IBM eServer zSeries systems and GDPS help AOK Bavaria create a healthy environment for growth

AOK is Germany’s largest health insurance company, with more than 25 million policy holders—nearly one-third of the entire German population. In Bavaria, one of Germany’s largest states, AOK Bavaria—the leading health insurance company in Bavaria—insures more than 40 percent of the state’s population and has 10,000 employees in 39 administrative offices and 250 customer centers.

Under German data protection laws, AOK Bavaria must store specific customer data for up to 30 years. This requirement means that the company must maintain an exponentially growing pool of customer data—and that AOK Bavaria computing systems were straining to keep up with the resulting transaction processing demand. IT administrators began evaluating new systems environments that could help boost uptime, ensure continuity and enhance manageability for the company’s key applications.

IBM hardware and software offer high availability and manageability
An IBM mainframe customer for more than 30 years, AOK Bavaria turned to IBM Germany to help design an IT environment that would optimize availability and employee productivity. Working collaboratively, the team upgraded its two IBM eServer zSeries 900 systems to two IBM eServer zSeries 990 systems running the IBM z/OS operating system.

These two servers were separated into 12 logical partitions (LPARs) and configured into three Geographically Dispersed Parallel Sysplex™ (GDPS® V3.2) solutions with data protection to help provide outstanding resiliency. In addition, a previously installed IBM TotalStorage® Peer-to-Peer Virtual Tape Server (PtP VTS) enables two simultaneous full copies of vital backup data to automatically be made at high speed. The PtP VTS includes IBM System Storage™ DS8000™ and IBM TotalStorage Enterprise Storage Server® systems.

For high application availability, AOK Bavaria implemented IBM Tivoli NetView® software for z/OS and IBM Tivoli System Automation software for the IBM OS/390® operating system. “Before we installed Tivoli software,” says Nicolas Vassas, z/OS systems programmer at AOK Bavaria, “we had a manual system in which all systems management commands had to be entered by hand or issued by command lists. Now the operating systems are fully controlled by the Tivoli Systems Automation software and we have out-of-the-box automation for our IBM IMS™, IBM CICS® and SAP applications—a feature that helps support high availability by giving systems administrators a clear, real-time view of system status so they can respond immediately if a problem occurs.”

To further enhance uptime, AOK Bavaria also configured a NetView-based system to deliver text messages to IT administrators’ cell phones to notify them of performance problems or application outages. With these real-time notifications, the IT staff can quickly resolve issues, potentially without disrupting users.

Improved system availability enables higher employee productivity
The AOK Bavaria zSeries-based infrastructure is designed to promote high availability, outstanding performance and employee productivity by allowing administrators to manage remote copy configuration and storage subsystems, automate GDPS operation tasks and perform failure recovery from a single point of control.

zSeries system management capabilities also help to automate recovery procedures for planned and unplanned outages to provide near-continuous availability and disaster recovery capabilities. In combination with the already installed PtP VTS, the system is now able to serve AOK’s employees even in cases of disaster—for example, when only one mainframe is available or storage subsystems are damaged. “Today, if we had an outage,” says Vassas, “employees could continue their work without even knowing where their system is actually running from. The transition to backup systems is completely transparent to end users, which helps them maintain productivity.”

In addition, GDPS gives AOK Bavaria greater control over scheduled system backups, which helps prevent interruptions in system access. “Because we no longer have to shut down systems to perform routine maintenance, backups take less time,” says Vassas. “Now we can schedule the window during times when employees are not working.”

Automation helps administrators streamline maintenance and improve response times
Before AOK Bavaria installed IBM Tivoli NetView for z/OS and IBM Tivoli Systems Automation for OS/390, the company conducted system maintenance manually, which required well-trained personnel to be available at all times. “When we changed the routines,” says Vassas, “the new procedures had to be documented and the whole team had to be retrained. This happened about once a month, and each time our entire team had to take an hour to learn about the changes. Operators also had to be informed of which LPARs had been changed and which had not. Now with Systems Automation for z/OS, the changes are implemented once and the operator has just to be informed that the changes that were made—which can be done in minutes.”

Now, with the zSeries 990 system running Tivoli software, AOK Bavaria has an overview of all three GDPS solutions on a single screen. “Now the IT staff can quickly determine whether system problems are occurring, which helps speed issue resolution and keeps our key systems running smoothly,” says Vassas.

IBM provides a foundation to adopt an On Demand Business model
In the future, AOK Bavaria plans to continue working closely with IBM to enhance systems availability and create an environment for high employee productivity. “zSeries technology has helped our company transform into an On Demand Business by giving us the ability to react to changing conditions in real time,” says Vassas. “Now that we have a system that delivers outstanding application availability and streamlined maintenance, we are poised to strengthen our position as one of Germany’s leading insurers.”

For more information
For more information, contact your IBM sales representative or IBM Business Partner, or visit us on the Web at:

ibm.com/systems/z/