Case Study

Pratt & Whitney Canada Uses Quest Software’s Space Manager with
LiveReorg® to Reduce Downtime and Accelerate User Response Time
Overview
Space Manager with LiveReorg® allows Pratt & Whitney Canada (P&WC), a world leader in aviation
“LiveReorg has taken the work out of the
engines, to reduce SAP system downtime from six hours a week to just a few hours per quarter. In
equation for us. Live reorganizations are
addition, P&WC has improved overall system response time by approximately 20 percent, helping them
automatic and problem-free—and we no
to meet critical service levels. longer compromise SAP system availability or
The Challenge performance in any way.”

- Fernand Gosselin,
Pratt & Whitney Canada (P&WC) is a world leader in aviation engines powering business and regional
Database Administrator for CSC,
aircraft and helicopters. The company also offers advanced engines for industrial applications. P&WC’s a consultancy working with
operations and service network span the globe. P&WC customers require 24x7 system access to track Pratt & Whitney Canada

those engines and parts, so SLAs have been established to guarantee maximum availability for the
global spare parts network.

P&WC runs critical SAP applications used for maintenance, payroll, customer support and other company
operations, supported by an Oracle 8.0.6 database. The SAP system contains over 22,000 tables (about
four terabytes in total size), some with more than 80 million rows—and the system is growing daily. Headquarters
When P&WC first went live with their SAP environment, the IT department had scheduled a weekly six- Longueuil, Quebec
hour maintenance window for hardware upgrades, reorganizations and maintenance. However, that
Services
window did not give them enough time to reorganize many of the larger tables. As business expanded,
the IT department experienced additional pressure to reduce or eliminate SAP system downtime. This Provides aviation engines powering
business and regional aircraft and
was impossible using traditional reorganization procedures. helicopters

P&WC needed a solution that would provide them with the ability to reorganize their databases without Critical Needs
downtime, increase system availability and improve overall SAP system performance while requiring
A solution that would provide the
minimal maintenance from the company’s database administrators. ability to reorganize databases without
downtime, increase system availability
The Quest Solution and improve overall SAP system
performance while requiring minimal
The company evaluated several tools on the market, and the only tool that met all of their objectives maintenance from the company’s
database administrators
was Quest Software’s Space Manager with LiveReorg®. Space Manager with LiveReorg’s patent-pending
technology allows users to optimize database performance by reorganizing Oracle databases without Solution
taking the system offline. Space Manager with LiveReorg

P&WC has two sets of disks that are mirrored, resulting in four images of the production databases. Each Results
of these is approximately one terabyte in size. When they reorganize a table, they actually reorganize four • Reduced SAP system downtime from
copies of that table simultaneously. They can also schedule Space Manager with LiveReorg to run on its six hours a week to a few hours per
quarter
own without supervision—a big advantage to the IT department and system users. “LiveReorg has taken
• Improved overall system response time
the work out of the equation for us. Live reorganizations are automatic and problem-free—and we no by approximately 20 percent, helping to
longer compromise SAP system availability or performance in any way,” said Fernand Gosselin, database meet critical SLAs
administrator for CSC, a consultancy working with P&WC. • Freed up IT resources to focus on more
critical tasks
“From a technical standpoint, what I like about LiveReorg is that there’s a lot of usable functionality. For
example, before LiveReorg, a reorganization of a 17 GB table took 7.5 hours. With LiveReorg, that same
task takes a total of three hours and the switch over of the reorganized table takes seconds. In addition,
we can schedule reorganizations to run over the weekend and no longer have to baby-sit the system
while the maintenance is running,” said Gosselin.

In P&WC’s rapidly growing environment, Space Manager with LiveReorg has helped improve global
response time by approximately 20 percent.
The Bottom Line
“Before LiveReorg, we had to produce reports to enable the manual procedures required whenever
the SAP environment was down. Now the SAP environment is never down, so we’ve eliminated those
manual procedures,” said MacFarlane. This frees the IT department from wasted time, allowing the IT
group to focus on new initiatives important to the company.

Aviation operations are extremely mission-critical; strict regulations, and stringent time requirements
are enforced for aircraft servicing. Space Manager with LiveReorg has allowed P&WC to provide vital
products and services to customer’s 24x7x365, while adhering to aviation industry requirements. “In our
industry, we cannot fail. LiveReorg has enabled us to correct our SAP system hotspots quickly so that we
can meet our business goals, maintain our SLAs [Service Level Agreements] to customers, and keep our
system up and running with little or no downtime,” claimed MacFarlane.

About Pratt & Whitney Canada

Pratt & Whitney Canada, based in Longueuil, Quebec, is a world leader in aviation engines powering
business and regional aircraft and helicopters. The company also offers advanced engines for industrial
applications. P&WC’s operations and service network span the globe.

About Quest Software, Inc.

Quest Software, Inc. delivers innovative products that help organizations get more performance and
productivity from their applications, databases and Windows infrastructure. Through a deep expertise
in IT operations and a continued focus on what works best, Quest helps more than 18,000 customers
worldwide meet higher expectations for enterprise IT. Quest Software can be found in offices around
the globe and at www.quest.com

Quest Software Incorporated • 5 Polaris Way, Aliso Viejo, CA 92656 • www.quest.com • e-mail: info@quest.com
© 2006 Quest Software, Inc. All rights reserved. Quest and LiveReorg are registered trademarks of Quest Software. All other
brand or product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies. Printed in the USA

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