Italian Department of Social Security Says "Sì" to Fujitsu NetCOBOL for .Net
Migration from mainframe will give more than 50 million citizens Internet access to pension and benefit information.
Sunnyvale, October 19, 2004 – The Italian Department of Social Security (INPS - Istituto Nazionale della Previdenza Sociale), which is responsible for providing pension schemes for everyone in Italy as well as help for the elderly, disabled and unemployed, has announced plans to use Fujitsu Software's NetCOBOL for .NET to migrate the department's AS/400 COBOL applications to the .NET platform.
In 2001 the INPS determined that the popularity of the Web and the size of its end-user community (more than 50 million Italian citizens) made providing Web access to many of its applications desirable. However, the process would require considerable modernization of the INPS' large suite of COBOL applications, perhaps even requiring rewriting in another language. Both AS/400-based solutions and solutions on other platforms were considered.
The INPS ultimately selected the .NET Framework because it offered far better future potential for the applications and, with NetCOBOL for .NET, offered a way to migrate the code without having to embark on an expensive and risky rewrite. Accenture won the contract to perform the modernization, taking advantage of NetCOBOL for .NET to migrate the existing code and integrate with any new code written in other .NET languages.
Maurizio Cortili, CEO of Bizlogica, Italian distributors for NetCOBOL describes their migration plan, "The migration process is aimed at transforming present AS/400 COBOL applications so that their functions can be executed on the .NET platform, allowing further evolution based on a consistent multilevel architecture. The application knowledge (business rules) will continue to be maintained in COBOL inside INPS, leveraging present personnel skills."
The INPS has headquarters in Rome and branches throughout the country to facilitate the collection of pension contributions and payment of pensions and other benefits. It employees 30,000 people and supports them with a network of more than 300 AS/400 machines located in the major branches, connected by a WAN. Approximately 300 COBOL applications implement the complex requirements of collecting and distributing monies satisfying different rules for employers and numerous categories of workers. It is estimated that these applications comprise 24 million lines of code, implementing 260,000 function points. Data is mostly held in standard AS/400 ISAM files with about 30 percent in DB2/400 databases. Interaction is through 5250 screens supported by 5250 emulators on Windows PCs.
According to Ron Langer, senior director, language group at Fujitsu Software, in addition to providing Web access, using NetCOBOL for .Net for the migration also offers other benefits including independence from proprietary technologies and systems; ease of reusing existing functions and data for new applications and/or channels; reusability and portability of new code (development by components); support of heterogeneous environments; both vertical and horizontal scalability, which is the ability to maintain an application's performance when the number of users increases, either by increasing computing power and/or distributing the applications over more systems; ease of adapting to changing business needs through productive development and maintenance environments; integration with networking systems; marketplace access to widely used solutions (giving ease of support); an industrial strength object-oriented environment; and the ability to distribute business logic.
For more information please visit www.netcobol.com.
About Fujitsu Software Corporation
Fujitsu Software Corporation, based in Sunnyvale, California, is part of the Fujitsu Limited family. Fujitsu Software Corporation leverages Fujitsu's international scope and expertise in developing and providing information technology solutions. Fujitsu Software Corporation's products include NetCOBOL® and Interstage®, e-business infrastructure software. NetCOBOL is a COBOL development environment and suite of tools to build fast, mission-critical business systems on open platforms, including Microsoft's .NET Framework. For more information, visit http://www.fsw.fujitsu.com
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