GENERALI DEUTSCHLAND AND BOI

A success story

Company logo: Generali

30 years of success and confidence.

Generali Deutschland Informatik Services GmbH – previously known as Aachener und Münchener Informatik Service AG – has been a loyal client of BOI since May 1992. TABEX has been used productively in the company ever since. GDIS is now assuming IT tasks for the Generali Deutschland Group and for subsidiaries of Assicurazioni Generali S.p.A.

Within the Generali Deutschland Group, GDIS acts as a single IT service provider for the entire Group. Its core competences are in the stable and viable operation of a multi-platform infrastructure and in the development of powerful, future-proof IT applications.

In the international arena, GDIS underpins IT operations for the entire central-eastern region, and serves the Generali subsidiaries in Belgium, the Netherlands and Austria as well as in ten Eastern European
countries.

With ca. 1,100 employees and a turnover of around 315 million Euro, GDIS is one of the leading developers of information systems in Germany.

Generali office building

Customer profile

Generali Group Austria

  • Composite insurer with additional financial services
  • Part of the Assicurazioni Generali S.p.A. in Trieste, Italy
  • Employees: 4,811 (2012)
  • Total assets: 14.99 billion EUR (2012)
  • Third largest insurance company in Austria with 15% market share
  • 999 Billion data transactions per year

Most important requirement: high performance

Table access fast and safe.

In the early 90s, the car application „K-Neu“ was developed by the Aachener und Münchener Informatik-Service AG. The architecture of this application was based on complex processes, which could not be

implemented in DB2 due to insufficient performance.

Therefore, a table management system enabling high-performance access to tables was sought. TABEX was chosen because it best met the requirements of the Aachener und Münchener Informatik Service AG.

A key advantage of TABEX over other table management systems was the high performance of the table access. From TABEX/2 onwards, high-performance data access has been an important feature of all
TABEX products.

Further requirements from Generali Deutschland regarding a table management system at that time were:

  • Usability under TSO, CICS, IMS / DC and batch conditions
  • Easy maintenance of the tables by the technical departments of the Group subsidiaries
  • Validity constraints on the tables determined by date
  • That access restrictions be applied in the broadest sense; wherever possible RACF compatible
  • Compatibility with DB2, both in data maintenance and database access
  • Easy maintenance and development of the system

 

Chart: Common Data Space Architecture

IBM Enterprise System Architecture

New opportunities for TABEX

With the introduction of the Common Data Space Architecture by IBM, the use of data spaces in addition to the address space was made possible. TABEX was thus extended, so that it can load tables in the Common Data Space. Thus, the performance has been significantly enhanced by the use of access to the same datapool loaded in memory tables from all regions.

TABEX has taken advantage of the possibility that after the introduction of 31-bit addressing up to 2GB of virtual data spaces can be used additionally to the address spaces.

Common Data Space Technology allows the central storage of data in the main memory; it also allows access to these centrally loaded data. This procedure was implemented also in operating systems such as
Linux, Unix, Solaris, or Windows.

This technology guarantees that only one copy of a table is used in all applications. In addition, no database access is necessary. Thus, data can be accessed efficiently and without additional memory consumption.

Using the Common Data Space Technology confers a major edge on BOI
Customers.

Common Data Space Technology in TABEX

Use of Common Data Space Technology in TABEX

A broad variety of opportunities.

 

  • Read access with high-performance calls
  • Loading or reorganizing data spaces can be performed without affecting running applications (uninterrupted switching between load data space and work space, following data change or reorganization)
  • No synchronization is required
  • Access to the correct path via the access module in the STEPLIB concatenation
  • Data spaces depending on a DB/DC environment
  • Separate data spaces for the various integrated subsidiaries (client capability) analogous to IMS and DB2. To maintain client separation, different search paths and project IDs are used.
  • Several Common Data Space data spaces can be active in parallel and filled with different tables. Via application-specific paths and project identifiers, the order of searches, such as clients, different
    environments, etc. can be controlled.

Key numbers

2.200

TABEX tables are in production

1000

additional tables are currently
integrated in TABEX.

1.5 billion

times per hour DB2 tables loaded
in Common Data Space are
accessed on peak days.

400

TABEX users in the technical
departments

400 TABEX tables are loaded from DB2 into the Common Data Space.

  • By addressing each table by name, date and file ID, the IT organization and versioning can be mapped. With the additional project identifier, different instances or test levels are possible. This ensures that only the correct version of the tables is accessible.
  • A special data space can be used to buffer data that must not be affected by a rollback. This is used, for example to save insurance contract numbers, so that in case of a crash of the application the
    system can rewind the process. In this case it is important that this contract number is not lost through a rollback (this would be the case with DB2 storage) or that the performance of the application is
    decreased because of too many I/Os (when writing the contract numbers in a file).

 

Advantages of the use of Common Data Space

The biggest advantage of Common Data Space Technology for Generali Deutschland is the high performance of accesses: According to measurements, the memory accesses using Common Data Space technology are up to 20 times faster than DB2.

Further advantages of TABEX for Generali Deutschland:

  • Central data pool (all applications have identical data at the same time)
  • Continuous work 24-hours
  • Time-controlled activation of data changes and new tables
  • Control of tables loaded in the Common Data Space Kontrolle der in den ESA-Datenraum geladenen Tabellen
  • The possibility to map the organization structure; e.g., for test, integration, production, projects, or table versions
  • Simple and convenient table maintenance within the department
  • Audit-proof table maintenance via TABEX
  • Integration of existing promotion and activation concepts at various levels; i.e., test, trade test, pre-production, production and maintenance levels
  • Stability
  • Maintainability of the infrastructure

 

High-performance access in other operating systems

Common Data Space technique (Shared Storage)
 

The TABEX4 product group is the leading cross-platform standard software for high-performance table access and secure table management based on DB2 and other relational databases.

TABEX runs on many common operating systems and connects applications on mainframe with applications on other operating systems. The standard TABEX software enables efficient access to tables, even in heterogeneous IT environments. The advantages of the Common Data Space data space are also available for operating systems such as Sun Solaris, AIX and Linux shared storage technology.

Therefore, BOI also offers products that allow table data in SHS data fields to be accessed from any Java environment. JAVA can use all read-only access variants of the TABEX4-API-library. This allows
efficient table access within the applications.

Customers can therefore reduce hardware and software costs. Furthermore, customers gain flexibility, since user programs can be outsourced from the mainframe.

TABEX functions

  • Leading standard software for table management
  • Usable for mainframe as well as non-mainframe environments
  • Platform and database independent

Access from Java to SHS data fields

The continuous development of TABEX according to the requirements of our customers and the usability of important technologies is a central issue of BOI.

 

Find here the success story of Generali Deutschland and BOI as pdf for download.