1 September 2006

Helena BioSciences Europe is a leading global manufacturer of clinical diagnostic products. Established nearly 30 years ago, the company has developed a reputation in the fields of clinical electrophoresis, chromatography, immunology and blood coagulation ? a position enjoyed in markets around the world.

Although the company was satisfied with its existing iSeries platform, operating system and the available application software, it was increasingly difficult to integrate those applications with its other internal and external platforms. Since budgets were already stretched, the high administration costs needed to adopt and maintain new applications meant that this was not a valid option.

In search of a solution, the team at Helena BioSciences evaluated providers, conducting several migration trails before opting for California Software's infinite iSeries using Microsoft .NET software, to be implemented by CSS. This decision was based on several factors, the main reason being that infinite iSeries maintained the original source code integrity, so the company could fully use the system architecture of Windows Server, while keeping its known support team in place.

Once the migration was agreed, the biggest task was to migrate office functions. Much effort was spent on the development of substitutes for iSeries office functions such as EDTDOC, WEKDOC, PRTDOC and MRGDOC. For this an office shortcut was developed which reproduces these functions with Word ? with great results.

The company was greatly influenced by the fact that infinite iSeries provided a Web-based graphical user interface based on Microsoft .NET technology, which provided more capabilities than other SOA products that were also evaluated separately. The final pleasant surprise was the smooth migration of the DB2/400 database to SQL running under Windows Server.

Infinite iSeries was installed on the Windows server in one afternoon. In the following two and a half days, two new strategic applications of the business were generated with infinite iSeries for Windows. The remaining applications were migrated over the summer.

The migrated system delivers hundreds of predefined Web reports that help the scheduling of production to meet both financial goals and client commitments. Real-time access via the Web for data to clients, engineers and financial staff were crucial elements in the decision to use Microsoft .NET technology.

The new system lends itself to quick and easy deployment. Once a project has been built, it can be rolled out quickly to users. There is no software to install or download on client machines. Users simply need to have Internet access and they can immediately use the .NET technology to make better-informed decisions. Project maintenance and administration is centralised, which makes it easy to upgrade or make enhancements to a Web project.

Bill Cockfield, managing director at CSS says: "Users will have more choices on how to create and format user-friendly reports, screens and other information. In our opinion, the Microsoft .NET platform provides quality Web-based capabilities and gives us the power to centrally manage and maintain our projects. We have successfully deployed the platform across the enterprise."