpose server was often overloaded and could not be relied
upon to handle to print job properly. Within the local FADIS
LAN in the Friedberg headquarters the administrators were
able to control the problems. When it came to the locations
connected via the WAN, however, errors could lead to fatal
consequences.
DeDIcATeD PrInT APPlIAnce BrInGS relIeF
The FADIS IT team decided to look for a suitable solution
for network printing in order to relieve the general purpose
server and to be able to provide all network printing services
in a stable and reliable manner. Searching the Internet,
they found the Intelligent Spooling Device ISD300 of the
German network printing specialist SEH Technology.
The IT team decided to take a closer look at this compact
appliance, which seemed to be able to solve the pressing
problems at FADIS. After all, SEH developed the ISD300
exactly for such a scenario.
SeH CaSe Study
FadIS – ISd300
ISD300 in the FADIS server room
IT environment Fadis
· Network: Ethernet/Fast Ethernet (10BaseT/100BaseTX)
· PC workstations: circa 200 PCs, 50 Notebooks
· Print Server: ISD300, network printing not over general
server
· Network Printers (Number/Typ): 10 Canon Copiers/Scanners
(IR 1600-5000), 95 HP printers (models: HP 4050, HP 4100,
HP 4200, HP 4300), three HP Color Laser Jets (models:
HP 3500, HP 5500).
· Server Environment: grown, mixed environment with
75 servers, among them HP-UX, SUN and LINUX
· Operating System: Windows NT4, Windows 2000,
Windows 2003
· ERP System: Anwendungen und Systeme für den Fahrzeugimport
(AFSI), developed by Dr. Thomas & Partner
· Protocol: TCP/IP
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The SeH Solution at a Glance
SeH CaSe Study
FadIS – ISd300
· ISD300 replaces an error­prone network printing
infrastructure consisting of Linux, cluster data servers
and two Windows 2000 servers with Samba printing
· Relieving Windows 2000 servers, significant perfor ­
mance boost
· Simple and fast implementation and configuration
via browser
· User­friendly management and administration
of network printing with Intelligent Spooling
Device ISD300
· Almost zero maintenance effort
· Easy printer driver management with Microsoft
Point­and­Print
· Error­free high volume printing, e.g. invoices etc.
· Secure and fast backup via redundant ISD300
· Significant cost savings regarding hardware and
technical support
The main task of this print appliance is to take over the
complete spooling and management within a LAN or WAN
and to relieve existing server resources. The appliance is
designed to provide for the availability and administration of
all network printers in the form of queues. Depending on the
network environment and infrastructure, server capacities are
relieved by up to 40 per cent. These capacities are available for
coping with the ever growing data traffic and the increasing
number of services such as email, Internet, and file sharing. In
addition, the stability and availability of the complete system
is enhanced. Studies by Gartner and others have claimed that
network printing takes up about 55 per cent of the overall
network traffic. The additional strain of print job processing
may swamp the often much strained servers, as was the case
at FADIS. This erodes network performance and in the worst
case may even destabilize the system, causing central services
to fail. If that happens, specially trained staff are required to
restore the system. This not only takes time but costs money
for expensive maintenance staff, too. In light of this, utilizing a
dedicated print appliance for spooling, and managing print
jobs and queues was a viable option at FADIS.
SmooTH cenTrAlIzeD HIGH Volume PrInTInG
Egbert Pälike of FADIS Systementwicklung (FADIS System
Development) requested a review sample of SEH's Intelligent
Colorful automobile world at FADIS
Spooling Device ISD300 in October 2007. After only 14 days
of testing the device FADIS was convinced to have found
their future solution. The installation and integration into
the FADIS network began in the following month and
was completed within 14 days. Pälike's team did not require
any help from the SEH support team. "We installed the
ISD300 ourselves and this was really easy," Pälike remembers.
"After assigning an IP address we configured the device
via browser. We hardly needed the manual at all for installation
and configuration."
