Financial Services · Mainframe Modernisation

MooodyCow Modernises IMS Databases and Improves Performance for a Major Bank

MooodyCow provided specialist mainframe capability to support the modernisation of a business-critical IMS estate for a major financial services organisation. The engagement strengthened operational resilience, improved application performance and reduced the cost and complexity associated with legacy infrastructure.

At a glance

Client
Major financial services organisation
Sector
Financial Services
Engagement
Delivered

Services used

Data & Integration

Data & Integration

Unlock the full potential of your data, applications and technology investments. MooodyCow modernises and integrates complex landscapes so information flows seamlessly across systems and processes, turning fragmented data into trusted, actionable intelligence ready for analytics and AI.

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Mainframe Services

Mainframe Services

Unlock the value of your mainframe estate while preparing for modern digital business. MooodyCow modernises, integrates, optimises and migrates mainframe environments, backed by deep IBM expertise and the Harmoniix platform to reduce risk and maintain business continuity.

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55+ databases
Bank holiday and long weekend alerts eliminated across all regions
Millions saved
In mainframe storage costs through legacy decommissioning
Faster payments
Optimised memory utilisation improved customer-facing performance

Background

MooodyCow provided specialist mainframe capability to support the modernisation of a business-critical IMS estate for a major financial services organisation. The engagement strengthened operational resilience, improved application performance and reduced the cost and complexity associated with legacy infrastructure.

The Challenge

The organisation's IMS databases and applications underpinned essential day-to-day services. However, recurring out-of-hours alerts required manual intervention, elevated memory utilisation was constraining performance, and an ageing application landscape was increasing operational complexity. A controlled migration path was required to move selected workloads from IMS to DB2, retire redundant components and protect continuity throughout the transition.

The Solution

MooodyCow provided a senior mainframe database specialist with the technical depth to operate across production analysis, solution design and hands-on migration delivery. Working as an integrated part of the programme, the specialist supported the complete change lifecycle - from root-cause analysis and estimation through development, scheduling, deployment and post-production assurance.

  • Conducted detailed production analysis to identify the root causes of recurring calendar-related alerts and excessive memory consumption.
  • Designed and implemented targeted alert-suppression and memory-optimisation measures across the affected database estate.
  • Led the controlled migration of selected workloads from IMS to DB2, alongside the decommissioning of redundant legacy applications and databases.
  • Provided production support throughout the transition, resolving live issues while safeguarding service continuity.
  • Applied deep technical expertise across IMS DB/DC, DB2, COBOL, JCL, CICS, VSAM, REXX and enterprise scheduling technologies.

Outcome: MooodyCow's specialist contribution delivered clear and measurable improvements across operational stability, system performance and long-term maintainability. Disruptive holiday and extended-weekend alerts were removed across more than 50 databases, memory utilisation was optimised for faster data retrieval, and the retirement of legacy IMS components contributed to multi-million-pound savings.

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