Home
Computacenter Benelux
Computacenter Benelux
Computacenter France
Computacenter France
Computacenter Germany
Computacenter Germany
Computacenter Global Capabilities
Close Close this panel
Mainframe services case studies

Computacenter Mainframe Services:
Case Study - RR Donnelley

Introduction

RR Donnelley is a $10-billion company with 52,000 employees across 650 locations throughout the world. Founded more than 140 years ago, it has become the world’s premier full-service provider of print and print-related services to household names. Computacenter established its initial IT system in Tewkesbury, in 2000, and has provided hardware, software, consultancy and general support ever since.

Business Challenge

Providing such a wide and variable range of large-scale print-related services to large organisations relies on authorised data extraction. RR Donnelley’s systems need to remain compatible with an enormous variety of frequently upgraded customer IT environments. Requesting technical alterations from customers is a lengthy process, particularly with financial institutions which maintain highly secure, complex IT infrastructures.

“We had an ageing 3745/SNA network which was becoming prone to hardware failure – and the manufacturer’s support was going to disappear. Reliability is vital in our industry. The prospect of a migration looked like an enormous project and technical challenge,” explained Phil Davis, mainframe system programmer at RR Donnelley.

Other issues included:

  • Cost of ownership.
  • Avoiding customer service disruption.
  • Maintaining compatibility with current customers’ systems, without requesting any alterations.
  • High power consumption.
  • The need to release data centre space.

Solution

Computacenter recommended IBM’s Communication Controller for Linux (CCL) software, running on the current z9 and a Cisco router (not much larger than a laptop) to replace the sizeable 3745 hardware.

“Computacenter made the VM, CCL and zLinux migration and configuration easy, providing excellent support and quickly resolving any issues. My initial concerns about the size of this project were misplaced. In hindsight, Computacenter made the migration easy,” commented Phil.

Running CCL on zLinux and zVM gave consolidation options. If required, the mid-range system applications can be migrated to zLinux – which runs on zVM on the z9 mainframe.

“zVM cost us next to nothing. It leverages the power of the IFL, so that we have a high-speed, integrated facility for zLinux and approximately 400 spare MIPs, to call on at any time, dramatically increasing our capacity for growth and flexibility. We could put all of our network management applications on the mainframe. They would be tightly coupled with hypersockets, providing high-speed networking among different environments. This is a cutting-edge solution – we are the first to apply it in the UK and one of the first in Europe,” added Phil.

Benefits

  • Zero down-time – the z9 is far more reliable than 3745
  • User-friendly interface – eases skills transfer
  • Browser-based consol – no longer rely on a hardware consol
  • Reduced maintenance costs
  • Reduced power consumption
  • Reduced licensing costs – went from tier 4 to tier 2 licensing scheme
  • Estimated CCL solution ROI 2.5 years
“Once we had involved the current Computacenter team, we were more than satisfied – the team members really understand customer service. We had not done anything like this before – and I gained numerous new skills. If we have to do anything like this again, we will be more confident. The new solution has proven very reliable,” Phil explained.