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IT service provider BRZ Deutschland reduces data processing times by deploying IBM System z9 and IBM System Storage technology

Published on 13-Oct-2008

"A maximum in flexibility, stability and availability is simply what our clients expect and is a require­ment for the permanent improvement of process flows. With the IBM System z9 BC we can meet these requirements." - Oliver Neureuther, director of product management systems, BRZ Deutschland GmbH

Customer:
BRZ Deutschland

Industry:
Computer Services, Wholesale Distribution & Services, Construction / Architecture / Engineering

Deployment country:
Germany

IBM Business Partner:
Fritz & Macziol GmbH

Overview

BRZ Deutschland GmbH (BRZ) provides IT services to the building trades across Europe. BRZ has more than 13,000 clients in Germany, France, Switzerland and the Czech Republic. It offers a full range of services, including organizational consulting, IT outsourcing and enterprise resource planning (ERP) software.

Business need:
To meet customer demands in the fast-paced construction industry and to operate as optimally as possible, BRZ needed a robust, powerful IT platform. BRZ’s chal­lenge was compounded by the fact that its existing IBM S/390® Multiprise® 2000 mainframe was running at capacity.

Solution:
On a recommendation from IBM and IBM Premier Business Partner Fritz & Macziol GmbH, BRZ migrated to an IBM System z9® Business Class server running the IBM z/VSE™ V4 operating system. The System z9 technology offered the flexibility to run the z/VSE operating system while also allowing the company’s Linux® applications to coexist. Leveraging the z/VSE environment, three Virtual Storage Extended (VSE) systems run in a logical partition (LPAR), with the System z9 BC server acting as the data hub.

Benefits:
• Provides the flexibility to run the z/VSE operating system in parallel with Linux applications • Accelerates processing run times for batch jobs • Reduces run times for 200,000 payroll stubs by 50 percent over the company’s previous system

Case Study

BRZ Deutschland GmbH (BRZ) provides IT services to the building trades across Europe. BRZ has more than 13,000 clients in Germany, France, Switzerland and the Czech Republic. It offers a full range of services, including organizational consulting, IT outsourcing and enterprise resource planning (ERP) software.

Challenge
To meet customer demands in the fast-paced construction industry and to operate as optimally as possible, BRZ needed a robust, powerful IT platform. BRZ’s chal­lenge was compounded by the fact that its existing IBM S/390® Multiprise® 2000 mainframe was running at capacity.
Solution
On a recommendation from IBM and IBM Premier Business Partner Fritz & Macziol GmbH, BRZ migrated to an IBM System z9® Business Class server running the IBM z/VSE™ V4 operating system. The migration took only one weekend. The System z9 technology offered the flexibility to run the z/VSE operating system while also allowing the company’s Linux® applications to coexist in parallel. Leveraging the z/VSE environment, three Virtual Storage Extended (VSE) systems run in a logical partition (LPAR), with the System z9 Business Class server acting as the data hub.
The benefits to BRZ were immediate. Batch processing times were dramatically accelerated, especially for the high-volume transaction processing. The addition of an IBM System Storage™ DS6800 enabled BRZ to take advantage of the latest hard drive technologies and further accelerated batch processing run times. The benefits were clearly illustrated in the company’s payroll transaction process­ing. When printing 200,000 payroll stubs, run times were reduced by 50 percent when compared to the run times on BRZ’s previous system.
Benefits
• Provides the flexibility to run the z/VSE operating system in parallel with Linux applications
• Accelerates processing run times for batch jobs
• Reduces run times for 200,000 payroll stubs by 50 percent over the company’s previous system

Products and services used

IBM products and services that were used in this case study.

Hardware:
Storage: DS6800, System z: System z9 Business Class (z9 BC)

Software:
z/VSE

Operating system:
Linux, VSE/ESA

Footnotes and legal information

ZSC03038-USEN-00

© Copyright IBM Corporation 2008 IBM Systems and Technology GroupRoute 100Somers, NY 10589U.S.A. Produced in the United States of America October 2008All Rights Reserved IBM, the IBM logo, ibm.com and System z9 are trademarks or registered trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation in the United States, other countries, or both. If these and other IBM trademarked terms are marked on their first occur­rence in this information with a trademark symbol (® or ™), these symbols indicate U.S. registered or common law trademarks owned by IBM at the time this information was published. Such trademarks may also be registered or common law trademarks in other countries. A current list of IBM trademarks is available on the Web at “Copyright and trademark information” at ibm.com/legal/copytrade.shtml IBM and Fritz & Macziol are separate companies and each is responsible for its own products. Neither IBM nor Fritz & Macziol makes any war­ranties, express or implied, concerning the other’s products. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in the United States, other countries, or both. Other company, product or service names may be trademarks or service marks of others. References in this publication to IBM products, programs or services do not imply that IBM intends to make these available in all countries in which IBM operates. Any reference to an IBM product, program or service is not intended to imply that only IBM’s product, program or service may be used. Any func­tionally equivalent product, program or service may be used instead. Offerings are subject to change, extension or withdrawal without notice. All client examples cited represent how some clients have used IBM products and the results they may have achieved. Performance data for IBM and non-IBM products and services contained in this document was derived under specific operating and environmental conditions. The actual results obtained by any party implementing such products or services will depend on a large number of factors specific to such party’s operating environment and may vary significantly. IBM makes no representation that these results can be expected or obtained in any implementation of any such products or services. THE INFORMATION IN THIS DOCUMENT IS PROVIDED “AS-IS” WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED.

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