Council switches off mainframe in efficiency drive

St. Helens Council has saved £300,000 in hardware and software costs by switching its key applications from a mainframe to Windows and Unix servers.

The council's ICT business manager Ste Sharples explained that the council had been an IBM OS390 mainframe site since 1986 but that this would not provide a long-term future for hosting Domino-based applications, which it had chosen as a central part of its technology planning.

At the same time, the Merseyside council like many others is facing demands for cost cutting coming from central government.

As a result, 18 systems from council tax to payroll were moved off the mainframe over an 18 month period, with the mainframe decommissioned in March this year.

Sharples told silicon.com: "We have to make savings of 2.5 per cent over the next three years and this was IT's initial contribution."

Three applications, including council tax and payroll were replaced with packages. The council's HR system and its subcomponents were rewritten in Domino, which took care of 12 applications.

But two key applications - the council's financial information system and creditor system - could not be replaced or rewritten so St. Helens called in Micro Focus and MigrationWare, to help migrate the legacy applications.

Using the services of MigrationWare, the Mantis and Cobol mainframe systems were migrated to new Cobol/CICS based applications to be deployed with Micro Focus Enterprise Server. The financial information system was also given a new front end.

Sharples said the council is getting equal or better performance and response from the migrated application, and the next step is to introduce more automation of batches of jobs.

He said: "What we have now is what the council has been looking for - proper graphical user interface front ends and an integrated Domino infrastructure."

St. Helens Council assistant treasurer, Cath Robinson, added in a statement: "The mainframe migration project has enabled the council to completely revolutionise the way we operate.

"All of St. Helens' legacy systems have been replaced with packages or rehosted using ground-breaking technologies providing contemporary capabilities for improved integration, to meet all the challenges of a modern council."