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CASESTUDY
BUDGET INSURANCE SERVICES
Budget Insurance Services Limited is a leading independent insurance intermediary, providing mainly car and
home insurance in the UK. The company is part of an international group and employs in excess of 1,100 staff
and processes over 70,000 car insurance quotations per month.
Requirement
"We spent a considerable amount of time looking for the most efficient way to develop an application that could
process car insurance quote requests over the internet and link seamlessly to our award-winning computer systems
based on the IBM iSeries - AS/400e and DB2/400 database. We contacted MERISIS to develop the application, powered by
FreeStyle-400, to deliver performance, security, flexibility and ease of development. In time we plan to involve
all of our RPG developers in the process which means that they can all participate in web development. This is
achieved easily by the short learning curve and ease of use offered by FreeStyle-400." - Ken Huntly, Budget Business
Technology Director.
Budget's requirement was for a business to consumer (B2C) application that provided their target audience with the
best means possible to obtain a quote for their car insurance.
The business required the following:
- Quick response times
- Direct link to and integration with their sophisticated computer systems
- Proven, reliable, secure infrastructure
- Ease of maintainability and future expansion
- Cost and resource effective
In addition to the B2C content Budget also needed the flexibility to roll out the facility to their own business or
"affinity" partners, who required their own graphic and colour schemes. This multi-company presentation was made
simple due to the flexible nature of FreeStyle-400.
This is the first project of this type that Budget has entrusted to outside developers. MERISIS provided a skilled
and professional service from start to finish.
Infrastructure
Budget took delivery of a new iSeries Model 270 specifically to function as a web server to provide them with
uninterrupted 24/7/365 availability. MERISIS were consulted from day one to work closely with Budget to deliver a
secure solution.
Upon installation, MERISIS consultants stress tested the server. It quite happily processed over 44,000 sub-second
hits per hour. These hits were not merely directed towards static pages, but were the result of ILE RPG programs
linking to the database, and using simple FreeStyle-400 commands to present this data to the browser. This result
indicated that the (small) iSeries server was capable of locally processing 32.7 million hits per month - the limiting
factor would therefore be bandwidth and not the web server used to host the site.
The hardware was provided by a UK based IBM Business Partner, but is administered by Budget staff. MERISIS were
consulted when the infrastructure for the system was specified.
Software development
MERISIS provided the software for the application based on the visuals and database supplied by Budget. The design
was discussed and signed off prior to progressing software development. After approximately one month the website
was delivered to Budget and installed on their new iSeries into an acceptance test environment.
Prior to accepting the finished solution Budget IT staff and MERISIS conducted comprehensive benchmarking to ensure
that together they were able to deliver a top quality application.
One particularly complex process is the car selection logic. Using RPG programs and FreeStyle-400 we delivered
a transaction process time of just a few seconds. Another page included over 8,000 drop down data elements straight
from the iSeries, yet we were still able to deliver a response time of only a few seconds.
At each stage of the process, we reviewed progress and kept the client fully informed of the development.
"We measured the end results, particularly response times, against required standards. By the end of the development
phase we managed to deliver very favourable response times, no mean feat given the amount of data held in our
database. The security and infrastructure provided by the new iSeries complemented the enhanced security available
in FreeStyle-400 to satisfy our business requirements." Ken Huntly concluded.
Installation
MERISIS staff provided the installation of all components that made up the website for Budget. This included
delivering the HTML, JavaScript additional DB2/400 database files, the ILE RPG programs and source code to
interface between the visuals on the web site and their existing systems. All components reside on the iSeries
and were delivered to the User Acceptance Test (UAT) environment. No additional middleware or client software
was required, just OS/400, the IBM HTTP web server and FreeStyle-400. This installation process and handover
was completed in less than one day. After the implementation to UAT, Budget was then able to set up their own
live environment (in seconds) and progress the objects to live using their existing change management process.
These environments will allow full integration with their current System Development Life Cycle (SDLC).
Business Benefit
"The implementation of this application is the first step in allowing Budget to expand the channels available to
our customers, complementing our call centre and countrywide retail network. We anticipate that we will process
increasing volumes of quotes over the internet in the future, and would like to thank MERISIS for their valued
assistance with this development." - Ken Huntly, Budget Business Technology Director.
You can view the Budget website at www.budgetinsurance.com
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