

Medtronic faced a major business hurdle when they required an update to their SAP Kernel for the CRM and Oracle database during the next planned maintenance window, which called for 12 hours of downtime. This presented a significant financial challenge to the company. If the company were to adhere to this timeline, it would jeopardize its ability to provide continuous availability of its mission-critical “always on" patient help call center CRM, which records incoming time-sensitive calls for medical equipment and their appropriate utilization during medical operations.
Medtronic is obligated to adhere to stringent customer service level agreements, and live system downtime cannot exceed 15 minutes.
With the implementation of SNP's CrystalBridge® Near-Zero Downtime (NZD) technology in Medtronic's CRM landscape, it is now possible to replicate production CRM data to the standby CRM system, which can then serve as the live system during production system maintenance downtime. Once the maintenance is completed, the production system is activated, and the standby CRM system's new data is copied into production.
SAP Maintenance with Near-Zero Downtime
During the system update, Medtronic's SAP CRM was able to stay “always on” with little to no downtime during planned and unexpected outages, along with automatic data capture and complaint generation once the system was restored.
Oracle's database was upgraded from version 11.2 to version 12.2. The SAP Kernel version was upgraded, and the SGEN step was performed. SNP identified and developed software solutions to decrease system downtime that may be employed in the event of future system failures.
Medtronic is an American-Irish medical device company, among the largest in the world. With operations in 150 countries, their products treat 70 health conditions and include cardiac devices, cranial and spine robotics, insulin pumps, surgical tools, patient monitoring systems, and more. Their therapies help 75 million people a year and support the company’s mission to alleviate pain, restore health, and extend life.