About Hexion
Hexion is a global producer of specialist chemicals and high-performance materials for engineered products using metal, wood, concrete, ceramics, glass, plastic, textiles, polyester, and rubber. The company has a keen focus on sustainability, reducing its energy consumption and minimising its impact on the environment.
With 23 production sites across 5 continents, Hexion is the epitome of international. Headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, the company was founded some 150 years ago and has more than 100 years of experience in producing highly engineered and speciality chemicals and materials.
Challenge
- Hexion’s IT relied on a rigid, non-modular infrastructure, that meant each modification required a new evaluation of what type of systems could be deployed at the organisation’s more than 25 locations.
- The lack of standardisation also drove up operational and management costs, resulting in a high total cost of ownership (TCO).
Solution
- Dell VxRail, the hyperconverged infrastructure solution engineered by Dell and VMware.
- A modular design.
- Global deployment, configuration and implementation through Bechtle’s Global IT Alliance partners.
Business benefits
- Fast, modular scalability to add or remove capacities
- A consolidated data centre reduced from nine to just 2 server racks
- Reduction of the data centre footprint by a third
- Efficient management and security thanks to the combination of storage, CPU and networking capabilities in hyperconverged appliances
- A reduction of the management team from 10 full-time equivalent positions to 5
Senior Solutions Manager for Server and Storage, Hexion
What was the reason to rethink the data centre in the first place?
As an international organisation that is itself evolving as fast as the market around it, Hexion relies on exceptional flexibility to respond to the ebbing and flowing need for IT resources such as storage and computing capacity, operating systems and even the underlying IT infrastructure. The traditional infrastructure was highly fragmented across the organisation’s international sites, which made it difficult to onboard or offboard individual companies fast. Many of the sites that are scattered around the world maintained their own data centre, infrastructure and suppliers. To give its agility the necessary boost, Hexion wanted to standardise its data centre architecture. But there was also another reality to deal with.
How does collaboration work across borders?
“A big plus in our collaboration is that all the planning for the data centres happens in the Netherlands and Belgium. There’s no language barrier and communication is quick and easy. That’s very helpful, in particular because in the US components, standards and terms of delivery for a data centre can sometimes be quite different from those in the EU,” explains Peter Vandermeulen.
Hexion has a data centre in Amsterdam, as well as two in the USA so how does the company ensure their US counterparts utilise the same standardised components and achieve the same level of consolidation and flexibility? The answer is the Global IT Alliance (GITA), a network of partners all delivering the same high-quality service, smooth processes and broad portfolio Bechtle customers have come to expect. These partners make sure the planning and decisions made in Europe are also implemented across the pond, and with the same speed and quality, too.
How does the modular design enhance flexibility?
Thanks to the modular data centre, Hexion is now able to quickly scale capacities up or down to respond to acquisitions or sales that can take the IT team by surprise. “We know exactly what we’re buying and we have full transparency into the costs. Everything comes pre-configured, so that’s another thing we don’t have to worry about. And thanks to virtualisation, we can spread the capacity of individual building blocks across different workloads and production facilities,” says Mr Vandermeulen.
This also contributes to savings and sustainability efforts, too. Hexion is now able to make much more efficient use of available resources, while not wasting money on excess capacity. “Knowing exactly what we’re dealing with in advance also allows us to optimally stagger hardware renewals. We have a three-phase replacement plan now, and certain servers are not retired until they really have reached the end of their life, for instance.”
How does the standardisation elevate performance and security?
As VxRail is optimised for Dell’s reference architecture, Hexion can be sure that each module works as expected. Peter Vandermeulen: “The design of each building block has been validated by Dell. They call this “hardening”. They have determined the performance, fine-tuned the configuration where necessary, and provided a documentation of the settings. This is the basis for each new module that we add. Dell knows exactly which components go into the module and how they need to be configured. A hardened VxRail also positively impacts security, with defences perfectly aligned across all components. Plus, any insights or issues that might be discovered through the hardening process will be addressed with security-relevant updates. If, say, a vulnerability scan reveals a gap or there’s a new threat, security is reinforced to deal with it. Another benefit of these automated updates is that we no longer have to deal with downtimes. Before, whenever we needed to deploy a patch this meant taking the servers offline for a while. Not so anymore.”
How does the new solution improve management?
Through standardisation and, in particular, virtualisation in hyperconverged modules, Hexion was able to consolidate the data centre to deliver the same performance and capacity with fewer physical resources. The company was able to clear out seven square metres of data centre space, minimise administration and reduce power consumption. That meant the data centre’s footprint shrank by no less than a third.
Plus, Hexion was able to reduce CapGemini’s management team from ten to five full time equivalents. “We used to have three separate management teams for servers, storage and VMware software that we have now been able to consolidate into one,” says Peter Vandermeulen. “And with a single team managing all data centres, collaboration has also noticeably improved. Administration is now better and faster for all our data centres worldwide.”
What are some takeaways from the project?
Summarising one key learning for the future, Mr Vandermeulen says: “Designing a data centre solution in Europe and then building it in the USA doesn’t have to be difficult. At the same time, it’s beneficial when you work together on site. Everyone becomes more responsive and it’s easy to engage. This applies to me and Joost (Business Consultant, Bechtle), but also my colleagues in the USA who implement their local data centre solutions together with the Global IT Alliance partners in their regions.” Perhaps even more important is the knowledge that having the right partner can make all the difference. “When you work with the right people, it’s easy to discuss the right design and approach, and you can also roll out and scale your solution really fast. I’m very proud of how we pulled off a global standard, building on a local partnership with Bechtle. The modular design we have now enables us to scale up and down fast, and it’s cost-efficient and sustainable, too. Not just now but into the future, so we can easily align our IT with our business.”
Hexion and Bechtle
A partnership that builds on innovation and trust.
Bechtle has been a trusted partner for Hexion for a decade dating back to 2014, and in 2019 the two companies laid the groundwork for the solution that was now implemented in 2024.
More information
Do you want to know how a flexible data centre solution can help your organisation? Get in touch with our consultant for data centre solutions, Joost van Lochem. He’ll be happy to discuss solutions for you.
Joost van Lochem
Business Consultant
Are you interested in how Bechtle can help your organisation on an international scale? Then talk to our international business manager, Olaf Neven.
Olaf Neven
International Business Manager
Connect with our specialistsWant to learn more about this success story or any of the other data centre solutions we offer? Get in touch! |
Connect with our specialists
Want to learn more about this success story or any of the other data centre solutions we offer? Get in touch!