Covisint, the e-commerce, supply chain and procurement services provider to the automotive industry, will use hundreds of Intel-based servers to run its procurement and quality planning solutions.
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The company said that it selected Intel for its ability to provide a cost-effective and flexible infrastructure that will scale to meet projected global growth. Covisint addes that the Intel and Covisint solution will help enable the automotive industry to compress planning cycles and enhance the supply chain planning process.
“By using Intel-based servers we are able to meet our goal of handling an increase in active users and continuing to provide the automotive community with a high level of cooperation and collaboration needed to communicate and negotiate among customers and suppliers,” said Kevin Vasconi, Covisint chief technology officer. “After working with Intel to test and optimise the solutions, we found that the Intel-based platform will not only scale to support Covisint’s projected growth, but also provide improved performance and significant cost-savings over proprietary solutions.”
Intel-based servers will power two of Covisint’s supply chain tools. The Covisint Buyer Auction enables automakers to negotiate with thousands of suppliers of raw materials or finished goods on-line, speeding the procurement process while reducing costs. The Intel-based solution includes Intel Pentium III Xeon(TM) processor-based database servers from HP running Microsoft SQL(1) Server Enterprise Edition and Microsoft Windows(1) 2000 Advanced Server. The front-end of the solution consists of dual processor servers running CommerceOne* Auction Services 5.0.
Supported by original equipment manufacturers DaimlerChrysler AG, Ford Motor Company and General Motors Corporation, the Advanced Quality Planner solution enables communication and connectivity within the automotive supply chain by organising key Advanced Performance Quality Planning (APQP) information, and provides an easy means of sharing quality information between customers.
The solution is powered by Intel-based servers, an advanced quality planning solution from Powerway(1), Microsoft Windows(1) 2000 Advanced Server and Microsoft SQL Server 2000(1).
“Volume economics allow Intel-based servers to provide the capability, cost and choice required by Covisint to meet its need for reliable response time and performance within its budget without sacrificing the opportunity for future growth,” said Tom Gibbs, director of industry marketing for Intel’s Solutions Market Development Group. “By working with Covisint and the software community, we were able to optimise the Intel-based solution to handle steep spikes in customer transactions and utilisation without losing connections or slowing response, both of which are critical to the automotive manufacturing supply chain.”
Covisint worked with Intel to test the scalability of and optimise the buyer auction platform and the quality planning solution. Intel Solution Services consultants set up a test deployment at Intel’s Santa Clara, Calif. solution centre that closely resembled the physical systems in place at Covisint to perform a detailed study of Covisint’s infrastructure and determined how to optimise the platform so that it could handle future growth.
