Business Challenge The nation’s largest credit union–owned electronic funds transfer network and processor, was spending U.S. $2.3 million per year to keep its shared branching transaction processing system on a Unisys mainframe. By moving the solution to a pair of computers running the Microsoft® Windows Server® operating system, the company virtually eliminated that cost—cutting it to a paltry $18,500—while maintaining mainframe-class reliability and throughput. With the help of solution provider Progeni, the company managed the migration in just four months and gained a near real-time reporting capability it didn’t have on the mainframe, enabling better and faster decision making.
The mainframe computer at the Shared Branching operation of CO-OP Financial Services was a Unisys 6822 box running the MCP operating system and a DMS II database, supporting operations ranging from EFT/Debit card processing to detailed transaction reporting. The key transaction processing system was unique; more than mission-critical, it was the heart of the Shared Branching operation.
All told, the mainframe—leasing, maintenance, and in-house labor—cost the company more than $2.3 million per year. And high costs weren’t the only problem. Mainframe knowledgeable COBOL programmers are not easy to find and the lease on the mainframe was set to expire in a few months. If the company didn’t want to be locked into another multi-year contract—and it didn’t—a month-to-month lease was going to double in cost.
“We were in a position to save a lot of money by finally shutting down the mainframe,” says Jack Beckman, Senior Systems Analyst. “The questions were where would we move the application—and how could we do so in just four months before the end of the year?”
The new platform of choice was the Microsoft® Windows Server® 2003 operating system. The company already ran the Windows® operating system and so had the in-house expertise. But its Windows environment was largely limited to supporting e-mail and file-and-print services.
“We had never run a transaction-processing system—let alone a heavy, mission-critical transaction-processing system—on Windows,” says Beckman. “We were mainframe guys. We were concerned about the reliability.”
Solution To address those concerns, as well as to help manage the broader challenges of the migration, CO-OP turned to The Progeni Corporation, an IT solutions provider and member of the Microsoft Mainframe Migration Alliance, based in Duluth, Georgia.
One of the first questions to be addressed in the migration process was whether to port the existing COBOL code to Windows Server 2003 and the Microsoft .NET Framework—in a process popularly called “Enterprise Application Modernization” —or to rewrite the code for the .NET Framework. The .NET Framework is an integral Windows component that supports building and running the next generation of applications and Web services.
“We chose to port our existing code for two reasons,” explains Beckman. “First, we knew the business logic worked. There wasn’t a problem with our application, just with what it was costing us on the mainframe. Second, we didn’t have the time to rewrite the code. Given our very aggressive schedule, anything we could do to limit the variables, the better.”
“CO-OP Financial Services made the right choice for their requirements,” agrees Norman Praed, President of Progeni. “They had a very specialized application with some routines that had been written years before by people who were no longer at the company. Given that they wanted to replicate their existing functionality using our automated laboratory-based tools for a straight migration was an ideal solution.”
For the same reason, the company decided to port, rather than rewrite, the “green screens” that made up the user interface of the application. Most users—tellers at branches—used third-party software to access the transaction system; they would see no change from the migration.
The approximately five CO-OP help-desk personnel who provided support for transaction problems or who maintained the branch roster would use the interface that the company associated with the solution; porting the existing interface both cut development time and eliminated the need to train these people on a new interface.
Progeni handled the process of migrating the COBOL application code and the database. It converted and recompiled the application source code to the industry-leading Micro Focus Net Express. The company’s Enterprise MCS product provided transaction control functionality for the flow of messages between the presentation layer and application programs. Its Data Migrator Toolkit used CO-OP’s original platform database design to generate equivalent relational schema for the new database, which runs on the Microsoft SQL Server™ 2000 database software.
Beckman and his project teammate, Dean Spiro, then tested the code and database, implemented minor adjustments, and confirmed its readiness for production. The company used the Progeni ThreeRs regression testing toolset to verify the application migration and data transfer.
While the migration didn’t focus on providing new functionality, CO-OP did take advantage of the move to SQL Server to create a near real-time reporting capability based on SQL Server 2000 Reporting Services. The reporting function provides up-to-date reports and analysis on transaction volumes and staffing levels at the company’s branch operations.
The solution runs on a pair of Hewlett-Packard ProLiant DL 380 twin dual-core Xeon 2.8 GHz processor computers (for a total of four processors per machine) with 4 GB of RAM. One computer supports the 4 GB database, the other supports the application. But each machine contains both database and application support, providing failover capability in the event of unplanned downtime on either machine.
The migration was completed in four months, in time to avoid renewing the mainframe lease.
“We actually managed the entire process of migrating from the mainframe to Windows in just four months,” says Beckman. “That was a very aggressive schedule, but we did it. Time to market was crucial to keeping our business moving on a cost-effective platform. Microsoft technology and Progeni’s tools and expertise made it happen.”
Benefits By migrating from the mainframe to the Windows Server environment, CO-OP Financial Services has saved virtually all of its mainframe expense while getting mainframe-level reliability, all the scalability it wants, fast time to market, and flexibility to extend its solution with capabilities such as near real-time reporting for better decision making.
Costs Virtually Disappear The staff of nine programmers and administrators was reduced to three, with the maintenance chores for the solution being assumed by existing Windows support staff.
Delivers Mainframe-Class Reliability Windows delivers at least as much uptime as we saw on the mainframe. If this solution weren’t delivering as required, we’d hear about it right away,” says Jack Beckman.
Provides Ample Scalability Since the migration the transaction rate has increased from 1 million per month on the mainframe to 1.45 million per month a year later. Windows Server and SQL Server support this rate without missing a beat. The solution averages 5 percent of processing capacity and peaks at 20 percent.
“Windows gives us more processing capability than we need for what we thought was a very transaction-heavy application,” says Beckman. “We don’t have to think about scaling out any time soon but, when we do, we know we can do so cost-effectively by adding a computer—that’s flexibility we didn’t have with the mainframe.”
Delivers More Functionality Even though CO-OP Financial Service’s goal was “merely” to replicate its mainframe functionality more cost-effectively on Windows, the company has also gained important new functionality in the Windows environment. Server Reporting Services gives executives more and faster information for better decision making.
“We had to gather this information manually before and we didn’t have the time—we spent 80 percent of our time writing mainframe updates,” says Beckman. “Now the solution virtually provides the information on its own. I know how important this information has become to our executives because, on the rare occasions when it’s not available, I hear about it.”
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