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Spring 2000
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Wakefield Metropolitan District Council has completed a large-scale migration to a completely new computing platform supplied by jBASE software, and IBM reseller AnIX.
The council believes the new system will deliver significant advantages in terms of cost, ease of integration, flexibility and ability to meet the government “Best Value” mandate, which applies to all local authorities. It will also help the council meet future requirements such as e-commerce and e-government, as they emerge.
Initially, the migration stemmed from a need to ensure Y2K compliance. This triggered a fundamental review of the council’s entire computing performance and strategy, which, in turn, ultimately resulted in the implementation of the new solution. This consists of jBASE Software’s application development and database management system (DBMS) running on an RS6000/AIX platform.
There were powerful reasons for this choice, as Andrew Jones, WMDC’s Business Manager, explained. “One specific requirement was to meet the principles of Best Value, a national government mandate which will start to have a significant impact in 2000, and will involve regular audits and monitoring to ensure authorities are operating as efficiently as possible,” he commented.
“But we wanted to go beyond a like-for-like replacement of the existing system, and to try and identify developments that would really benefit the authority. However, we were limited by several factors, especially time, and naturally budget, to some extent.”
WMDC also wanted greater PC integration, more use of industry standard systems, performance improvements, and better licensing terms and conditions to maximise cost effectiveness.
After a full evaluation of the available options, Jones and his team selected a solution proposed by jBASE Software, which is based on the company’s powerful DBMS. This enhances and extends operating systems such as Unix and Windows NT, and offers major improvements in performance, true database independence and allows exceptionally easy migration from other DBMSs.
For WMDC, this was a powerful attraction because the council has developed most of its software internally. Reaching back more than two decades, this includes some 25,000 programs serving over 100 application areas, supporting all the critical functions of the authority. For many years, these applications had operated in a Pick/Unix environment, but this resulted in software that could only be used in emulation mode. This was becoming increasingly inefficient and making it hard for WMDC to take advantage of today’s state of the art development tools and packages.
Moving to the new jBASE/AnIX package has enabled it to convert its code so that now it operates as a native element of the host operating system. This produces an immediate improvement in performance – in fact, just one of several key benefits the new system has provided.
“This solution not only delivers performance improvements, but provides much greater development capability for the future and much greater resilience in the platform,” said Andrew Jones.
“Furthermore, we recognise jBASE and AnIX as partners with the experience and technical skills to keep us up to date with the latest developments. Without such links to commercial companies at the cutting edge, this can be very difficult for local authorities.”
One of the most significant challenges of the project was the very short timescale. After deciding on the jBASE/AnIX solution in July 1999, equipment was delivered in the middle of August and the main parts of the migration had to be completed before the end of November. This was achieved, and when the system went live, around 900 users were connected to the system. That figure is set to grow, with WMDC planning for about 2000 concurrent users eventually.
“With Best Value, the priorities will be determined by each of our business areas – community care, housing, education and so on,” said Jones.
“However, I suspect it will mean they look for even greater system integration, and improvements in terms of access to management information. This is why the development strategy which jBASE offered us was so important, because it makes it possible to achieve that integration much more quickly.”
Further developments seen as important by Jones include electronic commerce, which has the potential to have a major impact on the council’s procurement activities, and enhancing the general public’s access to information. The latter is a key aim of the Modernising Government scheme, a national project that is now underway.
“Improving access to information is something we are actively studying now, and there is no doubt that the new jBASE/AnIX system will play an important part in achieving that, for example by extending the scope of WMDC’s website,” Jones says.
“The jBASE/AnIX combination allows us to meet the standards that are fast emerging in these areas relating to the exchange of information, for example from Microsoft, and also through support for XML (extensible markup language).”
Overall, Jones is confident that a better solution was not available. “We have maintained the infrastructure, addressed all the benefits we were looking for in terms of integration, flexibility and future development, and we have made significant savings for the authority,” he said.
jBASE Software LimitedLast Updated: 01 May 2000