E.ON Italy cuts costs by 50 percent and gains insight with Azure SQL Database Hyperscale

E.ON runs its data and analytical workloads mostly in the cloud, distributed across different data service backends. In 2017, E.ON Italy aimed to modernize its on-premises data estate by moving all data to Azure SQL Database.

Over time, the data volume, data processing needs, and analytics requirements grew as E.ON needed to ingest, process, and analyze more and more data from its growing user base. Looking for ways to scale well beyond its current data volume without restrictions on storage and compute to stay “fit for the future,” E.ON decided to modernize once again. It upgraded its database service and analytics platform to Azure SQL Hyperscale service tier. Azure SQL Database Hyperscale provides dynamic accommodation for storage space (up to 100 terabytes) as well as analytics and transactional support for both internal users and customers.

The important thing for us is that we have an open mind not just for technology, but for innovation. Every new solution is a way to find the best options, to learn the most about how we can improve our operations.  Enrico Lapel: Data & Analytics manager - E.ON Italy

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Power is a vital part of modern life, and to many customers in Europe, E.ON is the company powering their homes and businesses. E.ON started in Germany but has spread across the continent, with each of its national branches choosing the technology and database solutions that work best for their specific needs, all with the goal of providing reliable and sustainable energy across Europe.

For E.ON Italy, it was clear that cloud computing was the future as far back as 2017. The company invested in a move to the cloud on Azure SQL Database that year, immediately improving data accessibility for the company. But as the years went by, E.ON Italy found that moving its Data Insights Platform (DIP) onto the server along with more data meant they were consistently running out of space.

The DIP provides customers with access to historical data regarding usage and rates while also giving the company a clear picture of energy usage, customer history, and anticipated spikes in demand. Its analytics are crucial to E.ON Italy making the best decisions for its customers and the company as a whole. A lack of space on the backend and potential slowdown in analysis could negatively impact operations.

To provide the best service for around one million contracts on the Italian peninsula, E.ON Italy needed to advance its technology. So the company turned to the Azure SQL Database Hyperscale tier to solve its data growth challenges and storage space issues while remaining centered on the cloud. The Azure SQL Hyperscale tier allows companies to easily and automatically scale up and down as necessary, with optimized pricing for the processing used and higher overall performance and speed for large data projects. E.ON Italy estimates it’s saving nearly 50 percent in costs per year and is achieving a 30 percent native performance increase for online transactional processing. 

A move toward better operation

For E.ON Italy, working with Microsoft was an opportunity to incorporate new technology with an expert provider. “Microsoft gave us the right advice at the right moment, and they married a deep tech knowledge with an understanding of our vision for the future,” says Enrico Lapel, Data & Analytics manager at E.ON Italy. The company migrated the server by having the existing database running concurrently with the Azure SQL Database Hyperscale database, ensuring that the new solution was stable and could handle the necessary data bandwidth. Only once E.ON Italy felt satisfied with the performance of the new Hyperscale Service tier over several weeks, it fully moved live operations onto the new Azure SQL Database service tier.

From a financial standpoint, the cost benefits for E.ON were felt immediately. Even without the performance advantages considered, the new database service costs half as much as the original implementation. But with up to 100 terabytes of data storage, the new database also ensures that E.ON Italy has a significantly larger amount of space available to produce a longer history for customers and general operational data. “The wonderful thing about scaling on Hyperscale is that it’s easy. I don’t have to care about scaling up, it just handles it, and so I can focus on important data,” says Lapel.

It also frees additional space up for the DIP to provide more detailed analyses of larger data sets. E.ON Italy is using Azure Machine Learning and Power BI as part of its data projects, providing a holistic view of energy needs and consumption, sales churn, and next-best actions for future upselling. Having faster access to more reliable data means that E.ON Italy is capable of greater insight and its data scientists can deliver better guidance for future developments.

The speed of E.ON Italy’s move to a better solution has ensured that the customer-facing side of the business never has to deal with performance or reliability issues anymore. Instead, customers can simply enjoy a smoother and improved journey with the help of the company’s new technology.

Improvement and innovation

As a forward-looking company, E.ON Italy is not content to rest on its laurels when it comes to the technology foundation established by using the Azure SQL Hyperscale database tier. Already the company is planning additional analytics projects along with improved data governance and potentially incorporating Microsoft tools such as Power Apps.

The team is looking into how to improve sustainability efforts via this added insight. Greater access to data means providing a better view of how customers are using energy and how to better manage their needs. That can both reduce necessary energy consumption and improve the overall impact of E.ON Italy’s operations by cutting down on wasted energy use.

As the team at E.ON Italy sees it, it’s all about the journey. “The important thing for us is that we have an open mind not just for technology, but for innovation,” says Lapel. “Every new solution is a way to find the best options, to learn the most about how we can improve our operations.”

E.ON Italy is still moving forward and innovating, showing what can be done with scalable and dynamic data & AI services in Azure to both improve internal operations and customer journeys. Whatever new innovations are put forth in the future, it seems fair to assume that the company will be looking ahead and investigating how new technology can offer innovative solutions.

The wonderful thing about scaling on Hyperscale is that it’s easy. I don’t have to care about scaling up, it just handles it, and so I can focus on important data.  Enrico Lapel: Data & Analytics manager - E.ON Italy

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