“All in all, our move from Oracle to SQL Server will reduce our total cost of ownership for our PTC Windchill database by at least 90 percent—and yield a four-month return on investment.” Tim Suiter, IT Director, IGT International Game Technology (IGT), a global designer and manufacturer of computerized gaming machines and systems, wanted to eliminate excessive costs related to the Oracle database used by its PTC Windchill Product Lifecycle Management system. The company migrated to Microsoft SQL Server 2005 data management software, which delivers 18 percent better performance than Oracle and will reduce the company’s total cost of ownership by 90 percent. Business Needs IGT is a market leader in computerized gaming equipment, software, and gaming network systems. The company’s long history of innovation includes the video poker machine, computerized player tracking, and the Wheel of Fortune progressive slot machine, one of the most popular gaming machines of all time. In the past, applications used by the IGT Engineering department were budgeted and supported within that department. In 2008, to take advantage of economies of scale, the company moved those applications under the purview of its corporate IT group. One such application is PTC Windchill, which all of the company’s mechanical engineers rely on throughout the day to manage the product lifecycle—such as working with Pro/ENGINEER CAD files. Like many of the engineering applications inherited by the IT department, Windchill ran on the Windows Server 2008 operating system and used an Oracle database. “When we reviewed the costs for those applications, we discovered excessive expenses related to the Oracle databases —close to six figures,” says Tim Suiter, IT Director at IGT. “We were paying about half of that in consulting fees for a few Oracle databases, which seemed excessive, considering we had one database administrator supporting 700 SQL Server– based databases. The other half of those costs were Oracle licensing and maintenance fees. Clearly, we had the responsibility to search for a more cost- effective alternative.” Solution In that search, IGT found that other companies were running Windchill successfully on Microsoft SQL Server data management software. “We’re a Microsoft shop by default, so moving from Oracle to SQL Server aligned well with our IT strategy and skill sets,” says Suiter. “We were already planning a hardware refresh for the application and an upgrade from a previous version of PTC Windchill, which presented a good opportunity to migrate to SQL Server at the same time.” The company brought in Wipro to assist with migrating its PTC Windchill database from Oracle to SQL Server 2005 Standard running on Windows Server 2008 Standard, and then ran benchmark tests to validate application performance. “After working with PTC to tune the application for the new database, we found Customer: IGT Website: www.igt.com Customer Size: 4,800 employees Country or Region: United States Industry: Manufacturing Partners: PTC, WIPRO Customer Profile Las Vegas, Nevada–based IGT is a world leader in providing computerized gaming equipment, including supporting software and network systems. Software and Services Microsoft Server Product Portfolio − Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Standard − Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007 − Windows Server 2008 Standard For more information about other Microsoft customer successes, please visit: www.microsoft.com/casestudies Microsoft SQL Server Customer Solution Case Study Gaming Equipment Company Achieves Four- Month ROI with Move from Oracle to SQL Server