With 2004 revenues of $3.3 billion, Ryerson, Inc., is North America’s leading distributor and processor of metals. The company’s 100 service centers across the United States and Canada provide a link between primary metal producers and purchasers, offering their customers unparalleled products, value-added capabilities and geographic reach. Ryerson maintains an extensive inventory of carbon and alloy steel, aluminum, stainless, copper alloys and plastics, and performs first-stage processing and fabrication of semi-finished parts. In January 2005, the company acquired Integris Metals, which doubled its size.

The Challenge: Deploying SAP Enterprise-wide with Efficiency and Security

When Ryerson decided to implement a new Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) application from SAP, the IT department debated whether to deploy the solution in the existing client/server distributed architecture, or move to a server-centric model with the SAP user interface installed and maintained in the data center. Some of the considerations were cost of ownership; speed and efficiency of software deployment in the company’s widely distributed enterprise; and security, including both protection against attacks and compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley and other legislation.

“We were considering Citrix Presentation Server to deploy SAP based on the good results we’d achieved from running a credit application for the accounts receivable group on the platform,” said Jim Chorosevic, director of information technology.

A Citrix Access Platform for Application Deployment

On the advice of Citrix® Consulting, Chorosevic decided to do a proof-of-concept using Citrix Presentation Server™ and Microsoft® Windows Server™ 2003 to re-platform their legacy sales application. As a result of the successful trial, Ryerson decided to roll out SAP 4.3 on Presentation Server across the organization. Partway through the deployment, the company acquired Integris Metals, which essentially doubled its size to over 100 service center locations across the U.S. and Canada.

“Once we are fully deployed on SAP, nearly all of our employees will have access to applications via Presentation Server,” noted Chorosevic. “These folks include inside and outside sales, accounting, procurement, marketing and our service centers shop floor.” In addition to SAP and the legacy sales solution, Ryerson is running about 10 other applications on the Citrix Access Platform, including its intranet and Microsoft® Exchange, and also provides access to applications brought in by the new acquisition, including some Web-based applications. Twelve hundred concurrent user licenses of Citrix Presentation Server support the implementation. Ryerson employees access these applications using thin clients -– Wyse 1200LE Winterms and HP 5700 devices -– as well as notebook computers and desktop PCs.

Faster Integration of Acquired Companies Speeds ROI

Ryerson’s experience with the Integris Metals acquisition made it clear that Citrix offers a competitive advantage in the acquisition process. By making it faster and easier to move an acquired company onto its IT system, Ryerson can speed up its return on investment. “Because of Citrix, we have an access strategy and were able to easily prepare for the deployment of our SAP system to the new organization with minimal impact,” said Chorosevic. “In fact, interconnectivity between the Integris system and the Ryerson system is being accomplished using Citrix Presentation Server. Overall, our cost of integrating an acquired company is substantially decreased as a result of efficient, centralized deployment and support.”

“Citrix gives us tremendous flexibility,” he continued. “It’s like a really solid sedan that you can build into a muscle car or a luxury car or anything you need. Whatever direction the company plans to take, you can head there using Citrix as the vehicle.”

Stronger Security Improves Compliance and Data Protection

As the lead architect of Ryerson’s compliance program, Chorosevic benefits from the centralized Citrix model that makes it easier to control and monitor access to information. “Citrix Presentation Server helps us to meet the requirements of Sarbanes-Oxley and other legislation,” he noted. “We can control access to all critical applications using Citrix by defining access restrictions.”

Greater IT Efficiency Reduces TCO

A major benefit of the Citrix access solution is greater IT efficiency that lowers the cost of computing. Centralized application installation, deployment, maintenance and support have proven much more efficient than the client/server architecture that Ryerson formerly used. “Citrix Presentation Server has given us the ability to easily connect and support remote users,” said Chorosevic. “For example, session shadowing is a great tool for my team to use in understanding what’s going on remotely. Sometimes people take a guess at what is causing their problem, but shadowing lets our help desk see the exact issue. With Citrix, our department can operate with a leaner staff.”

“We started with Citrix software as an experiment, and it has become strategic to our organization,” Chorosevic concluded. “The SAP deployment has been successful and Citrix Presentation Server has worked really well for us. We hope to build on our implementation with other Citrix products, such as Password Manager.”

©2005 Citrix Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Citrix®, Citrix Access Suite™, Citrix Presentation Server™ and Citrix Password Manager™ are trademarks of Citrix Systems, Inc. and/or one or more of its subsidiaries, and may be registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries. Microsoft®, Windows® and Windows Server™ are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the U.S. and/or other countries. UNIX® is a registered trademark of The Open Group in the U.S. and other countries. All other trademarks and registered trademarks are property of their respective owners.