Examining the Need

Toyota Australia's corporate IT systems (predominately SAP) had grown significantly over a four-year period, and its legacy hardware was no longer capable of serving its current and future needs. "We ended up with a fragmented infrastructure and increasing costs," explains Scott. "We were managing eight servers, six separate tape drives and many hard disk arrays—and we had to keep buying new hardware as we ran out of space." To remain a leader in the market, Toyota Australia decided to implement a solution that could provide easier scalability, improved disaster recovery capabilities, and a lower total cost of ownership (TCO). "By consolidating our systems onto a single platform with cost-effective scalability and improved responsiveness, we felt that we could achieve a far better growth position," Scott says. And because the company had several upcoming business initiatives—potentially requiring significant infrastructure expansion—the ability to expand was essential.