Informa

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Informa

With one million transactions per week taking place for 7,000 customers and 30,000 online users, Informa needed a risk free solution that would still be able to carry them into the future. Fujitsu’s recommendation of a Trimetra NOVA server within an OpenVME environment produced shorter running times and lower maintenance costs in less than a weekend.

The Challenge

Founded in 1992, Informa SA is now one of Europe’s leading providers of business information. It holds data on 1.7 million Spanish businesses; provides close to a 24 by 7 online service and processes 1 million transactions per week for 7,000 customers and 30,000 online users.

“Our success and rapid growth are due mostly to the stability provided by our mainframe environment” commented Michael Horrocks, Computer Operations Manager. Whilst the company had been extremely satisfied with a Series 39 mainframe, it wanted to ensure future performance as it expanded further.

The Solution

Informa had a stable platform for its core applications and it wanted to incur no risks. Two requirements were undisputed: business continuity was the first consideration and any solution was to be based on industry standard rather than proprietary hardware. As Alberto Gonzalez Calero, IT Director, explained: “We wanted to build our business on a technology that has already demonstrated its potential.”

Fujitsu recommended a Trimetra NOVA server within an OpenVME environment. The solution comprised a NOVA 350-11 Intel-based server with integral Clariion disk array.

The Benefits

Alberto Gonzalez Calero is clear about the benefits:

“We have more speed and less cost. We can all see that we have made a solid, wise decision. The solution is perfect for our business.”

The new system issues 35 million instructions per second and Informa immediately saw a massive improvement when the delivery of data to clients went down from 1.6 to 0.2 seconds. Likewise, Informa’s own staff of 200 noticed a dramatic change in response times. “Users are delighted with the results,” reported Michael Horrocks.

The new NOVA runs much faster than Informa’s previous mainframe; for some processes it is 10 times quicker. Daily invoicing takes just 5 minutes instead of 55 minutes for the same volume of transactions. All weekend work is typically completed within 10 hours; previously jobs were often still running on Monday mornings. Security copies of data are made 4 times faster.

Shorter running times mean that electricity consumption is 20 to 30 times less than before. Maintenance costs are 25% lower. Because the system is so stable and uses standard hardware, there is much less risk for the business. In addition, Informa is now well positioned to manage change within an unknown future. “The characteristics of OpenVME allow us to integrate seamlessly with open systems and new technologies,” commented Onofre Santos, Chief Programmer.

The Implementation

Over one weekend the operating system was updated to OpenVME 4; the following weekend the central processing units were updated and the four-day Easter bank holiday 2002 became the opportunity to migrate data from the old disk system. A small, specialised team from Fujitsu Services in the UK began work on the Thursday before Easter, a public holiday in Spain. They moved nearly 200 GB of user filestore from a variety of old disk subsystems to the Clariion disk array on NOVA.

When users returned to work on Monday 1st April Informa was live on NOVA. As Michael Horrocks commented: “I have been involved in many migrations both at an application level and hardware level and this one was one of the most painless experiences in my IT career. Fujitsu’s technical experts prepared a migration plan and adhered to it. Everything went like a dream.”

The Expertise

“I was convinced that OpenVME was the way forward for Informa”, said Michael Horrocks. “Our data is our business and it is much better to keep it safely in a mainframe. However, Informa is a young company and many of its IT experts have no experience of mainframe. Fujitsu was able to demonstrate the importance of stability and throughput and the value of an open environment that can incorporate new technologies and future applications. This system will carry us well into the future.”