Reducing Costs and Increasing ROI using IBM Optim™
Data Archiving and Application Decommissioning
TD Ameritrade.
IBM Optim, Data Privacy, Data Archiving, Test Data Management
Client Background
Our client is a leading financial institution and one of the first brokerages to offer complex options order entry on the internet. Based out of Omaha, NE our client has over $2.6B in revenue and over 3,800 employees. Through subsidiaries, the firm provides a variety of brokerage services, ranging from traditional discount trading to advanced products for the more sophisticated trader. Given the wide range of services and the volume of sensitive personal financial information, our client wanted to reduce its exposure to potential identity theft as well as ensure that it was compliant with privacy legislation.
Project Results
This project delivered results to multiple groups of stakeholders.
First, the business users are able to access the same critical data using the same tools they previously used. However, there was a slight, but universally accepted, drop in performance.
Second, the client was able to retire legacy hardware, OS licenses, database licenses and support time—both internal and external. Considering that the decommissioning project represented a one-time cost while the support costs were incurred annually, the ROI on this project increases every year.
Data Archiving and Application Decommissioning Financial Data
When two companies merge, frequently one organization's IT systems will become the system of record for customer data and transactions. The other systems, however, are often maintained in a non-production capacity for reporting purposes including; test data management and data privacy. Through maintaining non-production systems, an organization will incur the costs necessary to support the application including hardware, licensing and technical staff. These costs not only add up quickly, but recur year after year. Fortunately, these costs can be eliminated while reporting requirements and access to the data can be preserved, and maintain the data relational integrity through implementing IBM’s Optim™ Data Archiving and Application Retirement solutions.
Project Background
BTRG performed a data privacy and test data management project for our leading online brokerage client using IBM's Optim™ product. Upon its conclusion, the project team turned its attention to the myriad of non-production, legacy systems the client was maintaining in its data center. A decision was made to cut costs by retiring data with IBM Optim’s™ application decommissioning solution, purging a series of these legacy systems.
This project followed 6 simple steps:
- BTRG led the process to select a solution
for application decommissioning. - Working with business users, BTRG developed a detailed
understanding of the reporting requirements. This step would
be keyto retaining access to the data in the format users
were most accustomed to. - BTRG designed and developed an archiving solution using the
client's existing licensing of IBM's Optim™ product. Our solution
would provide access to the data using standard reporting tools
already in use by the client. - BTRG lead the client through the proper configuration and
testing of the archived reporting solution. - BTRG identified the final steps necessary to
decommission the application and transition to the
archived reporting solution. - BTRG conducted knowledge transfer session in
order to enable the client team member to
enhance and maintain the solution in-house.
For more information contact:
Jason Wyjad
Business Development Manager
Data Management Solutions
647-299-2381 or jwyjad@btrgroup.com
