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Mainframe services case studies

Computacenter Mainframe Services:
Case Study - West Sussex County Council

Introduction

West Sussex County Council, HQ based in Chichester, provides a large and critical range of services, including education, social services, fire and rescue, libraries, town- and country-planning, refuse disposal and consumer services.

The Council’s Technical Operations Department serves over 35,000 users, including more than 300 schools and 174 remote locations. Mike Leggett, Data Centre & Resources Manager, has delivered over 100 managed projects for the council. Recently, he faced several exceptional challenges which called on all of his experience and the assistance of key partners.

Business Challenge

Government directives to reduce costs, while increasing efficiency and modernising business procedures, have posed tough challenges to many UK county councils.

To help in meeting these challenges for WSCC, Mike needed to automate and streamline over 15 IT operations – which were running on critical legacy systems. This included an IBM mainframe which would remain indispensable for several years; owing to software licensing implications, it could not be moved away from WSCC premises.

The mainframe operation required a three-shift staffing rota for 24-hour coverage, six days a week. Up to 15,000 magnetic storage tapes occupied a full-time librarian and enormous amounts of space. It took a team of full-time technicians to support the mainframe environment

Solution

Mike called on Computacenter’s expertise to assist in dramatically improving efficiency, reducing risk and providing important thought leadership to achieve these aims.

As a first step, and within a short timescale, Computacenter took on responsibility for technically supporting these systems’ software and security products. Immediate improvements included greater efficiency, resilience, the release of valuable WSCC staff time and enabling management to focus on core business.

“Although handing mainframe responsibility to Computacenter was straightforward, I was nervous about managing the outsourcing, while losing the staff on whom we’d relied for 35 years. My concerns were unfounded, as it has worked very well and seamlessly. Computacenter communicates with us daily, with further expertise always available, when required,” said Mike.

In parallel with the service initiatives, Computacenter evaluated the council’s storage needs and recommended, implemented and managed IBM’s automatic, high-capacity tape library environment.

Computacenter’s consultants also revisited WSCC’s disaster-recovery plans. Subsequent recommendations and actions have successfully improved recovery-time objectives, reducing both risk and cost to the council.

Features and Benefits

“IT service streamlining has significantly contributed to saving West Sussex County Council £15 million. Computacenter helped us to reach where we are today, well on the way to becoming a highly automated, streamlined organisation,” explained Mike. 

The results delivered by working with Computacenter are impressive:

significant cost reduction staffing requirements reduced by 50%
improved efficiency no on-site overnight attendance  back-up tape cartridges reduced from  around 15,000 to just 100
increased quality backed up by the entire Computacenter  skills and knowledge base
minimised risk mainframe DR achieved in 12 hours