DGB Success Story - Upgrading SAP, hosting, Basis support

I took over as IT Manager about two years ago. One of the first things that we needed to do is we had to upgrade our SAP environment. So initially, we were contracting EPI-USE Labs to do the upgrades portion specifically, and then thereafter, they're doing our Basis support. They provide us with a report to make sure that our system, there's no performance issues. And then also, they will provide us with a copy of our Production environment. It's difficult to do testing in an environment that you don't know is a true reflection of what Production looks like. So what EPI-USE are able to do is they are able to slice a specific subset of data that you want, whether that would be transactional data or master data that's applicable to the change that you want to test. They're able to do that quite quickly. It obviously consumes a lot less space in your QA and DEV boxes, and the whole process of doing that is quite easy with their software. And from there the last year, I mean, we're happy. We see a future. We're probably going to go ahead and use them for quite some time. And then we know from a SAP point of view, S/4HANA is on the horizon. So at some point, we need to go that route as well, and I'm sure that EPI-USE will be part and parcel of that process for DGB as well.

EPI-USE Labs can slice a specific subset of data that's applicable to the change that you want to test, whether that be transactional data or master data. They do that quite quickly and easily with their software, and it consumes a lot less space on your QA and DEV boxes than a full copy of Production. We're happy, and we have been using them for over six years to look after our SAP environment.

Carel van der Merwe, Central Planning Executive, DGB (Pty) Ltd

ECC landscape upgrade, Cloud hosting and Basis support

In 2017, EPI-USE Labs assisted DGB with an ECC landscape upgrade from ECC6 (EHP0) to ECC6 (EHP7). During this upgrade, we also provided SAP Basis support. In 2020, DGB engaged EPI-USE Labs' sister company G3G as their VAR (Value Added Reseller) partner, and in 2021 DGB moved their Infrastructure hosting to EPI-USE Labs iSphere Cloud (private cloud hosting). With the move of infrastructure, EPI-USE Labs assisted with restructuring their licence model, shifting the database licensing via SAP.

Services include:

An ECC landscape upgrade from ECC6 (EHP0) to ECC6 (EHP7)
SAP-centric upgrade with Basis support
Introduction of automated transports
Infrastructure hosting on EPI-USE Labs’ cloud, providing Infrastructure and Platform as a service (IaaS/PaaS) with an emphasis on high availability
ISO27001 Information Security Management standard and SOC 2 Type 2 reports from independent auditors
Restructuring the licence model (including customer engagement plan, auditing, advisory services and critical support) via SAP
Access to Client Central; support using a ticketed automation platform with knowledge sharing and an embedded Learning Management System (LMS).

The primary focus of DGB isn't technology. The primary focus is making wine, selling wine. So it's nice to partner with somebody that has the knowledge base from the technology side, where we have the business inside and knowledge what needs to happen and when. They've got the technical know-how to help us drive our goals forward. Hello, my name is Erwin Kempff; I'm the Group IT Manager at DGB. So we've had a longstanding relationship with Labs, and we've been with them for many years. We partnered with Labs and one of their sister companies, iSphere, when we started asking: what does our landscape look like? Historically, we always used to host it on-premise ourselves. And when there was a migration opportunity, we started the journey. The migration into the platform was great. We've been with them for many years now. And I don't have to worry about hardware. I don't have to worry about backups. Any DR, that's all taken care of as a managed solution. The thing I enjoy the most about it is not just always sitting behind a screen and talking over email. It's nice to connect with the people directly. Doing bowls and padel is a lovely way to mingle amongst all the team members, not just chat to one person, get to know a little bit more about the other sides of the business. And it's always nice when the guys partner with us, when they use some of our products and some of our artwork and some of our branding there. It's lovely to help you guys and it's lovely to see our products are represented there as well. It's a highlight of my calendar. Hopefully, it stays a long-lasting partnership. It's been very, very successful and it's been one of the least few things I have to worry about. Is Basis taken care of? Are my servers running the way they should? Is the backups running? Is the DR running? I don't have to worry about these things. I know these things are working. And if something goes wrong, know that it will get resolved quickly. So the future relationship looks long lasting. Even if we change over from SAP to something else, our hosting service, that's going to stay. So, you know, that's what the future looks like.

Infrastructure

A unique, SAP-centric approach to providing Infrastructure and Platform as a service (IaaS/PaaS)
EPI-USE Labs’ software products and Intellectual Property (IP)-leveraged services helped to optimise the SAP investment
The technology stack is built from the ground up with SAP in mind
Every level of the architecture of the hosting environment has been designed with high availability in mind
ISO27001 Information Security Management standard and SOC 2 Type 2 reports from independent auditors to verify the suitability of the design and operating effectiveness of our controls relevant to security, availability and confidentiality of the operations.

Ticketing System (Client Central)

Client Central is a secure, ISO-certified Software as a Service (SaaS) platform
Customer support via a ticketing automation platform
Collaborative knowledge-sharing via workspaces
Dashboards, reporting and Service Level Agreement management
An embedded Learning Management System (LMS).

VAR Support (Licensing)

Collaboration & Empowerment

Customer Engagement Plan
Licence Audit and Annual Licence usage check and audit review prior to final submission to SAP Access expert licensing advice
Quarterly VAR report – Critical recommendations, maintenance phases, licence consumption, inactive users, support entitlements
Invitation to G3G's VibeLive event in London, UK

Innovation and Value Realisation

SAP Solution Manager
Technical Quality Checks
S/4HANA Readiness assessments

Manage Critical Support

Early Watch report recommendations.

About DGB

Nestled in the Cape Winelands lies DGB (Pty) Ltd, one of South Africa's largest independent wine and spirit producers and distributors. They pride themselves on their wide variety of wine, liqueur and spirits.

DGB (Pty) Ltd was formally established in 1990, although their true roots extend over 300 years ago, when winemaking began at the Boschendal and Bellingham farms in the Cape Winelands.

Today, they are one of South Africa's largest independent wine and spirit producers and distributors.