YBP Library Services

A global provider of books and services to libraries in the United States accelerates its nightly backup process by 50 percent, improve the efficiency of internal processes and elevates customer satisfaction levels when it joins forces with IBM Gold Business Partner ITS to refresh its infrastructure with IBM Power Systems technology, IBM System Storage hardware and IBM Tivoli software.

Location: Contoocook, New Hampshire
Industry: Consumer Products, Education, Wholesale Distribution & Services
URL: http://ybp.com

client Background:

Headquartered in Contoocook, New Hampshire, YBP Library Services distributes books to and provides services for libraries. A subsidiary of Baker & Taylor, Inc., the company offers print and digital books, collection-management services and technical services to academic, research and specialty libraries around the world. Founded in 1971, YBP Library Services employs more than 300 people.

Business Need:

YBP Library Services was using a combination of older IBM Power Systems and IBM AS/400 server technology to support the online tools it offers to customers. Unfortunately, the incumbent servers were nearing their end-of-life and suffered from performance degradation, which degraded customer satisfaction levels. Further, the incumbent environment took a long time to back up, which delayed the availability of the company’s online tools to customers in the United Kingdom. To boost the performance of its online tools and elevate customer satisfaction levels, YBP Library Services needed to refresh its infrastructure with powerful server technology and a new backup solution.

Solution:

To address the lagging performance of its online tools, YBP Library Services worked closely with IBM Premier Business Partner ITS to consolidate its incumbent server technology on an IBM Power 720 server running the IBM i V7.1 operating system. Configured with four logical partitions (LPARs) to support separate test and production environments, the new Power Systems server delivers optimized performance for the client’s online tools while offering the flexibility to test software upgrades without jeopardizing system availability. To establish a reliable backup solution, the business partner implemented an IBM System Storage TS3200 Tape Library, which archives information from data backups periodically conveyed from the Power Systems server via IBM Tivoli Storage Manager software.

Benefits of the Solution:

By joining forces with IBM Gold Business Partner ITS to refresh its infrastructure with IBM Power Systems and IBM System Storage technology complemented by IBM Tivoli software, YBP Library Services elevated the performance of its online tools and accelerated its backup process. The client reports that the performance improvements delivered by the solution accelerated its nightly backup process by approximately 50 percent. Thus, the client can deliver its online tools to its UK customers two hours earlier, at 7 a.m. instead of 9 a.m. The elevated performance of the online tools also boosted customer satisfaction levels. Finally, the client reports that the solution helped improve the efficiency of its internal processes, which will be vital as order volumes increase.