1. we know
they know
Ministerio de Hacienda de Costa Rica
cuts 10 percent from tax management
costs with IBM and SAP
Overview
 The Challenge  The Benefits  Key Solution Components
The Ministerio de Hacienda With clear workflows and integrated Industry: Government
(Ministry of Finance) aimed information, SAP ERP has enabled Applications: SAP® ERP 6.0, SAP
to computerize the national the Ministry to cut its tax NetWeaver Business Warehouse,
tax payment system for Costa management costs by 10 percent – SAP NetWeaver® Portal
Rica. The main goals were to expected to rise to 20 percent in the Hardware: IBM System x® 3950 M2,
improve internal efficiency and coming years. As one of the largest x3850 M2, x3650, IBM
transparency, and to make it global deployments of SAP BladeCenter® with Intel® Xeon®
possible for taxpayers to make NetWeaver Portal, the Ministry’s processor 7500 series, IBM System
payments and manage their portal solution has approximately Storage® DS5300 with Metro Mirror,
accounts online. To successfully 560,000 registered users, with IBM System Storage TS3500
deploy its new ERP solution and an around 60,000 concurrent users at Software: IBM Tivoli® Storage
integrated Web portal, the Ministry peak times. For both elements in Manager, IBM Tivoli Storage
needed to find a reliable partner to the solution, IBM System x Productivity Center, Microsoft®
help it create a robust infrastructure. technology delivers a reliable, high- Windows® Server 2003, Microsoft
speed service to the Ministry and to SQL Server® 2005
 The Solution Costa Rican taxpayers. Services: IBM Global Technology
Working with GBM, a strategic Services, IBM Business Partner
partner of IBM in Central America, GBM
the Ministry chose to implement
SAP ERP 6.0 and SAP NetWeaver
Portal running on IBM System x and
IBM BladeCenter servers. Resilient,
high-performance data storage is
provided by IBM System Storage
disk and tape storage technologies,
split across two data centers with
data synchronization using IBM
DS5300 with Metro Mirror and IBM
Tivoli Storage Manager.

2. “In just four months since The Ministerio de Hacienda (Ministry the first priority was to deploy an ERP
the go-live of the SAP of Finance) of the Republic of Costa solution that would be robust, reliable
Rica is responsible for executing fiscal and highly scalable. On top of that, we
solutions, we have seen
policy, managing public funds, needed a portal that could cope with a
a 10 percent reduction administering the taxation system and very large set of users without impact
in overall tax running customs and revenue. The on performance or reliability. And, of
management costs. In Ministry employs 3,500 people and is course, it was critical to ensure
the longer-term, as we headquartered in the capital city, San complete integration between the
José. internal systems and the client-facing
gain more experience
Web portal.”
using the SAP solutions, Aiming to improve administrative
we believe that we can efficiency, reduce costs and improve Saving costs and improving service
push the savings to as customer service, the Ministry took a Using the collection and disbursement
much as 20 percent.” strategic decision to computerize its application within SAP ERP, the
tax payments system. This project – Ministry has improved the efficiency of
Gabriela Espinoza named the Digital Tributary Initiative – managing taxes and state benefits for
IT Director would involve two principal stages. the citizens of Costa Rica.
Ministerio de Hacienda de Costa Rica
First, the Ministry would deploy an
integrated ERP solution to provide fast, “In just four months since the go-live of
efficient workflows and integrated the SAP solutions, we have seen a 10
information. Second, an online portal percent reduction in overall tax
would be created to enable taxpayers management costs,” says Gabriela
to report their taxable income, make Espinoza. “In the longer-term, as we
payments, review the status of their gain more experience using the SAP
accounts and access new regulatory solutions, we believe that we can push
information. the savings to as much as 20 percent.”
Gabriela Espinoza, IT Director, The SAP environment is integrated
comments: “We wanted to digitize the with Microsoft Office SharePoint
entire tax contribution system, Server, enabling Ministry employees to
covering more than 500,000 taxpayers easily create and share customized
and an enormous volume of data. So views of data held in the ERP system.
SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse
(BW) is also part of the solution,
providing advanced analytical
capabilities for business analysts,
helping with planning and simulation,
balanced scorecard, and data mining.
