REALTECH Helps TransAlta Significantly Reduce its IT Operations Cost by Re-platforming TransAlta's SAP® Systems to the Microsoft Platform

MALVERN, Pa., Oct. 12 /PRNewswire/ -- REALTECH, Inc., the North American affiliate of REALTECH AG, a long-time SAP® software and technology partner, today announced the successful migration of TransAlta's SAP systems from IBM AIX and Oracle to Microsoft Windows 2008 and SQL Server 2008.  As part of the same project, REALTECH also completed implementation of TransportManager for TransAlta.  REALTECH TransportManager is an easy-to-use software solution for the automated distribution of program and data modifications within SAP ABAP® and Java applications.

TransAlta began as a small, local power company in 1909, and has transformed over the last century into an experienced and well-respected power generator and wholesale marketer of electricity. With approximately $3 billion in annual revenue, more than $9 billion in assets, and power plants in Canada, the United States and Australia, TransAlta has become Canada's largest publicly traded generator and marketer of electricity and renewable power. TransAlta is committed to sustainable development and has been named to the prestigious Dow Jones Sustainability North America Index (DJSI NA) for the fifth straight year. The company is one of 24 Canadian companies named to the index, and the only Canadian company representing the utilities sector.

TransAlta's project objective was platform simplification and reduction of operational costs, which were achieved by removing IBM AIX and Oracle from TransAlta's SAP environment and moving the entire SAP environment to the Microsoft platform. TransAlta estimates savings on license, support, operational costs, and hardware will be over $400,000 annually.  Given TransAlta's need to replace their aging IBM infrastructure regardless of the migration to a Microsoft platform, they will realize a Return on Investment within one year of going live on the Microsoft platform. REALTECH migrated four SAP landscapes including SAP ERP, SAP Business Warehouse, SAP Corporate Finance Management and SAP Enterprise Portal from IBM AIX and Oracle to Windows 2008 and SQL Server 2008 including a Unicode conversion, all accomplished on the same weekend.

"We re-platformed four production environments from Unix/Oracle to Wintel/SQL and we found REALTECH to be very knowledgeable and professional throughout the re-platforming project.  We found the consultants very quick to respond to questions, even when not on site.  If REALTECH hadn't encountered an issue before, they were able to find answers or engage the vendor for the answer.  The go-live weekend was very successful and REALTECH delivered the re-platformed systems within the time allocated," said Marty Braithwaite, SAP Technical Lead at TransAlta.

"We are glad to help TransAlta reduce their SAP operations cost.  REALTECH has performed hundreds of migrations for its customers helping achieve improved service levels and performance while decreasing cost and administrative effort," said Ralph Jacobus, president and CEO of REALTECH, Inc.

In addition to upgrading TransAlta's SAP system, REALTECH also delivered a successful implementation of REALTECH's TransportManager.  TransportManager is a leading SAP change management software application that helps SAP customers significantly reduce the cost of managing their SAP change processes.  With more than 1,000 instances installed, there are more than 200 international SAP customers that are successfully using TransportManager.  

"REALTECH's TransportManager provides us with centralized visibility, approval and auditing of all transport requests across all of our SAP environments.  By automating a lot of previously manual processes, TransportManager is saving us time throughout the entire SAP change management process.  Our developers get quicker turnaround on the import and status of their changes, and our transport team spends about 75% less time managing the changes as they move through our landscapes," said Kiran Dhaliwal, Systems Analyst at TransAlta.

"It was great working with TransAlta's entire project team for the TransportManager project.  Even though TransportManager was rolled out simultaneously with the SAP migration project, the excellent project management skills of TransAlta's project team kept everything on track, on time and on budget," said Dan McGrann, REALTECH's U.S. software products manager.

About REALTECH, Inc.

REALTECH, Inc. is the North-American affiliate of REALTECH AG, which is headquartered in Walldorf, Germany. REALTECH offers software and consulting services for the SAP NetWeaver platform and SAP application infrastructures, helping customers to effectively deploy these innovative technologies and protect their investment in SAP. Since its founding in 1994, REALTECH has managed hundreds of SAP migration, upgrade and consolidation projects, and provided many organizations with SAP Basis support services and Basis staff augmentation. REALTECH software solutions incorporate best practices from hundreds of customer installations, millions of dollars in annual research and development spending, and the consolidated effort of 500+ REALTECH SAP experts. Today more than 2,000 companies worldwide have chosen to work with REALTECH. In 2009, the company posted worldwide revenues of $82 million and employed a global workforce of nearly 700. For more information, visit REALTECH online at www.realtech.com.

REALTECH and all REALTECH logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of REALTECH AG in Germany and in several other countries.

This press release includes forward-looking statements that are based on certain assumptions and reflect REALTECH's current expectations. Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other important factors that could cause the actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from any future results, performance, or achievements discussed or implied by such forward-looking statements.

SAP and all SAP logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP AG in Germany and in several other countries. All other product and service names mentioned are the trademarks of their respective companies.

SOURCE REALTECH, Inc.