Challenges

The end of an ERP vendor’s extended support once offered an organization two choices: upgrade or lose all vendor support. When a system is as highly customized as the County of Cuyahoga’s SAP ECC system, an upgrade may mean losing specialized functionality, along with disruption and the cost of going through the process. The county’s IT managers needed to reduce costs, rather than spend more on another upgrade cycle and on recoding customizations.

Rimini Street Solution

The county’s IT team found that it could keep its customized SAP system humming – and avoid an expensive SAP upgrade by moving to independent support. The vendor refused to help resolve any issues arising from customized code, but Rimini Street’s experienced Primary Support Engineers (PSEs) can assist with any problem with the system – whether standard functionality or customized code. The county relies on Rimini Street to address technology stack issues, as well as provide guidance on hardware migrations, interoperability conflicts and technology roadmaps.

Client Results

• Avoided an expensive upgrade of its SAP ECC system, which provided the time necessary to evaluate a new ERP system.
• Upgraded its hardware platform and operating system to Solaris 11; avoided interoperability issues with Oracle 9i and SAP ECC 4.7 by following detailed protocols provided by its Rimini Street PSE.
• Received personalized advice on issues ranging from bugs and performance problems to planning a technology roadmap.