Camstar: SQL Server handles their largest customer needs

Camstar Systems is a leading provider of enterprise manufacturing execution and quality systems. Their systems give organizations visibility and control of production sites and processes throughout companies. The company has a global customer base including Abbott, AMD, Corning, Sony, Hitachi, IBM, Kodak, Roche, TDK, and Zeiss.

With the current trend of firms trimming costs, lowering the total cost of ownership is a concern for both ISV companies and their clients. Camstar Systems tested SQL Server to see if can handle loads currently handled by DB2 and Oracle. The answer was yes, no problem. Customers now have the option of doing a confident migration to SQL Server when growth and technological obsolescence of hardware forces a reexamination of IT strategy. SQL Server provides a lower total cost of ownership allowing more money to address corporate strategic goals. One key aspect is the saving of storage space seen with SQL Server 2008 database compression. This savings of space allow current SANs to be reused for other applications resulting in a significant savings to the customer.

Measure	SQL Server 2005	SQL Server 2008
Concurrent Users	2,500	24,000
Manufacturing Execution System (MES)Transactions	180	205
Space Saved (over other DBs)	not available	60%

You may read the case study SQL Server 2005 case study and SQL Server 2008 results.