TmaxSoft and CGI upgrade Kela IT infrastructure based on OpenFrame

As it became known on August 29, 2017, the South Korean company TmaxSoft and CGI corporation in Finland signed the agreement with the Finnish state agency of social security Kela. TmaxSoft and CGI will upgrade jointly Kela mainframes using the solution OpenFrame. The cost of the contract was about 10 million euros.

Prerequisites

Kela pays every year benefits to millions of Finnish citizens for the amount over 13 billion euros therefore its IT system should provide high efficiency and differ in reliability and also provide to individuals convenient social services. Kela began the project at the beginning of 2017. It is planned that the IT system of the agency will be put into operation in the spring of 2019.

To Mark Suominen, the director of Kela of ICT, explained by what criteria and for what tasks its organization selected the solution TmaxSoft OpenFrame: "In Kela one of the installations of mainframes, largest in Scandinavia, and we use them several decades. We began digital transformation of business, but because of an obsolete equipment could not pass to the modern software. The organization spent a lot of money for maintenance of mainframes, but it was impossible to deploy the new services for work for them. It became obvious that the different approach to management of our IT systems and the equipment is necessary to cut down expenses on maintenance, but still to offer high-quality services to citizens.

Project Tasks

According to TmaxSoft, using OpenFrame it is possible to transfer all applications, resources and data from outdated mainframes to more reliable and high-performance cloud platform without change of logic of business processes and data.

Migration of applications from a mainframe on OpenFrame became a key step in digital transformation of our business. Transfer of applications in the Unix environment will save about 4 million euros a year — Suominen counted. — Besides, the new platform will allow to develop quicker and cheaper the new systems and services. Advantages are not limited only to economy of expenses. CGI and TmaxSoft proved benefit of application of the alternative solution by creation of the high-quality open platform at the attractive price without risks inevitable at rewriting of the code of business and critical applications. Such work can drag on for years.

We are glad to an opportunity together with CGI to upgrade Kela IT infrastructure. Work of Kela is extremely important for citizens of Finland therefore the agency needs flexible and reliable technology which will become heart of all its activity. Upgrade of the solution constructed based on a mainframe using OpenFrame will cut down expenses and will improve performance at the expense of the automated integrated tool kit — Songmin Andy said to Kym, the head of department of TmaxSoft in EMEA region.

The project we will be executed by experts of TmaxSoft in close cooperation with specialists of Kela and CGI.