That a smooth installation like this took 14 days is due to the
FADIS infrastructure. Migrating the network printers from the
general server to the ISD300 was done in phases, one FADIS
department after the other. Simultaneously the printers had

FADIS warehouse
to be released by the internal ERP system. By the end of
November the new solution at FADIS was officially started.
Since then, the ISD300 has been working perfectly without
any failures. FADIS utilizes the ISD300 for the complete central
printing of invoices directly from the ERP system for all clients.
All central output devices as well as all the printers in the
different FADIS departments are controlled via the print
appliance. This includes color printers, copiers, remote
printing via ISDN routers etc. The daily print output at FADIS
is estimated at about 2,000 or more pages.
The ISD300 has fully answered all expectations of Pälike and
his team: "The solution has proved its value in every possible
way. After the initial installation there was nothing left to do,"
Pälike states contentedly and adds: "This solution is totally
SeH CaSe Study
FadIS – ISd300
transparent to us. The administrative effort has been greatly
reduced for us since the print appliance is working stable and
error-free. Thus, we are able to save a lot of costs for maintenance
staff."
HIGH AVAIlABIlITy oF PrInTInG SerVIceS –
AlwAyS on THe SAFe SIDe
All enthusiasm for the ISD300 aside, FADIS did not want to
take any risks and ordered a redundant device as a backup
solution, although SEH offers a Service plus Package which
includes the exchange of a failed print appliance within
24 hours anywhere in Germany. Highest availability was
one of the main design goals during the development of
ISD300, which is mainly provided by the Linux operating
system of the device. The complete configuration can be
stored externally via a simple backup. If required, the
configuration can be restored within minimum time. Also,
the externally stored configuration data can be used for
the configuration of further ISD appliances, significantly
reducing the installation effort. The exchange of a device
and the configuration via backup is managed quickly and
securely with the software tool SEH ISD Manager. This takes
comparatively little time: Depending on the configuration
of the ISD appliance in question, the network environment
etc. the backup und the upload to the exchange appliance
takes about 30 to 60 minutes. The redundant and completely
configured ISD300 at FADIS shortens this time to just a
few minutes of printer services downtime. In addition,
administrators are immediately informed about any possible
problems in the system by automatically generated error
messages.
concluSIon: ISD300 recommenDeD
Since their installation at FADIS the two ISD300 have worked
smoothly. So far, there have been no errors or failures, and
Pälike has never needed to fall back to either backup or
the redundant appliance. His team's satisfaction with the
appliance also had repercussions within the European
Emil Frey Group. As a result, the French branch of the
group now also operates an ISD300. As to the planned
modernization at FADIS, the appliance fits in very well. The
older servers will be, by and by, replaced in favor of an
energy-saving storage system with virtualization concepts
based on VMware solution, which will give off less heat. The
ISD is very compatible with this concept as it already saves
energy: An ISD300 requires only 10 per cent of the energy
gobbled up by a server or PC in its place. It operates without
a fan, giving off almost no heat. Pälike sums it all up: "The
investment costs are really acceptable, the follow-up costs
are very low, the installation and configuration are easy
and the appliance is absolutely reliable. There is nothing
more to wish for!"
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SeH computertechnik GmbH
Germany (Headquarters)
Suedring 11
33647 Bielefeld
Phone +49 (0) 5 21 - 9 42 26-29
Fax +49 (0) 5 21 - 9 42 26-99
Web www.seh.de
Email info@seh.de
SeH Technology uK lTD.
Great Britain/Irland
Phone +44 (0) 12 73 - 23 46-81
Fax +44 (0) 12 73 - 23 46-82
Email info@seh-technology.co.uk
SeH Technology, Inc.
USA
Phone +1 610 - 9 33-20 88
Fax +1 484 - 2 29-06 97
Email info@seh-technology.com
© SEH Computertechnik GmbH, October 2009, Version 1.4. Technical specifications are subject to changes,
errors excepted. All company and product names are trademarks of their respective owners.