Paymaster reduces costs with migration from ICL mainframe

1 September 2006

Microsoft Gold partner Transoft has successfully completed an application migration project for Paymaster, formally the Office of HM Paymaster General. Paymaster's critical Banking Suite COBOL-based systems have been moved from its legacy ICL VME mainframe to an open systems Microsoft Windows 2003 environment which offers better performance.

The new Windows-based system has delivered cost savings, streamlined processes and simplified operations. When the legacy mainframe application was finally switched off there was no disruption to data or services.

"I am very pleased to report that after a month's parallel running we were able to go live in mid-April, as we originally planned at the start of the project last October, and now we have switched off the mainframe," said Karl Noakes, director of the Partner Development Group at Microsoft. "The new HP DL360 2 processor Microsoft Windows 2003 platform has not only saved significant costs, but is also processing the work many times faster than before, allowing us to reduce to a single shift operation."

Geoff Baker, managing director of Transoft, said: "Organisations like Paymaster, with applications on platforms that are either costing too much or nearing end-of-life, have three choices. They can rewrite their code from scratch, replace with a package or migrate. Paymaster, like many other companies, found that migration proved the most cost-effective and least risky option."

"As a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, Transoft is among the elite of the Microsoft partner community. Our Gold partners are highly equipped to deliver business-driven technology solutions like this to their customers and are highly valued by Microsoft," added Noakes.

The Paymaster Banking Suite runs critical code for the control and reconciliation of payable orders which Paymaster processes on behalf of the Office of HM Paymaster General, now part of HM Revenue and Customs.