“The SAP solutions have given us the
ability to share aggregated data faster
and to gain a clearer view across
different internal functions,” says
Gabriela Espinoza.
The deployment of a new Web portal
for taxpayers, based on SAP
NetWeaver Portal, has extended the
benefits of the SAP solution beyond
the Ministry. In one of the largest global
deployments of this solution, the portal
has approximately 560,000 registered

3. users, with around 60,000 concurrent technology in Central American and “The IBM infrastructure
users at peak times. Taxpayers can the Caribbean. The Ministry gave us everything we
log in online to view their private tax recognized the value of the IBM
needed in terms of
account, check their balance, report Dynamic Infrastructure proposal,
changes in income, make payments which include energy efficiency,
reliability, scalability,
and find out the latest tax legislation. In business resiliency, security and performance and
addition to empowering the citizens of flexibility of information infrastructure. flexibility – and both
Costa Rica to manage their own tax In purely practical terms, the Ministry IBM and GBM did a
affairs at their own convenience, the was running out of space and energy
fantastic job on the
portal solution significantly reduces in the data center, a critical factor, and
administrative work and external the IBM proposal offered the ability to
implementation and
communication costs for the Ministry achieve more within a more cost- subsequent support.”
of Finance. effective and smaller, greener IT
Gabriela Espinoza
footprint.
IT Director
“It was important to get people Ministerio de Hacienda de Costa Rica
enthusiastic about using the new “The IBM and SAP solution was the
online service, and that meant best option for us, both in terms of the
ensuring a good user experience. quality of the technology and the level
Running SAP NetWeaver Portal on the of professional services and support
IBM infrastructure gives us the on offer,” says Gabriela Espinoza. “The
performance and availability we need quality of the local partner was a
to offer a high level of service to significant factor: GBM made a much
taxpayers,” says Gabriela Espinoza. more convincing presentation, with
clear technical information that was
Solution selection lacking in the offering from the HP
The Ministry selected the SAP ERP partner.”
application as the closest fit to its
requirements, based on an analysis of In the previous decade, Ministerio de
functionality, total cost of ownership, Hacienda has used HP servers. For
support structures and flexibility. The the new SAP ERP project, Ministerio
ability to seamlessly integrate SAP de Hacienda felt that GBM and IBM
NetWeaver Portal into the back-end presented a complete package:
ERP system was also a factor in the consulting services, training and
decision. maintenance, as well as proving that
IBM BladeCenter was the best, most
As an existing user of HP server robust infrastructure for SAP. Top-level
technology, the Ministry included this IBM and SAP specialists were brought TECHNICAL LANDSCAPE
vendor in a broad analysis of possible in for on-on-one meetings with Servers: IBM System x3950 M2, IBM
infrastructure solutions for the ERP Ministerio de Hacienda IT team, and System x3850 M2, IBM System
system and tax payments portal. since moving to SAP applications was x3650, IBM BladeCenter with Intel
Following this initial evaluation stage, a in itself a new adventure, the quality Xeon processor 7500 series, IBM
shortlist was drawn up to compare the and reliability of the IBM proposal System Storage DS5300 with Metro
relative merits of solution proposals proved very attractive. Mirror
from HP and from IBM. The key criteria Software: IBM Tivoli Storage
for hardware selection were: Flexible, efficient servers Productivity Center, Metro Mirror, IBM
acquisition cost, total cost of The Ministry worked with IBM Techline Tivoli Storage Manager, SAP ERP,
ownership, quality of system to determine the performance and SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse,
management tools and overall energy capacity requirements of its future SAP SAP NetWeaver Portal
efficiency. landscape and to define the required Users: 60,000 concurrent users and
server and storage infrastructure. 560,000 total users of SAP NetWeaver
The IBM option was presented by Aided by GBM and IBM Global Portal
GBM – the exclusive distributor of IBM Technology Services, the Ministry then

4. deployed IBM System x3950 M2, capacity. The TPC solution enables performance and flexibility – and both
x3850 M2 and x3650 servers running the Ministry to intelligently manage IBM and GBM did a fantastic job on
Microsoft Windows Server 2003 to data protection and retention and to the implementation and subsequent
support the SAP central instance. provide alerts on capacity and support,” concludes Gabriela
availability issues. IBM System Espinoza.
