Clerity Solutions, a full-service provider of mainframe migration, modernization and optimization solutions, today announced that Hermes, Europe´s leading home delivery specialist, has migrated its UK mainframe-based parcel delivery application to an open systems environment using Clerity´s UniKix Mainframe Rehosting software and mainframe migration services. As part of the migration, Hermes also used Syncsort´s DMExpress data integration software to help meet performance levels and reduce hardware costs.
Hermes has streamlined operations by migrating off the mainframe and consolidating into centralized European data centers, significantly improving cost-per-transaction rates, and better preparing itself to address future market growth and requirements.
Hermes currently handles 24 percent of all European consumer deliveries, managing more than 140 million parcel deliveries and collections a year in the UK Providing an industry-leading first time delivery hit rate, Hermes is well-positioned to benefit from the increasing popularity of online retailing and the growing business-to-consumer parcels market in Europe.
To ensure that corporate IT operations could cost-effectively scale along with forecasted business growth and to rapidly introduce new functionality such as enhanced mobile device access, Hermes decided to migrate its central mainframe COBOL and IBM® CICS® applications to open systems. These applications run the company´s entire UK parcel distribution network, managing client, courier, hub and depot information.
Given the applications´ valuable business logic and custom functionality, rewriting would have been too risky and time consuming. Hermes elected to migrate the workload intact, using a mainframe rehosting approach that avoided costly code change and disruption. This allowed Hermes to standardize operations for better economies of scale, while continuing to leverage the existing skill sets of the UK development team.
"By rehosting our mainframe application environment with Clerity, we have positioned ourselves to support our future business strategy," said Carole Woodhead, CEO of Hermes in the UK.
Hermes selected Clerity for the mainframe migration project after an intensive process of due diligence, including an extended proof of concept (POC). During the POC, Clerity leveraged its UniKix software and completed significantly more converted functionality than its nearest competitor.
"UniKix software´s advanced functionality and strong mainframe compatibility was key in our decision to work with Clerity," said Mike Leyland, IT director at Hermes UK. "Clerity´s extensive installed base, proven service delivery track record, POC performance and dedicated team of technical solution experts gave us the confidence to move forward."
Hermes recognized that the strong partnership and technical collaboration between Clerity and Syncsort would ensure that DMExpress could be used seamlessly as part of its project to help streamline processes and maximize business value sooner. In addition to helping meet required performance levels, leveraging DMExpress enabled Hermes to avoid potential costly server overruns and enhanced server efficiency by lowering the number of CPU cores required to process the migrated application workload on open systems. The company could also perform the same ongoing transformations and file manipulations previously done on the mainframe systems with no manual coding.
By following a sound project methodology, Hermes´ mainframe migration project was completed before the start of the peak business delivery season.
"This was a significant and complex initiative for Hermes," continued Leyland. "But thanks to the teamwork and dedication between our IT staff, Clerity and Syncsort, the new system went live ahead of our peak period and has already handled record-level business volumes."
About Clerity Solutions, Inc.
Clerity is a leading, full-service provider of mainframe migration, modernization and optimization solutions. Headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, with offices worldwide, Clerity´s service team and automated software solutions have facilitated hundreds of successful migrations. With over 20 years of experience, Clerity is uniquely positioned to assist organizations through all aspects of legacy migration. For more information, visit http://www.clerity.com.
About Syncsort
Syncsort is a global software company that helps the world´s most successful organizations rethink the economics of data. Syncsort provides record-setting data performance and rapid time to value through easy to use data integration and data protection solutions. With over 15,000 deployments, Syncsort has transformed decision making and delivered more profitable results to thousands of customers worldwide. For more information visit: http://www.syncsort.com.
