RWE Moves Data Into the Future With iWay and FOCUS

Headquartered in an ultra-modern building in Germany, RWE AG brought its data-migration capabilities into the 21st century using Information Builders iWay and FOCUS.

Information Builders Helps German Utilities Provider Migrate Massive Volumes of Data

Before you retire your existing mainframe systems, you need to determine how to handle your information. In most cases, the data is still relevant and required. When new IT systems are introduced, it is very important to process the legacy data so it can be easily imported into the new environment. Comprehensively checking existing data in legacy systems and rapidly transferring that information into the new environment are the keys to success.

Integration specialist Information Builders was called on to assist RWE AG – Germany's top producer of power – with the critical task of migrating legacy data into new sales and accounting systems. The migration involved two Information Builders products: integration solutions from iWay software and the FOCUS reporting application. RWE entrusted its in-house Billing and Information Processing division with the management of the project. As an IT sub-contractor, SOPTIM AG was put in charge of coordination and extraction.

The goal of the project was to convert existing marketing and billing systems into an SAP solution, tailored to meet the particular needs of the company's industry. Meanwhile, the data that was fed into the new SAP system needed to fulfill specific requirements. Therefore, certain recommendations were made in terms of migration. The special SAP solution chosen by RWE – the industry-specific utilities (ISU) component – required careful data processing. Information had to be adjusted, checked for consistency, and formatted to fit within the ISU structures.

Data Variety Presents a Challenge

RWE had a large number of records that needed to be migrated, which made this task very time consuming. The company's Münster location alone supplies electricity, gas, heat, and water to about one million customers, which translates into a total of 3.5 million records kept in several data storage systems at RWE Münster. Additionally, RWE AG – like many other companies – did not exclusively manage all its data with a single system.

"This variety of systems absolutely made sense, since each one provided individual advantages for its respective field, such as gas, electricity, heating, and water," says Stefan Helnerus, the divisional manager at RWE Systems Applications Ltd. "But it also presented quite a challenge, however, once the data needed to be moved into a completely new environment."

Data had to be extracted from a wide range of storage systems, such as IMS, IMB/DB2, Oracle, and sequential files. On the other hand, the SAP solution into which the data would be imported worked with an interface structure based on Oracle. To integrate the records efficiently, it was important that the new software included the appropriate adapters.

iWay Software, an Information Builders subsidiary, made this scenario possible. This suite of robust, cutting-edge integration solutions empowers organizations to fully leverage their existing technology assets to successfully achieve new goals and meet new challenges – rapidly and cost-effectively. With a single, fully integrated set of graphical design tools and a portfolio of reusable pre-built components, iWay Software eliminates the need for cumbersome and expensive manual code writing, and serves as the foundation for a powerful, enterprise-class infrastructure that integrates, validates, and streamlines any critical business process and related information in the fastest and most economical manner possible.

iWay integration software allowed RWE project managers to migrate the enormous volume of data in a much faster manner. Additionally, they were able to entirely eliminate the programming of new interfaces, which can be very time consuming.

Reporting During Migration

One of Information Builders' specialties is integration. The company combines a large suite of adapters – which were developed over the years – with its FOCUS reporting solution. FOCUS is a host-based business intelligence (BI) environment that combines power, efficiency, reliability, and portability to enable efficient and effective custom application development, reporting, and analysis.

Data is dynamically extracted in the form of flat files, so that they can be imported into the target Oracle database. FOCUS runs on any PC, and connection to data servers via a network is simple. The primary advantage of such a reporting system is that staff can review the records during the migration process.

"FOCUS was useful to us in two ways," says Helnerus. "The software was easily integrated into our infrastructure, and it gave us the ability to spontaneously analyze our information, which helped us very much during the course of migration."

FOCUS also solved another problem for RWE. Changes made during the course of migration, when no operational system was available, were temporarily stored in separate databases. Members of the migration team used FOCUS to grant sales staff access to those changes after production launch.

FOCUS tracked all changes and automatically entered them, using Word, into a data collection form, which was dynamically converted into a mail merge letter. Since the software primarily processed the changes, the project management team was able to assign all manual entry of data not yet collected to temporary workers.

"For the sake of our customers, we had to keep the unpleasant consequences of system downtime during the migration within reasonable limits. With iWay Software and FOCUS, we were able to ensure that work delays were kept manageable and controllable," added Helnerus.

"Overall, the project went really well. It was beneficial to everyone involved that the Information Builders software we deployed covered a significant amount of their workload," concluded Frank Retting, business manager at SOPTIM AG.