The huge advantage of this choice is Storage DS5300 Metro Mirror
that x3850 M2 servers can be replicates all data to a duplicate SAN
upgraded to become x3950 M2 in a second location, ensuring a high
servers, which themselves can scale level of business continuity in the event
up to 16 sockets for quad-core Intel of a disaster.
Xeon processors per server, totaling a
massive 96 cores. The x3850 M2 and “One of the key benefits of SAP ERP is
IBM Deutschland GmbH
x3950 M2 combination offers that it brings all of the organization’s
D-70548 Stuttgart
enormous scope for expansion, business-critical data into a single, ibm.com/solutions/sap
capable of meeting almost any consistent store,” says Gabriela IBM, the IBM logo, and ibm.com are trademarks
of International Business Machines Corporation,
foreseeable workload for the Ministry. Espinoza. “For the organization to
registered in many jurisdictions worldwide. A
make the most of the solution, you current list of other IBM trademarks is available
on the Web at “Copyright and trademark
IBM BladeCenter servers run the therefore need to have resilient, high-
information” at http://www.ibm.com/legal/
individual SAP application servers, performance storage. The IBM System copytrade.shtml
providing a rapid and easy growth Storage infrastructure combines ease Intel, the Intel logo, Intel Xeon and the Intel Xeon
logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of
path through the ability to slot in new of management with sophisticated
Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United
blades as demands rise. The Ministry automation, enabling us to deliver an States and other countries. UNIX is a registered
trademark of The Open Group in the United
uses Microsoft SQL Server 2005 as excellent service to the business users
States and other countries. Linux is a trademark
the database for its SAP environment. at low operational costs.” of Linus Torvalds in the United States, other
countries, or both. Microsoft, Windows, Windows
NT, and the Windows logo are trademarks of
“The x3950 and x3850 servers IBM provides resilient platform for SAP Microsoft Corporation in the United States, other
countries, or both.
provide significant computing power software
Other company, product or service names may
in a very compact physical package,” The IBM and SAP solution provides
be trademarks, or service marks of others.
says Gabriela Espinoza. “This was significant benefits in terms of both
This case study illustrates how one IBM
really important as we were running business and technology. On the customer uses IBM and/or IBM Business Partner
technologies/services. Many factors have
out of space, power and cooling in our business side, the integrated
contributed to the results and benefits
data center. The System x architecture information and fully managed described. IBM does not guarantee comparable
results. All information contained herein was
with IBM X-Architecture enabled us to workflows provided by the SAP
provided by the featured customer and/or IBM
get the best possible performance out software simplify internal Business Partner. IBM does not attest to its
accuracy. All customer examples cited represent
of the hardware, creating a highly administration, reduce costs and
how some customers have used IBM products
efficient infrastructure that is also enable better planning for the future. and the results they may have achieved. Actual
environmental costs and performance
easily scalable. With BladeCenter, we For external users, SAP NetWeaver
characteristics will vary depending on individual
have similar efficiency and an Portal saves time and effort, and gives customer configurations and conditions.
extremely rapid scale-out capability.” taxpayers full control over their This publication is for general guidance only.
Photographs may show design models.
dealings with the Ministry.
© Copyright IBM Corp. 2010. All rights reserved.
Resilient storage
Data for the SAP environment is stored On the technology side, the IBM
on a SAN built around an IBM System infrastructure provides a resilient,
Storage DS5300 and an IBM System high-performance, easy-to-manage
Storage TS3500 Tape Library for platform for the SAP software.
backup and archiving. The Ministry
uses IBM Tivoli Storage Manager to “We had never before embarked on an © Copyright 2010 SAP AG
SAP AG
handle backup and recovery, and IBM IT project of this scale, so we needed Dietmar-Hopp-Allee 16
Tivoli Storage Productivity Center technology and support that we could D-69190 Walldorf
(TPC) for Data to monitor storage really rely on. The IBM infrastructure SAP, the SAP logo, SAP and all other SAP
products and services mentioned herein are
usage and automate the policy-based gave us everything we needed in trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP AG in
management of the available storage terms of reliability, scalability, Germany and several other countries.
SPC03175-CREN-00 (March 2010)