Integrating the Versatile IBM Z Solutions in the Supreme Court of Virginia for Accurate Judicial Services
IBM enabled the Supreme Court of Virginia to deliver the best possible judicial services with its technology
Challenges
To keep judicial and administrative processes running smoothly in 325 courts,120 magistrate offices as well as the Supreme Court and Appellate Courts of Virginia, the Office of the Executive Secretary, Supreme Court of Virginia (OES/SCVA) used a variety of internal and public-facing applications. These mission-critical systems drive everything from case management to financial reporting, and a significant proportion is powered by IBM mainframe technology. As a government organization, OES/SCVA is always on the lookout for ways to optimize the IT architecture that supports its daily activities.
OES/SCVA’s mainframe footprint was the result of a historical decision to invest in a second machine to run an externally funded system, and the organization had no immediate need for a separate high-availability or disaster-recovery platform. A long-term, highly satisfied user of IBM technology, OES/SCVA engaged IBM to explore options for consolidating its IT infrastructure.
Initiatives
Working with IBM Gold Business Partner Vicom Infinity and IBM, OES/SCVA decided to consolidate its two zBC12 mainframes to one IBM z14 Model ZR1. With this ultra-secure, versatile solution, OES/SCVA is dramatically reducing its total cost of ownership (TCO) and delivering excellent value to the citizens of Virginia. So, to help evaluate, configure and deploy this latest addition to the IBM Z family, Vicom Infinity guided OES/SCVA through the implementation process. This engagement helped the organization architect the solution to deliver a boost in I/O rates and realize the true processing power of the server.
OES/SCVA first moved two logical partitions (LPARs) from each zBC12 server to the z14 ZR1 platform—realizing reduced CPU overhead and releasing more processing power for the workloads. Today, OES/SCVA is using 12 of its 16 IBM Integrated Facility for Linux (IFL) processors to deploy Linux on Z services in support of its core applications, offering substantial headroom for future growth.
In addition to applications running on z/VSE and Linux on Z, the organization has UNIX and .NET applications running on distributed servers, all of which consume data from the core applications on the new IBM Z. Because all these core applications are now hosted on a single, ultra-secure and easy-to-manage system, OES/SCVA is on the road to further simplifying its application infrastructure. The organization is using Java and IBM WebSphere® to create intuitive graphical user interfaces (GUIs), increasing the accessibility of legacy applications in addition to creating new applications and services. The databases of choice to host the data for all these core applications and services are IBM Db2® and Oracle Database on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server on IBM Z.
Results
Since replacing its two IBM zBC12 mainframes with a single IBM z14 ZR1 frame, OES/SCVA has significantly reduced its data center footprint and TCO—empowering it to deliver better value for the taxpayer dollar. As OES/SCVA ramps up its use of the z14, the organization has already seen impressive improvements in the performance and manageability of its applications. By using z/VM to orchestrate its mainframe resources, OES/SCVA can maximize the value of its investment in the IBM Z platform.
With Vicom Infinity’s help, OES/SCVA is looking at ways to simplify the encryption of sensitive data and safeguard citizens’ information. IBM z14 enables pervasive encryption, which will efficiently encrypt OES/SCVA’s data both at rest and in flight.
