Linc

Linc Limited Achieves 99.99% Uptime and Improves Business Continuity with Migration to SAP on AWS

2022

Founded in 1976, Linc Limited (formerly known as Linc Pen and Plastics Limited) manufactures writing instruments and stationery for distribution and sale in India, exporting to more than 50 countries. It’s also the exclusive distributor of uni-ball writing instruments and Deli stationery in India. After Super Cyclone Amphan hit India’s West Bengal region in May 2020, network and communication lines were down for more than a week. Kolkata-based Linc faced a system outage of 7–10 days.
 
During the downtime following the cyclone, none of Linc’s employees could access SAP—the mission-critical enterprise resource planning (ERP) software used by its procurement, warehousing, sales, and distribution teams. Furthermore, later in 2020, national lockdowns resulting in supply chain disruptions severely impacted Linc’s operations. These two events in combination led company leaders to begin considering a migration from its aging on-premises data center to the cloud.

Outsourcing Infrastructure Management to AWS and AWS Partner

To hedge against future risks and pivot in a more agile manner to sudden market changes, Linc began migrating its SAP systems to Amazon Web Services (AWS) in 2021. “We decided that outsourcing management of our servers, connectivity, and infrastructure would allow us to focus on driving our business to greater heights,” comments Siddhartha Mitra, head of IT at Linc Limited. “AWS is making tremendous strides in cloud computing and was the right fit for migrating SAP.”
 
The first phase of cloud migration, a lift-and-shift from SAP ECC on premises to SAP ECC on AWS, was completed in October 2021. Linc worked with AWS Partner InfraBeat to assist with migration and subsequent management of its SAP on AWS environment. The second phase of the project, a migration to SAP S/4HANA on AWS, is scheduled for completion in April 2022.
 
Thanks to the success of the initial collaboration, Linc selected InfraBeat as its managed service partner after the first phase of SAP migration. “InfraBeat has the depth of experience to advise us on how our architecture should be established on the AWS Cloud, including right sizing SAP instances to optimize performance,” says Mitra.
Linc
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The biggest benefit of SAP on AWS is peace of mind. I know that my ERP system will be available all the time, whether I’m working from home or the office.”

Siddhartha Mitra
Head of IT, Linc Limited

Monitoring for Reliability and Provisioning in 15–20 Minutes

Since migrating to SAP on AWS and implementing Amazon CloudWatch for monitoring, Linc has experienced 99.99 percent system uptime. “InfraBeat recommended implementing Amazon CloudWatch to monitor resource utilization at a marginal cost, which has provided immense benefits. So far there has been no disruption whatsoever,” Mitra says.
 
Provisioning resources is faster on AWS, so InfraBeat or Linc can quickly add SAP instances when the system is approaching capacity. Engineers can spin up an SAP instance in AWS in 15–20 minutes, down from the several weeks required for on-premises provisioning.
 
Furthermore, unlike its previous offline on-premises setup, Linc’s distributed cloud architecture has no single point of failure that could take SAP access down should a system glitch occur in any location. Even if the Linc headquarters loses its connection to SAP, all company branches and warehouses can access SAP through firewall-protected virtual tunnels to AWS.
 

Connecting to Government Portals for Faster Invoicing and Dispatching

Linc has also benefited in other ways from having a connected hosting environment for SAP. Because its on-premises SAP servers were kept offline for security reasons, this complicated compliance with the government’s update to Goods and Service Tax (GST) requirements in 2020.
 
Mitra explains, “After the 2020 revision, we needed to access the GST online portal to generate e-invoices with real-time integration happening through APIs [application programming interfaces]. Our servers weren’t connected to the internet so we had to send invoices using an outdated method, transferring data to an Excel sheet and uploading invoice data manually to the GST portal.”
 
GST reconciliation often involved employees working overtime and sometimes carried over to the next day. “It was a 48-hour task that was completely unnecessary,” adds Mitra. Now, same-day invoicing happens by default as SAP connects to the GST portal. Dispatching products to customers is also 10 percent faster as a result.

Reducing Manual Effort for Backups

Backups are another area in which Linc has eliminated unnecessary manual effort. Previously, one team member managed weekly SAP backups taking place overnight. During backup windows, Linc’s SAP system was offline. “Someone had to initiate the backup at night and send the tapes to a secure location the next morning. This exercise became redundant with SAP on AWS,” Mitra shares.

SAP data is now automatically backed up to Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), and the system remains online during the process. The team can redirect its time to other tasks, such as planning a robust disaster recovery strategy. Once the migration to S/4HANA is complete, Linc plans to use AWS Backint Agent to backup and restore its SAP HANA database to Amazon S3.

“All our critical servers are currently backed up centrally using Amazon Machine Images [AMI] so we’re protected against data loss. Management and key stakeholders across various departments can securely access our critical information from any of our locations, at any time,” says Mitra. 

Planning to Leverage SAP Data for Analytics

Following the migration, Linc is now exploring an analytics strategy to leverage the data it’s collecting and storing centrally on AWS. The company is also pursuing new lines of business, including hygiene products, to diversify its market presence.

Mitra concludes, “As the head of IT, the biggest benefit of SAP on AWS is peace of mind. I know that my ERP system will be available all the time, whether I’m working from home or the office.”

Learn More

To learn more, visit aws.amazon.com/sap.

About Linc Limited

Linc manufactures writing instruments and stationery for distribution and sale in India and exports to more than 50 countries. It’s also the exclusive distributor of uni-ball writing instruments and Deli stationery in India.

Benefits

  • Ensures 99.99% uptime for SAP regardless of user access point
  • Provisions SAP instances in 15–20 minutes instead of several weeks
  • Dispatches products 10% faster to customers
  • Completes e-invoicing within the day
  • Automates backups to avoid data loss or errors
  • Increases productivity with fewer manual tasks

AWS Services Used

SAP on AWS

Whether you are looking to lift and shift ECC to reduce costs, migrate to SAP S/4HANA, or innovate with AWS services, AWS offers proven approaches backed by unmatched experience supporting SAP customers in the cloud.

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Amazon Simple Storage Service

Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) is an object storage service offering industry-leading scalability, data availability, security, and performance.

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AWS Backint Agent

AWS Backint Agent for SAP HANA is an SAP-certified backup and restore solution for SAP HANA workloads running on Amazon EC2 instances.

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Amazon CloudWatch

Amazon CloudWatch is a monitoring and observability service built for DevOps engineers, developers, site reliability engineers (SREs), IT managers, and product owners.

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