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Mainline Makes AccuRecord's Benefits Management Solution Faster,
More Efficient & Less Costly
When you login to review your 401(k) balance and manage contribution
allocations, the 24-by-7 service you use may be provided by AccuRecord, one
of the leading innovators of recordkeeping and administrative services for the
defined contribution industry.
AccuRecord's name is not well known by plan participants because its core
business is to provide financial institutions and investment firms with their
proprietary benefits software solution for benefits management. AccuRecord's
customer base is comprised of insurance companies, banks, investment
managers, third-party administrators or individual corporations who leverage
AccuRecord's integrated voice response systems and Internet portals, which
are constantly being enhanced to improve the plan participant's experience.
The Challenge
Hitachi, AccuRecord's legacy system provider, was sun-setting their
mainframe business and would no longer support current or future software.
John Bradley, executive vice president, called IBM for solution help and was
referred to Mainline Information SystemsTM, an IBM premier business partner
with local representatives who could assist with the entire solution process,
from design through implementation.
Steve Tenczar, account executive for Mainline, and Charlie Elko, systems
engineer, worked with Bradley to identify solution requirements and create a
solution design. Existing infrastructure issues included:
- Existing technology was more than ten years old
- Existing application drives could not connect to newer processor systems
- Existing maintenance costs and software license fees were high
Because data storage and processing power are key to AccuRecord's
business success, the new solution needed to meet these key demands:
- Provide better performance for the company's nightly & monthly batch
processing
- Deliver 24 x 7 availability
- Lower total cost of ownership.
During the first meeting, Bradley and the Mainline team began to develop
the teamwork and collaboration that would characterize the project. As
Bradley expressed it, "We established a good rapport, and I felt that the
team had a good understanding of the situation we were facing."
The Mainline team subsequently conducted processor, workloads and storage system studies, then analyzed
the results to determine the best platforms for the workload demands.
The Solutions
Tenczar and Elko presented their recommendations to Bradley, demonstrating that it was less expensive to
purchase a new processor and replace their storage, than to just replace the storage. "Based on data and
workload information, we recommended the IBM z9 Business Class (z9 BC) processor," said Tenczar. "It's
reliable, scalable, and represents the latest technology available." They also
recommended using a single rather than dual processor, as the initial study
demonstrated that a uniprocessor was better because of the batch
processing work, which can better utilize a faster, single engine. Elko
commented, "We also recommended the IBM DS8100 Storage, to provide
high-performance storage with future growth options."
Other elements of the recommended solution included Mainline Professional Services and Advanced Dynamic Logical Partitioning (LPAR), which allows a
single partition to act as a completely separate OS. This gave AccuRecord
added flexibility to perform testing in the LPAR environment without
impacting production work, and it provided a platform to facilitate bringing
new OS versions online.
"When I met the Mainline team, I didn't understand the latest level of technology," Bradley confided. "They
introduced me to the possibilities and I implemented the complete solution they recommended. I especially
like the 'pay-for-what-you-use' aspect of the sub-capacity billing that was included in the z9. It had the ability
to lower my monthly software cost and contribute to a lower TCO."
The Implementation
Charlie Elko led the implementation team that converted the Hitachi legacy system to the new IBM
environment. In planning for the physical installation, Elko worked with the AccuRecord team, IBM and
Mainline to ensure that the site was ready for the new machines. IBM took the lead role in getting the z9
installed and operation-ready.
The Mainline Professional Services team made sure that the AccuRecord software was configured correctly on
the new machine and running at peek performance levels.
On a Saturday morning, in under two hours, Elko and Steve Oswald, a Mainline systems programmer, cutover
the Hitachi processor to the z9. After the cutover, Doyle Banks, a Mainline systems engineer, migrated the data
from the Hitachi disks to the IBM DS8100, which Elko had previously configured. This migration took three
hours, while the system was fully operational. The improvement in processing using the disks was immediately
apparent!
Bradley was impressed. "Mainline flawlessly completed the data transfer from the Hitachi DASD to the IBM
DS8100 in less than three hours. It boggles my mind to think how quickly that was done," he said.
The Results
"With this solution, AccuRecord went from 'pretty good' to 'great' - and it was done at an excellent
price-point," said Bradley. "Previously, our monthly run would take seven hours. Today we are finishing in 2.5
hours. With this new technology, maintenance costs are reduced, and we've cut software expense by 40
percent," he specified.
The upgraded tape system on the z9 also contribute to a lower TCO by reducing the time and cartridges
required for system back-up.
"Providing and storing information for plan participants and client organizations is central to our business. The
Mainline solution is helping us serve our customers faster, more comprehensively and more economically,"
Bradley concluded.
For more information about this solution, call your Mainline account representative or call Mainline directly at 866.490.MAIN (6246). |