IBM and Compugen help British Columbia Maritime Employers Association connect employers with workers

The British Columbia Maritime Employers Association (BCMEA) relies on IT to enable a relatively small group of staff members to provide a large range of services to waterfront employers on the west coast of Canada. Working closely with the 67 member companies, BCMEA helps to manage collective labor agreements; supplies payroll and benefit plan services; offers assistance with labor discipline, grievances and arbitration; and even provides labor dispatch services to match employers with workers for specific jobs. BCMEA uses IT to automate these processes and help it provide services that are available around the clock, every day.

The dispatch component of the association’s operation has grown considerably over the past few years. “We used to consider ourselves more of a labor relations organization,” says Greg Vurdela, director of information services and corporate secretary for BCMEA. “But we have come to realize that a primary part of our business is helping employers and labor find each other. We make sure that the workers have the right skills and necessary safety training required for jobs, and we enable workers to view assignments and monitor their check status. The number of workers using the system has grown about 500 percent in just a few years.”

To locate workers for particular jobs, such as loading or unloading vessels, member companies log into the BCMEA dispatch system through an online portal. By having dispatch information prior to the start of a shift, companies can plan and distribute the work force efficiently, saving time and money.

Though the innovative dispatch service is unquestionably valuable to employers, the service has created several challenges for BCMEA. First, the association needs both software applications and hardware that can handle the complex collection of labor requirements. “Each port has numerous union rules and dispatch requirements,” explains Vurdela. “We realized that if dispatch was going to be a primary part of our business, we needed to introduce a level of automation that has not yet been seen in Canada.”

Providing high availability is another key challenge. “Making sure that dispatch information is available around the clock is essential for our member companies,” says Vurdela. “If there is a delay in loading or unloading a container ship, for example, the ship could miss a berth window and cost a company tens of thousands of dollars in moorage, berth and fuel costs.”

The dispatch system also has to deliver the performance and scalability to accommodate current and future demand. BCMEA estimates that anywhere from 300 to 800 people—employers and workers—access the system at one time. Those numbers are expected to grow in the future. “When we first launched the dispatch system, it was clear that modernization of dispatch methodologies was essential to the continued financial success of our members and the economy of Western Canada,” says Vurdela. “Now use of our system is growing rapidly. We need to make sure that we can handle the increased traffic while also ensuring that the system will be available when our members need it.”

IBM and Compugen help BCMEA locate the right solution
BCMEA’s previous system, which used an 8-way server with direct-attached storage, could no longer offer the performance, availability or scalability that the association required. Consequently, the BCMEA IT team began to solicit proposals for a new infrastructure from a number of different vendors, including IBM Business Partner Compugen. “We provided vendors with rough hardware specifications and the infrastructure design,” says Divyesh Lavingia, a LAN administrator for BCMEA. “It became clear that IBM and Compugen offered a more comprehensive solution to help us design and deploy our new system.”

“They offered a complete solution,” says Vurdela. “Then they provided us with the equipment for testing and they helped us verify that everything would work together, as designed. In fact, both the system performance and level of redundancy far exceeded our expectations.”

BCMEA also recognized a strong dedication among IBM and Compugen team members. “We certainly felt that this group understood our needs and was committed to our success,” says Vurdela. “They gave us the additional level of comfort we needed to build a new infrastructure.”

IBM System x servers offer the performance BCMEA requires
BCMEA selected three IBM System x 366 servers, running in a cluster, to provide the processing power for the complex dispatch system. Equipped with the IBM eServer™ X3 Architecture, the third generation of mainframe-inspired IBM enterprise X-Architecture® Technology, plus dual-core 64-bit Intel® Xeon® processors MP, the x366 can provide outstanding performance for the association’s current needs with sufficient headroom for growth.

The x366 also offers high-availability technologies that are designed to deliver the uptime that BCMEA requires. Features such as light path diagnostics, IBM Predictive Failure Analysis® and IBM Active PCI-X technology can help the BCMEA team anticipate potential problems before system availability is at risk. If maintenance or modifications are required, the x366 system’s hot-swap power, fan, memory, hard disk drive and PCI-X adapter components enable technicians to make changes without interrupting the dispatch application.

The servers, which run six Microsoft® SQL Server 2005 Enterprise databases on Microsoft Windows Server® 2003, R2 Enterprise, are configured in a clustered environment for optimum availability. “In the event a server component or a whole server fails, we know that the cluster failover technology is designed to help keep the system running,” says Lavingia.

IBM SAN provides the redundancy for high availability
BCMEA selected two IBM System Storage N5200 modular disk storage systems to create a storage area network (SAN) that can pool storage and create a redundant environment for the dispatch system. By adding redundant switches for iSCSI connectivity and redundant LAN switches, BCMEA has built a storage environment that can offer high data availability. “In our previous storage environment, one small component could bring down our dispatch system,” says Vurdela. “Now we have the failover capability to help eliminate those kinds of disasters.”

The N5200 also provides the disk performance and scalability that BCMEA needs. The N5200 is designed to support high throughput and fast response times for applications that require rapid access to information. Although BCMEA currently uses only a total of 2TB of storage, each N5200 can be scaled up to 84TB of raw storage capacity, non-disruptively, as the dispatch system grows. With the ability to use Fibre Channel and SATA disk drives, the N5200 offers the flexibility for deployment in multiple solution environments should BCMEA decide to extend its use to other systems.

With assistance from IBM and Compugen, BCMEA was able to move rapidly from system evaluation to deployment. “IBM and Compugen have been invaluable in deploying the hardware,” says Vurdela. “At one point, we had some difficulty configuring the SAN with some new iSCSI gear. We called Compugen, and within hours Compugen and IBM representatives had a solution for us. They helped us configure the SAN, and they helped us understand why we were having trouble. We were very impressed that they were able to rally the troops so quickly.”

IBM products enable BCMEA to look toward the future
Employers began to notice performance improvements soon after the new system was deployed. “With our previous environment, large batch processing jobs or morning dispatches could slow down the system considerably,” says Lavingia. “With the new system, some of our employers are already noticing reduced wait times of up to 30 percent.”

With the new system in place, BCMEA has the confidence to expand the system to more users. “These IBM products give us the solid foundation we need for building our dispatch system,” says Vurdela. “Now we can continue to expand the dispatch services and accommodate more users, while delivering the performance and availability our employers require.”

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