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"We are more comfortable working with CA. Unicenter Autosys enables us to save one to two hours a day reviewing plans." |
French auto manufacturer moves into South America
Renault, one of the world's largest global automotive manufacturers, first opened shop in Argentina in 1955. At the time, the company was considered the pioneer of the local growing auto industry, being the first to bring large-scale automotive production to the country of Argentina. In the last five decades, over 20 models and 2 million vehicles have driven off the plant's production lines.
For an extended multinational team, error would not be an option
Dictated by the corporate office, the migration was given a month-and-a-half for completion, and the timing was so particularly crucial, that it would literally need to occur with no mistakes. An extended, three-nation team was quickly assembled, and they were given several critical tasks: creating a test environment in Renault Brazil, training staff, and migrating targeted servers. Collaboration and coordination would be essential if these changes were to be made as seamlessly as possible — not to mention rapidly — and with, of course, no operational disruptions.
Renault Argentina aligns with corporate in France in migrating to new technology
Following suit with its IT headquarters in France, both Renault Argentina and Renault Brazil began to replace its task management software with CA Application Performance Management technology, which was already implemented by Renault France. Beyond the overall challenge of taking two IT operations, in two different countries, and simultaneously aligning them with the corporate platform, which was located in yet a third country, the team broke down the job into three separate challenges: 1) employee education and the creation of a test environment in Brazil, 2) migration of one industrial server, and 3) migration of two commercial servers shortly thereafter. All told, it was a question of smooth migration, implementation and evolution. But mostly, it was about time.
CA technology efficiently automates processing at Renault, one server at a time
CA's Application Performance Management Solution, CA Unicenter© Autosys, was tested in Renault Brazil, and then eventually brought to Renault Argentina to support mission-critical applications. Designed to operate in distributed environments, it enabled the Renault IT team to monitor, schedule, and observe events in real time, and manage error recovery, all from one centralized point of entry.
Using existing technology commands during implementation, the team was able to collect information for all tasks and produce text files that, when executed, generated records automatically. The preparation of these files consumed a considerable amount of time for analysis in order to define new configurations and record particularities. Thus, one server was initially used for testing, and the remaining two were ultimately put into production. Further server consolidation at the Córdoba plant would be the next planned phase.
Time and money are saved as Renault comes up to speed with corporate
The implementation was accomplished without a hitch, and well within the time and budget allotted. To the delight of corporate headquarters, the migration was successfully operational since day one. Renault saved money in the process, too. According to Luiz Siquiera, IT manager for Renault South America, one of the important factors behind choosing the CA solution in the first place was its price. As a result, the company didn't have to outsource these vital IT administration functions. Moreover, continued Siquiera, "We are more comfortable working with CA. Unicenter Autosys enables us to save 1 to 2 hours a day reviewing plans."
Content posted on: 16 July 2007
