The South African Revenue Service (SARS) has significantly improved its service delivery capacity since implementing New Dimension Software`s Control family of integrated systems management solutions.
Eveline Koekkoek, automation project leader at SARS Service Delivery, says the Control products replaced manual operator-driven systems that were error-prone and time-consuming.
New Dimension`s products are distributed and supported in South Africa by Software Futures, a Computer Configurations Holdings company. SARS is responsible for the functions of the former Inland Revenue and Customs and Excise government departments.
"Because our systems are so complex, human intervention resulted in job-flow problems not being noticed straight away," Koekkoek says. "We needed a solution to address bottlenecks and faults."
In an effort to streamline service delivery from its Pretoria data centre, SARS tendered for an automation project for its mainframe production system. The system processes some 4 000 jobs streams per month, and was prone to errors as a result of manual maintenance and reporting functions. "Due to the high level of human intervention, jobs ran out of sequence, incorrect responses were generated and batch processes overran schedule," says Koekkoek.
SARS licensed Control-M for batch scheduling, Control-R for automated job restarts, Control-O for console messaging, Control-T for tape management and Control-O/PC for alerts sent to cellphones and pagers.
"Automation simplified the complexity of our systems," says Koekkoek. "Every part of the system is now monitored and automated."
Control-M regulates the job flow, and monitors the success or failure of job runs. "If a job falls over, Control-M will generate an exception an operator can act on immediately," explains Koekkoek. "It is tightly integrated with the other Control components, so when a job doesn`t start or ends abnormally, it will alert Control-R to automatically restart the process, or Control-O/PC to notify an operator if the error is critical."
This management by exception removes the need for an operator to monitor the thousands of messages automatically generated by the system.
"Control-O/PC contacts the first available standby person and deliver a detailed, customised voice message as soon as an exception occurs," says Douw Kruger, who was responsible for implementation. "If the contact is unavailable or cannot acknowledge the message, the system escalates to the next available standby, until the alert is delivered."
The system is failsafe in its escalation process, requiring a standby to enter a password and a PIN to acknowledge receipt of the call. "Once a call is delivered, the standby is committed to act on the exception," says Kruger. "If he fails to do so, we have recourse by tracking the password and PIN logged by the system."
Control products reduce reliance of the mainframe on human intervention. The result is a measurable reduction in system errors and an increase in productivity. Koekkoek estimates SARS has sliced its batch window by 40%-50% with Control-M.
"Our batch process was run from 6pm to 6am," she says. "Today it`s complete by 1am, freeing up our systems to process other jobs."
SARS awarded the tender for the installation, implementation and product training to Software Futures, in partnership with its own implementation team. Naveen Raghunath, Software Futures implementation specialist for the SARS site, says best-of-breed products and skills added value to the automation process.
"We have developed our own extensive resources to assist clients with their transition from manual to automated systems management," he says. "At the same time, we transfer knowledge to our clients so they can continue with the maintenance process themselves, and grow their skills base."
Koekkoek agrees. "It`s an education as well as an automation process," she says. "The lack of systems management skills in South Africa is an obstacle to development in this field, and it`s important that a solution provider can deliver high-level skills along with high-level products."
For SARS, automation will ensure minimal data loss, which in turn creates a more reliable, robust national tax and tax refund system. "We can`t afford to be complacent with our data," says Koekkoek. "If we lose data, we lose money. More importantly, the taxpayer loses money.
"Together with Software Futures, our team has successfully transformed the data centre into a fully automated environment on par with those in the private sector," she concludes.
Share
Editorial contacts