3rd Apr 2007 12:00
Micro Focus(R) (LSE:MCRO.L), a leader in enterprise applicationmanagement and modernization solutions, today announces that Vienna,Austria, health insurance provider Wiener Gebietskrankenkasse (WGKK)has successfully switched over from its Unisys 2200 mainframe to IBMSystem p hardware running AIX, saving WGKK many millions of euros inIT costs. In addition, ongoing annual IT operating costs have beendramatically reduced and are now just 5 percent of the operating costsof the mainframe. £ This switchover was possible after all core Unisys COBOLapplications were converted to Micro Focus COBOL as part of acomprehensive migration project using tooling from Unisys 2200migration specialist Inglenet. £ WGKK is the largest federal insurance fund in Austria, servingmore than 1.5 million insured clients. It had operated its coreapplications, including insurance activities, premium calculations andbilling, and client services on a Unisys 2200 mainframe since theearly 1980s. However, the existing mainframe could no longer handleWGKK's increased requirements, which, combined with the system's highoperating costs, led the organization to seek a new platform for itsapplications. £ After a comprehensive evaluation, WGKK decided to switch to anopen platform rather than purchasing a new, more powerful Unisysmainframe. The migration project itself took several months duringwhich the mainframe COBOL applications were migrated to the AIXenvironment and the data was migrated to an Oracle database. This wasoverseen by IBM, acting as the prime contractor, while bringing inspecialists Inglenet and Keller & Partners (members of Micro Focus'Migration and Transformation Consortium) to assist and ensure theproject was completed on time and within budget. The migrationrequired the conversion and testing of 600 batch, 300 online, morethan 1,000 subprograms, 1,400 batch scripts and over 500 databasetables. Approximately 260 million data sets were affected. £ The migration met or exceeded all of WGKK's expectations and themigrated applications now complete their batch-mode run up to fourtimes faster than on the mainframe. The entire migration to MicroFocus' COBOL on IBM System p, including a second system that acts as afail-safe in a distributed HCMP cluster, came in at less than halfwhat the mainframe upgrade would have cost. £ "Given our new (migrated) systems have been operating for over ayear without any problems, we can safely say that the migration hasbeen an overwhelming success," said Herbert Waismayer, manager ofsoftware development at WGKK. "Considering the financial pressureswithin the health care industry, a multi-million Euro savings isobviously a fantastic achievement, especially as we didn't have tocompromise in performance and functionality." £ "The WGKK example shows that even complex legacy applications canbe transferred to modern platforms with minimal risk, enablingvaluable assets to be reused and modernized while making considerablecost savings," said Joachim Blome, Technical Director at Micro FocusGmbH. £ About Micro Focus £ Micro Focus provides innovative software that allows companies todramatically improve the business value of their enterpriseapplications. Micro Focus Enterprise Application Modernization andManagement software enables customers' business applications torespond rapidly to market changes and embrace modern architectureswith reduced cost and risk. For additional information please visitwww.microfocus.com. £ The very latest perspectives, expertise and developments fromCustomers, Partners and Micro Focus are under one roof at Micro FocusWorld 2007. For more information, visit www.microfocusworld.com. £ Micro Focus is a registered trademark of Micro Focus. All otherproducts mentioned in this announcement are trademarks of theirrespective owners. Copyright Business Wire 2007Related Shares:
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