CASE STUDY

KFW BANKENGRUPPE

KFW MIGRATES KEY APPLICATIONS IN PL/1 FROM Z/OS to AIX

KFW has successfully re-hosted a mission critical Credit Modelling and management application written in PL/1, from
its Z/OS Mainframe to UNIX AIX. Achieving great cost savings, with minimal interruption to operations, the project
was completed within 9 months of starting, and has had a payback period of little under 8 months. Additionally, the
project has resulted in improved system performance and scalability.

We were looking for innovative ways to save costs. Although migrating the Credit
modelling and administration application was a very attractive proposition, at first we
felt reluctant to explore the possibility due to perceived complexity. Then we were
introduced to the re-hosting solution of HTWC and quickly realised this will be
successful and will bring the anticipated benefit
Mr Reiner Lein, IT Application Manager

PROJECT HIGHLIGHTS

KFW BANENGRUPPE Banking Group Frankfurt, Germany www.kfw.de

Challenge Solution Customer Benefits

Absolutely mission critical credit
application
License and maintenance costs too
high
Implement XFRAME to Re-host
Mainframe services onto AIX
Project duration 9 months
80% Annual cost reduction
Greater system flexibility and scalability
Enthusiastic staff
 BACKGROUND
KFW is a state owned financial institution, whose
origins come from finance distribution and allocation
for the re-building of Germany after the second
world war. Its main objective is to distribute credit
to second tier financial institutions for specifc
purposes such as housing, SME development, Export
& Import and development aid. The Bank group is
structured accordingly into corrosponding Bank
entities and is a key instrument in the German fiscal
system, playing a major role in their impressive
reversal of the recent financial crisis.
KFW employs approximatley 5000 people and has
revenues in the region of 75BN Euro.
It is headquartered in Frankfurt, Germany with major
offices in Bonn and Berlin
THINK, PLAN AND DO
THINK
HTWC were able to demonstrate a holistic
application strategy, covering commercial, technical
and post project operational aspect. It was clear that
this would bring great financial benefits, in a really
short period of time, with virtually zero risk or
operational disruption.
Characteristics of the target application presented
challenges;
PLAN
In line with the HTWC project management
procedure, stringent project planning starts with a
meticulous assessment of the application landscape.
HTWC used its proprietary ICON assessment
application. The KFW application was loaded into the
One of their key roles is credit modelling, calculation,
distribution and administration for the KFW clients.
This process is run on a mission critical application,
which also contains features for the management,
calculation, allocation and administration of various
state funded compensations schemes.
Looking to optimise their IT costs, KFW engaged
consultants from HTWC to examine possibilities of
application migration, and to create a compelling
business case which in turn would generate
management committment to such an undertaking.
Together, HTWC and KFW decided to embark on a
project to migrate the Credit application from z/OS
to AIX using the HTWC XFRAME Mainframe
rehosting suite.
Access to other Banks for electronic
payment files (input and output).
Integrated with other applications running
on different platforms like MVS IMS/DC,DB,
Unix and Windows
Online & batch, daily, monthly, quarterly,
half-year and end-year jobs.
Access to German Post for Address changes, Address
research
ICON repository offline, and parsed. The project
team gained an in depth understanding of the
Application landscape, and the migration plan was
created in conjunction with the client IT staff.

DO
The solution entailed the migration from VSAM to
XVSAM, the XFRAME component that emulates the
VSAM environment on LUW platform, and the
implementation of the HTWC XFRAME suite and
OPEN PL/I compiler.
The target environment was populated with the
HTWC XFRAME suite and PL/1 compiler. One after
the other, the Online and Batch programs were
migrated onto the environments and parsed to
determine system functionality. The migration
included; Converting Online and Batch Programs to
communicate with the new PL1 compiler.
SUCCESS FACTORS
Management Commitment
By nature of their business, this application is
absolutely key, with zero tolerance to any length of
downtime. This of course raised question marks
about any migration, and these needed to be
answered. HTWC demonstrated the benefits of such
a step and its project methodology, which eradicated
risk, thus obtaining management commitment and
attention.
Change Management and Staff commitment
Such a re-hosting requires some changes to the way
people work. HTWC project staffs are schooled in
managing user workshops to obtain user input, and
Approximately 80% of all work was
conducted remotely via VPN Due to
the high levels of automation, one
sees a high proportion of the time
resources allocated for testing and
rollout
Dieter Rolinger, senior technical consultant,
HTWC
Converting BMS Masks, Converting JCL, Converting
files from EBCDIC to ASCII. Data was migrated as
part of the setting up of the test environment.
System testing took place in conjunction with the
client personnel, hence at an early stage, they were
able to take more and more ownership of all the
parts of the change management tactics employed by
HTWC.
After extensive system and then application testing,
new environment goes live. In the hands of the client
IT staff, and under the supervision of HTWC, any
remaining irregularities were eradicated immediately.
enthusiasm for the project. The inclusion of the
client staff in this project during the assessment and
system testing phases was key both in terms of their
commitment to the project, and their ability to
maintain and develop the applications post Go live,
Project
In addition to the technical requirements,
management were very clear in their expectations
from the management of such a project;
With zero interruption to the operations
In a short timeframe
Achieving speedy payback and ROI
 ROI
The cash flow graphic illustrates over a
five year period the return on the
investment The green area represents
the savings accumulated as a result of
the migration, and quite clearly
demonstrates a major return on the
investment and a fast payback period.

Summarized in key ratios as follows:

Metrics Value The ROI trend illustrated is a very typical

ROI (Net Savings vs Investment)
PAYBACK PERIOD MONTHS
Internal Rate of Return
361%
outcome of this sort of projects. Organizations
are starting to sit up and notice, that Legacy
8,9 Migrations support virtually all Application
259% strategies.
Karl Kaempfer Mainframe Modernization Consultant

WE ARE HTWC
As forecasted in our initial pre sales assessment,
HTWC has again delivered a major cost cutting
solution to its client, meeting all project deadlines
budgets, causing minimal interruptions to operations.
Our motto Beyond the Change underlines the
philosophy behind our mainframe modernization
solutions, safely guiding our clients through key,
decisive and valuable phases of a winning IT strategy.
Adapting your IT infrastructure to your needs has
been our speciality since 1979.
We are the High Technology World Company.
Our pragmatic, no frills approach, has resulted in the
continuous adaption of IT infrastructures, allowing
hundreds of our renowned clients to exploit more
cost effective and agile technologies to run their
applications.

We are HTWC www.htwc.com info@htwc.com +39 06 51964253

Absolute market leader in mainframe re-hosting and migration
97% of migration fully automated
Over 30 years experience
Truly global
All sectors

HTWC, 2011