APL2

Economical Information and Analysis System - STS.win

Customer: Rheinischer Sparkassen- + Giroverband
Author: Klaus-Peter Friedrich
Country: Germany

Nearly 30 Years of APL at Rheinischer Sparkassen- + Giroverband, Duesseldorf, Germany

The Rheinische Sparkassen- + Giroverband in Duesseldorf (RSGV) is the parent organization for 35 Public Savings Banks ("Sparkassen" in German) in the Rhineland in the Northwest of Germany. Those Savings Banks had in 2005 a total balance amount of 152.8 billion Euro and employed 34,806 people.

In 1977 RSGV had already begun to manage and analyze its Savings Banks' statistical information in a homegrown 3-dimensional database system (OLAP like) using IBM APL (called Sparkassen Time Sharing STS). APL with its n-dimensional data structures has always provided excellent support for OLAP applications.

RSGV currently manages its statistical and economical data in a Client-Server application, called STS.win, with a modern Windows user interface using IBM Workstation APL2 Version 2. Large mainframe APL2 based data bases residing in the RSGV computing center are queried and updated via TCP/IP and APL2 Cross-System Shared Variables. The most important parts of STS.win are:

• STS.win data bases can reside on the mainframe, on a particular Savings Bank's server or on private disks. They can have up to nine dimensions and are built and managed using the user-friendly administration package TRADA. The central mainframe data bases, which can be accessed by all STS.win users, currently consist of 45 data cubes with about 560,000 time series.

• The evaluation and analysis system AIDA enables authorized users to query and manipulate the OLAP data cubes to produce comparison between different Savings Banks, different time series, etc. Additional functions like sums, mean values, etc., and particular banking functions are also available. For individual post-processing all results can easily be transferred to Excel. In addition about 900 predefined standard reports, with individual choices of Savings Banks and time series, are available. Most other reports need not be programmed, but can be produced using program generators that are controlled by text parameters and produce APL2 programs.

• The data entry and checking program SPKPOOL is used by the Savings Banks to enter and update their data in the central data pool.

• The report generator enables users with minimal APL knowledge to create even complex individual reports.

• A large number of interfaces provide data exchange capabilities between different data sources. In this area also, APL2 is simply magnificent.

STS.win was developed by RSGV specialists and is 100% based on IBM APL2. The RSGV team for development and maintenance of the STS.win application consists two people for system development and two people for application development. Nowadays STS.win is used by about 400 banking experts in the 35 Savings Banks and in RSGV.