Local banking giant, ABSA, has implemented Web-enablement technologies in the launch of its ABSA Global service, an Internet portal providing secure access to a full suite of Trade Finance, International Cash and Global Cash Management products.
According to Chris van der Straaten, Head of the International Banking Centre, the choice of Web-enablement technologies has allowed the bank to maximise a significant investment in IT. To illustrate the point he cites the company`s Midas system - an AS/400-based back office treasury system built to manage Trade Finance, Customer Foreign Currency (CFC) accounts, Currency Investment Accounts (CIA) as well as spot and forward exchange Trading (hedging).
"Midas represents a substantial investment in both development man-hours and Capex, and its only serious shortcoming is that it lacks a Web front-end. We addressed this by installing RUMBA Management Server (RMS), running on a standard PC server. Clients on ABSA Global query the Web site, which queries RMS, which queries the AS/400 and the requested information is passed back to the client."
Simple, yet van der Straaten says the alternative - modifying, or even replacing, the Midas system to Web enable it - would have been expensive and taken months, if not years to do. "Going the RMS route meant we could provide direct interaction with ABSA Global in a matter of weeks and the development costs were minuscule in comparison.
"And the real beauty of this solution is that, should we at a later stage want to Web-enable another legacy system, virtually all we need to do is purchase the additional RMS licences."
Jeremy Matthews, MD of local NetManage distributor, Dax Data, confirms that other large organisations are investigating the technology. "There is little doubt that Web-enablement of legacy systems and applications is a far more cost-effective approach than total replacement. But the real benefit of using RMS technology is that it dramatically extends the useful life of systems that are in many cases already paid for," he says.
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Dax Data
Based in Cape Town with an office in Johannesburg, Dax Data has made a business of extending the useful life of legacy systems. A Microsoft Solution Provider and an IBM Business Partner, offers solutions for secure delivery of enterprise applications and information across organisational boundaries and the Internet. Dax Data holds a variety of exclusive distribution agreements for enterprise software and Web-enablement products from: NetManage; GraphOn; DataMirror; Tango/04; Allaire; Categoric; ASG Report.Web; BackSoft; and HiT.