Berlin-based myToys.de is a retail company that sells merchandise for children and their families. Distributing its goods online, in stores, and through a mail-order catalog, the company initially relied on Linux for most of its computing systems. In time, the IT environment at myToys.de became heterogeneous, combining Linux and BSD systems with EMC storage and other non-proprietary products, and support became an issue.

The company then began looking at solutions from vendors with a reputation for quality service. It chose Sun Fire V20z and V40z x86-based servers and Solaris Operating System to support email-based customer service.

Eventually, myToys.de decided to purchase its first SPARC Enterprise servers to support its larger, critical ERP system. Similarly, when the company’s EMC platform became unable to support growing storage needs, the company switched to the Sun StorEdge 6130 array. “While using the 6130 system, our administrators were able to see the advantages of professional support,” explains Olaf Brehmer, head of System Administration at myToys.de. “They showed us how use the system efficiently and optimize it for our environment.”

Given the positive experience myToys.de had with Sun, it added the Sun Fire X4100 and later X4200 servers as part of an operating system consolidation. The company also implemented a backup system based on the Sun StorageTek 6140 array.

Most recently the company upgraded to Sun SPARC Enterprise M5000 servers. “Our Sun M-Series servers are extremely reliable, guaranteeing that our online store can continue its exponential growth without any problems,” Brehmer commented. These servers work in a cluster as database and data warehouse servers and also as application servers for Oracle applications. Specifically, five of these SPARC M5000 servers provide back-end support, eight SPARC Enterprise T1000 servers function as Web servers, and 12 Sun Fire AMD processor based servers complement the SPARC M5000 servers as application servers for the Oracle database. All of these servers run the Solaris 10 OS. In addition, Sun StorageTek 6540 arrays along with Sun SPARC hardware drive the company’s ERP system.

Customer service at myToys.de also recently upgraded its workstations to include Sun Ray virtual display clients and Sun Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Software.

“Sun is now our main vendor,” says Brehmer. “Sun provides us with the right server for each application area, and at the same time we profit from the good scalability that is offered within its product lines.”

SunSpectrum Platinum service plan also is a part of myToys.de's IT environment. Brehmer explained, “Whenever we have issues, the system is always up and running again before the end of the day.

“Our demands for performance, redundancy, and minimal downtime have grown along with our increased business," Brehmer continued. "When problems occur, the response time from Sun is fast, the contacts are good, and if we need additional hardware on an ad hoc basis, there aren’t any problems. The collaboration with Sun is extremely professional. It really couldn’t get any better.”

More Information

myToys.de

Customer Snapshot: myToys.de

Sun SPARC Enterprise T1000 Server

Sun SPARC Enterprise M5000 Server

Sun Fire X4440 Server

Sun StorageTek 6540 Array

Sun StorageTek 6140 Array

Solaris 10 Operating System

Sun Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Software

SunSpectrum Support

Sun Professional Services [...read more...]

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