Software AG Case Studies Smals Gets Big Savings from Webmethods Entirex

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	Smals Gets Big Savings from Webmethods Entirex Software AG

Smals Gets Big Savings from Webmethods Entirex

Software AG

Technology Category	Application Infrastructure & Middleware - API Integration & Management
Applicable Industries	Healthcare & Hospitals
Applicable Functions	Discrete Manufacturing Business Operation
Use Cases	Process Control & Optimization Predictive Maintenance
Services	System Integration Software Design & Engineering Services
Challenge	Smals, a leading Information and Communications Technology (ICT) services organization in Belgium, had invested years of development in 42 specialized COBOL applications. Once Smals had created a Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA), the organization needed an efficient way to establish communications between the SOA and these core mainframe applications. Effective communication between the systems of the CBSS and Smals is crucial for a swift processing of millions of transactions. “When one of our members wants to process a declaration—for example for registering a new employee in their system—they send an electronic message to the CBSS that uses an IBM mainframe,” Vanneste said. “Formerly, this message was passed through to Smals’ BS2000 mainframe, where the request was processed by one of the 42 specialized COBOL applications and answered. Read More
About Customer	With more than 1,700 employees and annual revenue of €193 million, Smals is one the largest ICT shared services organizations in Belgium. Smals was started in 1939. Today, it operates three state-of-the-art data centers and a variety of mission critical platforms, including over 1,700 servers and over 300 business applications. As a not- for-profit organization, Smals works for more than 60 Belgian government organizations in social security and healthcare. In addition to hosting, housing and outsourcing, Smals has a strong focus on development, mainly on the Java platform. They also provide more and more support and assistance to their members to let them run business applications cost effectively. Read More
Solution	webMethods EntireX proved to be the perfect solution. Smals had already used Adabas and Natural for many years—and was impressed Software AG was able to create a proof of concept for webMethods EntireX in just two weeks. Vanneste turned to Software AG that proposed using webMethods EntireX. Smals was already familiar with the Software AG portfolio as the company had used Adabas and Natural for a long time. “At first, we were sceptical about EntireX,” Vanneste said. “We doubted it could do the job. But we were seriously amazed when Software AG created a proof of concept within two weeks which proved that EntireX was the perfect solution. We instantly decided to follow this route and started implementing the solution. A test environment was developed and we performed many tests. Read More Log in to view content
Contents

Technology Category

Application Infrastructure & Middleware - API Integration & Management

Applicable Industries

Healthcare & Hospitals

Applicable Functions

Discrete Manufacturing

Business Operation

Use Cases

Process Control & Optimization

Predictive Maintenance

Services

System Integration

Software Design & Engineering Services

Challenge

Smals, a leading Information and Communications Technology (ICT) services organization in Belgium, had invested years of development in 42 specialized COBOL applications. Once Smals had created a Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA), the organization needed an efficient way to establish communications between the SOA and these core mainframe applications. Effective communication between the systems of the CBSS and Smals is crucial for a swift processing of millions of transactions. “When one of our members wants to process a declaration—for example for registering a new employee in their system—they send an electronic message to the CBSS that uses an IBM mainframe,” Vanneste said. “Formerly, this message was passed through to Smals’ BS2000 mainframe, where the request was processed by one of the 42 specialized COBOL applications and answered.

About Customer

With more than 1,700 employees and annual revenue of €193 million, Smals is one the largest ICT shared services organizations in Belgium. Smals was started in 1939. Today, it operates three state-of-the-art data centers and a variety of mission critical platforms, including over 1,700 servers and over 300 business applications. As a not- for-profit organization, Smals works for more than 60 Belgian government organizations in social security and healthcare. In addition to hosting, housing and outsourcing, Smals has a strong focus on development, mainly on the Java platform. They also provide more and more support and assistance to their members to let them run business applications cost effectively.

Solution

webMethods EntireX proved to be the perfect solution. Smals had already used Adabas and Natural for many years—and was impressed Software AG was able to create a proof of concept for webMethods EntireX in just two weeks. Vanneste turned to Software AG that proposed using webMethods EntireX. Smals was already familiar with the Software AG portfolio as the company had used Adabas and Natural for a long time. “At first, we were sceptical about EntireX,” Vanneste said. “We doubted it could do the job. But we were seriously amazed when Software AG created a proof of concept within two weeks which proved that EntireX was the perfect solution. We instantly decided to follow this route and started implementing the solution. A test environment was developed and we performed many tests.

Impact #1	Investment in core applications preserved—no rewriting required
Impact #2	Fast deployment—the solution was in production in six months
Impact #3	Faster response times—critical when processing two million requests a month

Impact #1

Investment in core applications preserved—no rewriting required

Impact #2

Fast deployment—the solution was in production in six months

Impact #3

Faster response times—critical when processing two million requests a month

Benefit #1	Significant savings in time, resources and budget

Benefit #1

Significant savings in time, resources and budget

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Overview

Smals Gets Big Savings from Webmethods Entirex

Operational Impact

Quantitative Benefit