Komatsu yellow machinery

Database migration that helps you be ‘better than the best’

Leentje Chavatte

Leentje Chavatte

Microsoft, Data & AI and Digital Transformation

Read Time, 2 min.

The Japanese term dantotsu is difficult to translate, but roughly means ‘better than the best’. Since its founding nearly 100 years ago, Japanese construction and mining equipment multinational, Komatsu, has striven to provide its customers with a service that achieves just that.

As part of this mission, Komatsu launched its Dantotsu Strategy in 2003, which included the creation of a line of ‘Dantotsu Products’, labelled as such due to their unrivalled design and performance. But today the company knows that achieving dantotsu means looking beyond the machines themselves – instead analysing the data they produce.

Komatsu and its quest for dantotsu

Construction is an extremely data-rich industry – in Australia alone, Komatsu has more than 30,000 machines in daily operation that stream data on productivity, machine condition, and other factors. This makes data modernization essential – and choosing the right database management system a key business decision.

“We have 1.5 terabytes of data and that number is growing fast,” explains Nipun Sharma, Analytics Architect, Business Technology & Systems at Komatsu Australia. “We currently process around a million records per day ­– and we determined Azure SQL Database Managed Instance was the best choice for us in terms of scalability, cost, and performance”.

Modernize your data platform

One of the key factors that influenced the Japanese company’s decision was Azure SQL Database Managed Instance’s near 100 percent compatibility with the latest on-premises SQL Servers, making migration quick and simple – not to mention, extremely cost-effective.

“We moved our entire database and the Discovery Hub analytics implementation to Azure SQL Database Managed Instance in less than two weeks, and since then we’ve seen a 49 percent cost reduction and 25 to 30 percent performance gains,” says Sharma.

But Komatsu’s performance gains and savings – while clearly worth shouting about – are in line with what was envisaged. Expected return on investment for migrating to Azure SQL Database Managed Instance is 212%, with post-migration payback predicted to be under six months. Coupled with performance benefits that allow you to scale your workloads in real-time, all in a secure cloud environment ­– migrating from an SQL Server is the logical choice for any company wanting to achieve dantotsu.

Industry

Manufacturing

Dossier

Customer Stories

Quickstart: Create an Azure SQL Database managed instance

This quickstart walks you through how to create an Azure SQL Database managed instance in the Azure portal

Discover more related articles per industry:

Education

  • a group of people sitting at a table using a laptop computer

    4 reasons Citrix and Windows Virtual Desktop are better together for education

    Educational institutions all over the world experience a huge transformation. We are all familiar with the impact of COVID-19 on digitization in education, but there are more challenges. The digitization challenges faced by educational institutions   Because of the measures against the COVID-19 pandemic, like lockdowns and social distancing, the trend of online or blended […]

  • Girl studying

    Secondary school Kirchdorf: Reimagining hybrid learning with Surface and Teams

    “What we really wanted to achieve was simplicity for both our students and our educators. Through our digitalization efforts, we’ve seen that using technology to complement traditional teaching and learning is an investment for the future, not just for children, but for everyone.” Martin Schnetzer, teacher and IT admin at Mittelschule Kirchdorf, Austria, reflects on […]

Finance & Insurance

Government

  • A man sitting at a table using a laptop

    Four common challenges governments face in a time of crisis

    This blog focuses on best practice and solutions for working from home, engaging with citizens, gaining situational awareness and staying secure.

  • Two people inside using Surface Go in office

    How technology is transforming the work of governments

    Governments have the ultimate responsibility to their citizens. People depend on the services they provide like no other institution. Whether in healthcare, education, business, roads, railways, water – it’s essential that government institutions are always at the forefront of social and digital trends. Cloud-powered technologies are playing a critical role in helping government agencies to […]

Healthcare

Manufacturing

Retail

Discover more related articles per dossier:

Customer Stories

  • a view of a city

    Harvesting data helps save water

    With more than 140 years of history, the financial service company Ibercaja is deeply invested in the north-east region of Spain. In order to support its rural clients and solve the local water scarcity problems, the company now helps farmers to digitally transform their crop management. Key to this transformation are “Internet of Things“ enabled […]

Digital Transformation

Security & Privacy

Tips