A prominent commercial bank in the UAE, renowned for its extensive core banking operations, faced recurring challenges with their AS400 system storage management, impacting system performance and operational efficiency. Their Auxiliary Storage Pool (ASP) utilization frequently exceeded safe thresholds, often reaching 85% or higher, resulting in system slowdowns and the need for frequent manual intervention.
Intertec partnered with the bank to automate the cleanup of journal receivers, schedule regular backups, and optimize backup policies. The result was a dramatic reduction in ASP utilization—from 85% down to 57%—eliminating manual tasks, reducing incidents to zero, and boosting database performance by 15%, ensuring reliable and efficient banking operations.
Business Problem
The bank’s AS400 Core Banking production LPAR Auxiliary Storage Pool (ASP) utilization regularly exceeded critical thresholds, often reaching above 85%. This high utilization was primarily caused by the DSPC application’s journal receivers accumulating nearly 1TB of data that was not automatically cleaned after backup routines.
This storage bloat led to several issues:
- Insufficient space to efficiently manage data files and perform read/write operations.
- Noticeable slowdown in database transactions and overall system responsiveness.
- Frequent manual intervention was required to clean up storage, resulting in increased operational overhead.
How Intertec Helped
Intertec’s AS400 team designed and implemented a comprehensive automation solution that addressed the root causes:
- Scheduled Automated Backup Jobs: Developed a scheduled job to handle backups routinely without manual effort, ensuring consistent and reliable data protection.
- Automated Journal Receiver Cleanup: Created an automated cleanup process for the DSPC application’s journal receivers post-backup, preventing storage accumulation and effectively managing ASP utilization.
- Backup Policy Optimization: Enhanced the backup strategy to balance data integrity and storage efficiency, optimizing overall backup and storage usage.
Business Outcomes Delivered
- Significant Reduction in ASP Utilization: Post-automation, ASP utilization dropped from a critical 85% to a healthy 57%, greatly improving system stability and performance.
- Elimination of ASP-related Incidents: Automated cleanup eradicated incidents related to ASP overflow, reducing downtime and risk.
- Zero Manual Intervention: Complete automation eliminated the need for manual cleanup, saving valuable man-hours and reducing operational costs.
- Improved Database Performance: The cleanup provided necessary free space for database read/write operations, boosting performance by approximately 15% and enabling faster transaction processing.
