Cloud Archiving and CMIS Readiness

Kärcher is a manufacturer of cleaning equipment and systems. The group employs 17,000 people in 85 countries worldwide. An important component of this internationally successful company is its comprehensive IT structure. Kärcher also faced a realignment when its long-standing ECM provider terminated its data center operations in Germany.

In the past, the group had used a comprehensive ECM system, but due to a relocation of the data center, Kärcher was forced to migrate the archive to the new data center. Due to the need to re-license the previous provider, cost savings were also an important factor. Those responsible wanted to use these new conditions to implement a modern, cloud-native archiving solution on the one hand and to prepare for the migration to S/4 in the best possible way on the other, while of course also ensuring compliance.

Modern cloud solution on AWS

Stefan Hummel, Squad Manager SAP Technology at Kärcher, recalls: „Kärcher is a cloud-driven company, which means we rely heavily on hyperscalers—including in the SAP environment. So we migrated all our SAP systems from our existing host to AWS in the Frankfurt metropolitan area. The goal was to reduce the infrastructure and complexity of the landscapes and to use forward-looking cloud-native technologies.“

In this context, the archive also had to be relocated. The requirement was for a cost-effective archive solution without an additional database, operated on the AWS infrastructure. In addition, the use of infrastructure-as-code and hot deployment was intended to establish a flexible and low-maintenance solution.

The long-term operation of the new system was to be handled by Kärcher's subsidiary ZOE. In addition, the aim was to integrate the new archive into the existing IT monitoring infrastructure and to design the solution in such a way that the cloud-native interface standard CMIS could be used in the future. To be well prepared, a test environment was set up, not least to provide optimal support for the upcoming SAP S/4 migration.

However, the challenges that Kärcher and the specialists at KGS had to overcome as part of the project were extremely complex. This affected a wide variety of ERP systems worldwide with a database volume of 12.5 terabytes. Hummel: „For our S/4 project, we set ourselves the goal of reducing the amount of data by 20 percent. In addition, we wanted to delete data that no longer needed to be retained from the systems in order to reduce the volume by a third.“ For the new solution, Kärcher relied on Tia, the KGS archiving solution that integrates seamlessly with SAP and does not require its own database.

The migration was carried out using an automated migration tool that ensured uninterrupted access to the archive documents via the proxy server throughout the entire process. A wide variety of production systems, more than 100 content repositories, and 175 million documents were transferred to the new, scalable cloud architecture on AWS. This now forms the basis for future data growth and further digitization projects. It was also important to Kärcher that the migration took place smoothly in the background and that the necessary expertise for operating a cloud-based archive solution without a database and for the new SAP technology was built up in parallel.

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„We wanted to make our archiving solution as streamlined as possible so that we could take full advantage of the benefits of the AWS cloud.“

Stefan Hummel,
Squad Manager SAP Technology
Kärcher

Successful migration

In summary, it can be said that Kärcher has successfully implemented its project goals. Today, the company benefits from significantly reduced system complexity, lower operating costs, and less maintenance. The new archive platform is CMIS-ready and compatible with future SAP standards. The fact that all these improvements were achieved without interrupting access to the archive for even a minute is seen by Kärcher as a major achievement and the result of smooth cooperation with the archiving specialists at KGS.

Hummel: „The fact that we managed to move the archive to the cloud in parallel with the group-wide S/4 project without any interruptions is incredibly valuable. Today, we are delighted that we can operate the archive in the scalable AWS architecture and adapt it to a wide variety of requirements. This means we are well prepared for further growth.“ Beyond the ongoing S/4 project, Kärcher intends to continue minimizing data volumes through consistent archiving. In addition, legacy data that is not subject to legal retention requirements will be systematically deleted, and specific archiving concepts will be developed for the various national subsidiaries.

Source: Kärcher

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