Animex Foods is one the leading meat producers in Poland, specializing in pork, poultry, and processed meat products. The company employs more than 11,000 people and maintains 12 plants. Animex is part of Smithfield Foods, Inc., and is known for brands like Krakus for Polish ham and smoked meats and Morliny and Berlinki for sausages.
Animex relies on technology in its processing facilities to continuously monitor livestock and every stage of production. Digital processes and advanced analytics support Animex’s operations through the entire value chain, from procurement through delivery. Plants operate 24/7 and require highly available and reliable IT systems to avoid costly outages and downtime.
Business growth was taxing the company’s IT infrastructure, which was too slow to support increasing digital demands. Animex needed to add storage capacity. The problem? Animex’s existing storage infrastructure couldn’t be expanded.
Analyze and Modernize to Optimize Performance
Animex turned to two trusted partners, Hitachi Vantara and WASKO, a Polish IT service provider, to develop a solution. They first installed Hitachi Ops Center Analyzer to evaluate performance, identify bottlenecks, and assess system reliability. Machine learning provided insights to better utilize resources. Based on the data from the Ops Center Analyzer, Animex decided to replace the entire storage architecture at each plant.
The team rolled out 16 Hitachi Vantara Virtual Storage Platform (VSP) E590 arrays across its locations and installed additional arrays to support backup and other infrastructure services. At the same time, Animex upgraded its legacy storage to VSP E990 to support its SAP business applications and SAP HANA databases.
Animex implemented VMware virtualization at its main data center and at the plants, and all the virtual machines boot from virtual disks backed by Hitachi Vantara storage. The NVMe architecture streamlines and optimizes operations. Hitachi Ops Center Analyzer and Administrator offer a consolidated view of all components, allowing Animex to isolate and resolve issues more quickly. Hitachi Data Protection Suite provides business continuity and operational resilience.
High Availability and Reliability
The high availability of the system has increased reliability and optimized productivity at the processing plants. Hitachi Vantara’s Adaptive Data Reduction (ADR) capabilities increase effective storage capacity, with a compression and deduplication ratio of 4:1, cutting storage costs. Backups are 50 percent faster. Animex uses the Hitachi Ops Center to expedite system administration and can schedule system upgrades without downtime, improving overall efficiency.
The upgraded storage system also has brought performance improvements in other areas of the business. Month-end reports are easily and quickly compiled for the accounting department, streamlining financial management across the company. Low-latency Hitachi Vantara storage supports Animex’s 20TB SAP ERP database and SAP Business Warehouse, enabling the 2,500 business users immediate access to the data, boosting productivity. Database maintenance takes only minutes, a drastic reduction from 12 hours.
The modernized infrastructure has enabled Animex to operate more reliably and productively, not only in the plants, but also in the business office. Potential problems are identified and resolved quickly, optimizing efficiency and allowing the company to focus on the meat of its business.
Read the complete Hitachi Vantara customer success story.
Find out more about WASKO.
Image credit: Hitachi Vantara