Fresh Start IT Case Studies

Hartford Life
System Replatforming from an IBM Mainframe to Sun Solaris on SPARC
It became apparent that a systems solution was necessary to ease the integration into Hartford Life of a portion of the Variable Universal Life business that was part of The Hartford's $1.12 billion acquisition of the Fortis Financial Group. That was when Hartford Life turned to LIDP (Fresh Start IT is service mark of LIDP Consulting Inc.) for its expertise.

The focus of the collaboration was moving an application for maintaining a block of the Fortis Variable Universal Life business from a mainframe system to a more cost-effective, UNIX-based platform.

"Hartford Life wanted a system that was going to be able to handle the block that we had and able to bring up new products very quickly," said Joan Henzler, Hartford Life's team lead for the project. "We knew that it was very costly to run the application on the mainframe and they asked me to check into running it on a UNIX platform. I knew it could done."

Henzler saw the same drive to succeed she had come to expect, based on prior experiences she had while at Fortis.

"I've always been impressed with the professionalism of the staff," she said. "Their dedication to satisfying the customer's needs is unprecedented. During the replatform project there were times that working a 16 to 20 hour day was not uncommon."

"We had such a short timeframe. Once we actually started working on the process of migrating to UNIX, it was about four or five months and we were up and running live in production."

Columbian Financial Group (CFG)
VSE Platform Porting - Implementation of Enterprise Applications on pSeries Hardware
Columbian Financial Group (CFG), Binghamton New York, found themselves running their core applications on an outdated, overtaxed, mainframe running VSE. When it was determined that a new platform was needed, CFG turned to their long-time business partner, LIDP. The company relationship dated back to 1988. Over the years LIDP had provided software, consulting, and upgrade assistance to CFG.

The first phase of the project involved a Proof of Concept and Benchmark. The Proof of Concept would give CFG the assurance that their systems would run on the new hardware, while the Benchmark would provide the information needed to select the correct hardware. CFG source code was delivered and installed on our pSeries hardware. Code modifications were made to bring the CFG source code up to ANSI standards. Once the systems were up and running on our hardware, benchmarking was done so that CFG could purchase the appropriately sized hardware.

The second phase of the project was the implementation of the CFG applications on their pSeries hardware. In addition to running the systems on the new hardware, the database was migrated from keyed datasets to a relational model running DB2. The project scope was much broader than a strict systems replatforming project.

The following items were also resolved as part of the implementation phase:

  • Integrating new systems into CFG’s existing SAN and backup system
  • All internal and external interfaces were reviewed and resolved
  • Support for the generation of problem reports directly to the helpdesk
  • Interface to CFG’s voice response unit (VRU)
  • Migration of JCL to shell scripting
  • Enhanced data integrity validation
  • Implementation of a security subsystem that paralleled the mainframe security system

When completed CFG found that their recovery time had been reduced dramatically. Their batch widow was extended from one to six hours, leaving substantial resources available to absorb additional growth. The new environment led to a couple of things that CFG didn’t anticipate. The creation of new test regions, which had been virtually impossible prior to the replatform, could now be accomplished in a matter of minutes. The new architecture provided a much more stable operating environment, leading to a greatly diminished amount of hands-on technical support.

Insular Life
Rearchitecture of Database to Fully Relational Model and Application Release Upgrade

Insular Life, the oldest, largest, and most innovative Filipino-based insurance company, found themselves seven years back on system maintenance. To bring their system current, Insular contracted with LIDP. As pointed out by LIDP’s Matt Slough, no client had ever upgraded seven releases in one project before. “We had to deal with code that looked extremely different between the two releases and fit in Insular Life custom enhancements such that there would be no loss in functionality,” he said. Also, the upgrade involved a complete database rearchitecture to the current, fully relational model.

The to-do list of the project was long and detailed. Install and integrate all upgrades. Provide user training. Revise user procedures and operating manuals. Upgrade individual PCs to accommodate the new GUI requirements. And according to Insular Life Senior Assistant Vice President Carmen G. Duque, Information Services Division, Insular Life had to maintain full processing operations during the upgrade. Staging extended periods of downtime was not an option.

Explained Insular Life’s Cristina C. Ramirez, AVP and head of Business Process management staff, support was “readily available throughout the project whenever we stumbled on a technical concern that was beyond our means to resolve. There were tasks that were relegated.… on last-minute notice, but they were able to deliver results in record time,” keeping the upgrade on schedule and budget