Business Continuity Cloud Solution for Dalmia Bharath Group

February 19, 2022 | Resonances type: Case study

Founded by Mr. Jaidayal Dalmia in 1939, Dalmia Cements is a pioneering cement company in India. Headquartered in New Delhi, the company operates as Dalmia Cement (Bharat) Ltd, a 100% subsidiary of Dalmia Bharat Ltd.

The company has a manufacturing capacity of 35.9 million tons per annum (MTPA) across 14 plants and grinding units located in 10 states. With over 33,000 dealers and sub-dealers, the company serves more than 22 states and is a leading player in each region it is present in. The company has grown through acquisitions and greenfield expansions to scale the business and venture into new territories. Dalmia Cement is unique in that it has at least one plant in each of the four major eastern states of West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, and Odisha.

The problem statements

Dalmia Cement operates a business model that relies on on-premise and third party (NetMagic), data centre for storing and processing all the data generated by its various services. Our assessment identified a total of 123 servers and 11 applications hosted in these locations. The company processes a large amount of data, on SAP and non-SAP applications, which is used for invoicing, data processing, transformation, and analysis by various business units in both the headquarters and cement plants. As the business continues to grow, the company aims to migrate its data centre to the AWS cloud to increase agility and build a sustainable ecosystem. In addition, the company is facing challenges during peak periods due to heavy workloads on critical applications and poor overall performance of the current data centre. The company is seeking a secure and cost-effective solution with high availability and disaster recovery for SAP and Non-SAP data with continual running business.

Keys Drivers:

1. To find scalable, agile and high availability solutions for Dalmia Infrastructure in the long run.
2. Extension of the private cloud contract, with critical business applications and ERPs hosted on the private cloud.
3. Limitations and constraints in the technology front are hindering faster business growth and innovation in on-premise infrastructure.

Infrastructure solutions:

1. Minfy leveraged the Migration Acceleration Program to create a business case for migration to AWS.
2. We performed a well-architected review on SAP workloads and non-SAP applications.
3. We designed and deployed an SAP HANA HA-DR solution in accordance with AWS Well-Architected Recommendations and SAP standards.
4. Minfy implemented an HA solution for SAP HANA workloads in different availability zones within the Mumbai region and a disaster recovery configuration in the Singapore region to ensure optimal use of services and no data loss through data synchronization.
5. The Sugar SAP workload was directly replicated through Cloud Endure in the DR site.
6. We migrated legacy non-SAP applications through the Database Migration Service (DMS) for MySQL and MSSQL.
7. We configured AWS RDS for non-SAP databases for SDMS and PLMS-UAT, providing a hassle-free service and high availability.
8. A Transit Gateway was configured to establish a secure connection between the virtual private connection in the cloud and the on-premise database/application.
9. AWS S3 was used to store data across cement plants throughout India, as well as HANA complete and log backups.
10. COMMVAULT and AWS Backup were deployed for all EC2 backups and file backups. COMMVAULT was used to restore file-level backups, and AWS backups were used to restore EC2s.
11. Active Directory was configured for all user management access and privileges, including server connectivity through Password Manager Pro.
12. A cloud operating model was defined and implemented, and cloud operations were transitioned to a managed service support.
14. 24x7 monitoring and management of databases and infrastructure was provided through a managed service model.

The Results and Benefits

1. A 35% reduction in total cost of ownership by scheduling non-production environments with over 50 virtual machines and provisioning the bare minimum for production environments with over 100 virtual machines, based on the needs of the application team.
2. The flexibility provided by AWS Cloud has allowed Dalmia to scale infrastructure according to business requirements.
3. By re-platforming critical legacy application databases into managed RDS, Dalmia has seen improved performance and reduced operational overhead for activities such as monthly patching and scheduling backups.
4. By helping Dalmia adopt cloud-native services, we're able to enable them in driving innovation and supporting their digital transformation initiatives.
5. Enhanced Data Protection: By configuring an SAP HANA High Availability (HA) and Disaster Recovery (DR) solution in multiple availability zones, Dalmia Cement significantly improved its data protection capabilities. The redundancy across different zones ensures that critical business data remains available and accessible even in the event of hardware failures or infrastructure issues.
6. Minimized Downtime: The AWS-based DR configuration implemented by Minfy drastically reduced downtime during critical business periods. In the event of an infrastructure failure or disaster in the primary Mumbai region, the disaster recovery site in the Singapore region automatically takes over, leading to minimal downtime and ensuring uninterrupted business operations.
7. Reduced Risk: The establishment of a DR configuration across different regions in AWS mitigates risks associated with regional outages or natural disasters. This approach enhances the overall business continuity plan and safeguards Dalmia Cement's IT infrastructure against potential disruptions.
8. Cost-Effectiveness: Minfy's expert implementation allowed Dalmia Cement to optimize costs by adopting AWS services such as AWS S3 for storing data backups and AWS Backup for efficient EC2 backups. This cost-effective approach ensures data resilience without incurring unnecessary expenses.
9. Reliable Data Storage: AWS S3 was employed to store data across cement plants throughout India, providing a reliable and scalable solution. This secure storage option allows easy data access and facilitates efficient data recovery during the DR process.
10. Proactive Monitoring and Management: Minfy's Managed Services offered 24x7 monitoring and management of databases and infrastructure. This proactive approach ensures prompt identification of potential issues and immediate action to maintain DR resilience.

Overall, Minfy's implementation of AWS solutions has significantly bolstered Dalmia Cement's Disaster Recovery capabilities, allowing them to maintain high availability, minimize downtime, and protect critical business data. These outcomes demonstrate Minfy's expertise and commitment to providing robust DR solutions, making them a strong candidate for the AWS Competency program in DR resilience.