Success Stories
CSC Migrates Credit Finance Company’s Operations Halfway Around the World
Client:
Major Credit Services CompanyChallenge:
- Migrate mainframe operations from the UK to Australia in 12 hours
Solution:
- Design and build a high-performance system in Australia, then test and validate an ultra-fast telecommunications data transfer technique
Results:
- Thanks to CSC’s extensive planning, the migration delivered the critical data — protected and available — without issue.
A major provider of credit services to consumers, retailers and auto dealers in approximately 50 countries throughout the world was facing increased competition from non-traditional channels. To continue its successful global expansion and make it easier to meet increased international regulatory demands, the company decided to consolidate its resources and relocate its mainframe operations from the UK to a CSC data center in Melbourne, Australia. By outsourcing IT management to CSC on a single, hosted, mainframe environment, the company improved efficiency of its operations at a substantially reduced cost and positioned itself successfully against new competitors. CSC also helped achieve a world first when it coordinated the client’s data migration halfway around the world in just 12 hours.
New Data Migration Methods Created
The tight downtime window of the large-scale migration meant that data from a variety of different media had to be available to the client from the new data center 20,000 kilometers away within 12 hours of the system shutdown in the UK. No errors could be tolerated, whether introduced by people or during transmission and replication. Traditional physical transportation of tape downloads would take too long, so CSC proposed transfer of data via a telecommunications link with state-of-the-art storage systems. CSC’s testing and solution design ultimately created the world’s first successful example of storage-based replication technology used over such an immense distance.
Automation Speeds Data and Process Checking
The entire process, including UK system shutdown, testing, data migration, Australian system boot-up, data integrity checking and system and end-user testing, was completed in the 12-hour window. Multiple disk buffers enabled data to be transmitted without impacting normal production systems. Extensive automation helped to minimize laborious manual checking of data and processes, and also sped the configuration process. CSC developed scripts to monitor and report on the progress of the migrations and enable remote management and tracking. CSC’s expertise, planning and testing ensured a smooth migration.
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