Challenge

At a time when even in the banking sector IT expenditures are shifting away from local infrastructure towards outsourced private cloud solutions, B+S Banksysteme wanted to ensure it could convince new customers with attractive cloud hosting services. To strengthen its position in this business area, the company aimed to keep reducing its hosting costs.

Banks must comply with strict regulations that also apply to their IT systems. B+S Banksysteme wanted to streamline its sales proposition and simplify procurement, deployment and support processes for its customers. The company needed a future-­proof operations model with a single point of contact to successfully reach out to new prospects.

Solution

Following the trend away from mainframes towards more flexible, distributed architectures, B+S Banksysteme sought to make its standard software solutions future­-proof and easier to deploy on different platforms.

The company selected Micro Focus Enterprise Server™ and Micro Focus Enterprise Developer to offer customers more choice, streamline installation and operations processes, reduce licensing complexity and lower overall costs. Paul Spatzenegger, Team Lead Development Treasury and Trading System at B+S Banksysteme AG, explained: “We wanted to provide our software in a simple, platform-­independent package that would enable deployment on mainframe systems and other platforms from one central code base. This is exactly what Micro Focus Enterprise Server enabled us to do.”

Micro Focus Enterprise Server gives B+S Banksysteme an environment for re-hosting mainframe applications and integrating them with open technologies. It supports deployment of mainframe applications to Linux on multiple architectures, Windows, UNIX, and the Cloud.

Thanks to its Micro Focus partner status, B+S Banksysteme can offer comprehensive, well-priced licensing contracts for its software products comprising all components needed for a smooth deployment.

Oswald Klackl, Senior Software Architect at B+S Banksysteme AG, added: “As a Micro Focus partner, we are in close contact with product development teams. This is a great opportunity for us to learn more about the product, provide feedback and to continuously improve the product – which helps Micro Focus, us and our customers.”

One result from this collaboration is the capability to flexibly integrate B+S Banksysteme applications with other systems supporting service­-oriented architectures. Paul Spatzenegger elaborated: “The integration features enable us to leverage our robust business logic running on Micro Focus Enterprise Server within cutting­-edge web and mobile applications using the latest user interface technologies to provide a smooth, modern user experience.”

B+S Banksysteme has always been very satisfied with the quality and speed of support from Micro Focus, which enables it to access highly competent experts at short notice.

Results

Thanks to Micro Focus Enterprise Server, B+S Banksysteme AG has cut the time needed to roll out updates from two weeks to two days. Paul Spatzenegger said: “By using automated deployment based on Micro Focus Enterprise Server, customers can take advantage of new features much faster than before. Updates can be installed without requiring deep technical knowledge or external support.”

The packaged solution also reduces complexity in sales and procurement. This delivery approach helps reduce IT risk and improves compliance with a clear, certified track record of the code being rolled out.

Equally, the introduction of a single point of contact minimizes friction throughout the entire lifecycle, accelerating the resolution of issues. Customers always exactly know who to ask if they have any questions or want to make adjustments.

Micro Focus Enterprise Server is a cost­-efficient and scalable application platform. Oswald Klackl said: “Being able to increase capacity with a clear, simple licensing policy helps to manage and forecast operating costs and gives us the flexibility to react quickly when necessary.”

Peter Bauch, Chief Operating Officer at B+S Banksysteme AG, concluded: “Micro Focus Enterprise Server is the easy­-to-­use, platform-­independent and future-­proof solution we needed to support easy multi­platform deployment. We can now ship new releases to customers regardless of platform, and also deploy the applications in our own data center quickly. And all this, while saving approximately 85 percent in licensing costs.”