Ab Initio applications run on premises or in the cloud with no code changes.
With Ab Initio, companies have complete freedom and flexibility to move to virtually any platform: from on premises to the cloud (or a hybrid of both), from one cloud platform to another, or from Hadoop to Unix or to IBM zSystems — it’s all the same. If regulations change and you need to move your cloud-based applications back on premises, Ab Initio handles that seamlessly.
With Ab Initio, you build features only once and debug the business logic only once.
One of the UK’s largest banks had a problem.
For decades, their operations had run on IBM zSystems. In a world of disk failures and cloud outages, IBM zSystems was an island of resilience and stability that had been running for decades with no downtime. No other technology could rival it.
IBM zSystems handled all their financial transactions: ATM withdrawals, credit card applications, address changes, Apple Pay charges, and so on. IBM zSystems was their single source of all transaction data. The bank needed to respond to those transactions in real-time. For example, when withdrawing cash, a customer expects to see that ATM transaction immediately reflected in the mobile app. Potential fraud has to be addressed immediately, not eventually.
Unfortunately, most technologies are not built to be compatible with IBM zSystems. It took at least 45 minutes from the time data arrived on IBM zSystems to when it became available to use. Real-time responsiveness appeared impossible. It looked increasingly like the bank would be forced to accept suboptimal performance in many areas, including mobile banking.
Fortunately, they asked Ab Initio for help.
Working with Ab Initio and IBM, the bank made IBM zSystems the center of a high-performance data ecosystem. They developed high-speed queues that different applications subscribe to. Because Ab Initio technology runs seamlessly on IBM zSystems, it captures every transaction that lands on the bank’s system and pushes it out to the appropriate queues, using Ab Initio technology to make the communication fast, reliable, and resilient. IBM zSystems data is now available to the rest of the bank’s technological ecosystem in seconds.
Ab Initio technology manages the data flow from IBM zSystems to other systems in the bank, making sure that all data is redundantly stored and protected. IBM zSystems now forms the core of a resilient system that spans multiple data centers. The entire bubble has a five-minute restart requirement and a one-hour requirement for reprocessing backed-up messages. Ab Initio restarts in under two minutes and reprocesses backed-up messages in far less time than the one-hour requirement.
Year over year, IBM zSystems use is steadily increasing, rather than decreasing.
Thanks to Ab Initio, the bank is no longer considering migration off IBM zSystems. Their IBM zSystems is the foundation of a powerful modern technology structure that is fast, powerful, and resilient, and that’s exactly how the bank likes it.