The Union des Classes Moyennes went for a strategic choice. The organisation keeps its mainframe costs under control and at the same time makes maximum use of open source. I.R.I.S. ICT is supervising the UCM in its various projects.
- I.R.I.S. ICT introduces the UCM to open source
The Union des Classes Moyennes (UCM) has been in existence since 1928. The organisation represents the interests of the self-employed, shopkeepers, heads of small and medium-sized firms and members of the professions. It keeps them informed and assists and advises them in all areas of their professional activities. The UCM also provides services for payment. Among these, it provides a social insurance fund for the self-employed and company secretarial services for employers, assists in the formation and development of companies, provides information on the environment and offers training specific to the retail sector. Since 2003, the UCM has also been an approved business banking counter. It has offices in Liège and Namur and has some 250 employees.
- A plan oriented to the future
The UCM’s IT department in Namur was worried about the future of its mainframe, on which a lot of Linux partitions already ran. The UCM therefore turned to I.R.I.S. ICT to analyse the situation and draw up a plan oriented to the future. I.R.I.S. ICT proposed gradually ending the activities on the mainframe and bringing in Intel technology on VMware. The UCM transferred the various applications from the mainframe and the Linux environment to a test environment on Intel servers, virtualised by VMware. In parallel, the UCM also decided to use VMware in the Exchange environment. This part of the project has in the meantime already entered the production phase. Finally, the UCM also asked I.R.I.S. ICT to review its backup procedures. In this context, I.R.I.S. ICT proposed using IBM Tivoli Storage Manager.
In these projects, I.R.I.S. ICT was responsible for implementation and training in the use of VMware and Tivoli Storage Manager. As a result of this project, the UCM can now limit mainframe costs. Using VMware enables the organisation to develop its IT activities without escalating costs. In this context, moving to open source is a key strategic choice for UCM’s IT future. The costs of maintaining the existing mainframe were too high. The UCM also said it would in due course be very difficult to find highly qualified mainframe specialists in the labour market. Insofar as the organisation wished to develop more and more personal applications in the future – particularly internet applications – it was at a turning point in its existence. I.R.I.S. ICT guided and supported the UCM in moving to open source.
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