N2O, a powerful change management tool for NATURAL, has formed an integral part of the information systems environment at Mutual & Federal (M&F) ever since the R6-billion short-term insurer migrated from ICL to IBM technology in 1996/97.
N2O, distributed and supported by Gauteng-based Bateleur Software, was implemented after an intensive evaluation by M&F of products to ease critical development tasks such as controlling migrations into production environments, avoiding program overwrites, tracking current locations of programs and verifying program changes.
M&F's evaluation revealed that easy-to-install N2O, in addition to the above tasks, could also assist with further essential activities such as ensuring that changes are enacted in all related objects, archiving and recovering programs, maintaining complete audit trails and more.
Since implementing the product in its MVS/CICS environment in January 1997, M&F has benefited materially from powerful N2O automation features such as the On-line Request System, which makes selection of objects to be migrated very quick and simple; and the Checkout/Checkin feature, which provides watertight control and monitoring of changes to programs.
Sam Selmer-Olsen, a Director of Bateleur Software, says: "N2O can be used in online or batch mode, giving M&F the flexibility to migrate objects in background at convenient times.
"The system's automatic archiving and recovery features guard against objects getting lost, and provide for emergency recovery from archive when N2O is not available."
In addition N2O, developed in the US by Treehouse Software Inc. (TSI), has a useful project tracking capability that enables M&F to better manage development projects through their lifecycles.
Other notable features of the tool include Autocompile to ensure that all NATURAL programs and 3GL members are properly compiled after migration, and Compare to pinpoint differences between two programs.
"These advanced yet simple to use functions, coupled to user exits that provide flexibility to tailor N2O to site-specific needs, make the product an invaluable tool within M&F's IS environment," Selmer-Olsen concludes.
Editors Note
Bateleur Software, Bateleur Walker Financial Systems, Bateleur Computing and Network Solutions and Bateleur Customised Solutions are part of Bateleur Software Holdings, an independent South African software and services company specialising in corporate turnkey solutions, business solutions, financial systems and best-of-breed software. For more information, visit Bateleur's website: www.bateleur.co.za.
Share
Editorial contacts