MBS aims at 3000 migrations, management

Consulting firm ready to parlay 3000 application support into Transition business

A Colorado consultancy with extensive HP 3000 application support experience is ready to pursue transition services for the 3000 community — by keeping MPE applications stable, so migration planning and execution can begin.

Managed Business Solutions (MBS, 970.419.2646) has about 20 of its 175 employees whose sole focus is HP 3000 skills, according to CEO Todd Kerr. This expertise in MPE supports clients such as Agilent, the instrument arm HP spun off in 1999, which continues to use many HP 3000s in its operations. Kerr said HP’s notice of its end of support for the system signals expanded business for the firm.

“We look forward to spending the next several years working with companies in the MPE space,” Kerr said. “We’ve had a ton of experience in integrating and migrating MPE applications. People don’t have to run and jump [off the platform]. They can take their time, but I think they need to get started evaluating what their answer will be.”

Founded in 1993 by a group of ex-HP employees, MBS services application support contracts in North and South America, Europe and Asia-Pacific regions, including HP 3000 application management for Agilent.

The support is usually delivered via remote links rather than on-site, although “if people need us, we will be there,” Kerr said. “The optimal engagement for support would be to have a smaller team on-site with the customer, and a larger team off site to leverage the rest of our 175 people.”

In its engagements so far with the 3000 community, MBS serves companies which want MBS to support their applications while the customer develops new ones away from the platform. Others want MBS to work on their development team building non-MPE apps, while internal IT continues MPE application support. Some sites seek consulting to aid in moving from in-house to packaged applications. The company supports 800 MPE applications across its client base — many of them at Agilent and HP divisions — keeping their 3000 experience trouble-free. Rushing to a migration can be risky.

“The key is that we want to stabilize the HP 3000 environment,” Kerr said. “That’s where we can provide value. If people want to jump from an older platform that’s not stable to a new platform, it’s going to put too much at risk. We’d like to see them do upgrades on the current software and hardware, which allows them time to do the migration in a stable fashion.”

Kerr thinks HP’s timeline to exit the 3000 community is long enough to let companies update systems, buying breathing space for those who may decide to make their transition to another platform.

“The servers will be there,” he said. “The A- and N-Class servers, and the upgrades coming out this year, should provide a real strong platform for the next five years.” Over the last five years the company has been migrating MPE applications across to HP-UX and NT.

MBS Integration Engineering Services team members are split between those focused on MPE and those focusing on technologies such as Oracle and the Web, according to vice president of Integration Engineering Services Al Gates. “We have a very strong position in the MPE world,” he said.

Meanwhile, some names familiar to the 3000 manager provide the tools for transitioning databases, for example. Technical consultant Rich Trapp said Robelle’s Suprtool has been most popular in extracting from IMAGE databases, while other sites use ODBC technology “into whatever client you want. Most of the time it’s a preliminary unload of the data going to the new machine and then you play with it. When you’re satisfied, you do a parallel run, and then turn off the 3000.”

Kerr believes MBS’s lengthy MPE knowledge across 800 applications provides an advantage in making a migration.

“Our heritage really was founded in MPE,” he said. “I think that’s something a lot of the other companies cannot say, especially companies our size.” HP Storage, HP Consumer Business Organization and HP’s inkjet operations which use HP 3000s are among MBS’s current contracts.

HP has been working on a transition to SAP from its 3000 applications, while Agilent is moving to Oracle. “Both take a lot of work to implement for a very large company,” said Gates. CEO Kerr said these replacement solutions are more complex than the 3000 applications they replace “by about 100 times.”

Those 3000 applications are written for a specific need, while replacement ERP applications “are all or nothing,” said Kerr. “If you’re willing to change your business processes to the ERP package, you can gain great efficiencies once it’s in. On MPE, a number of applications can fill your need, and then you need to integrate them together.”

MPE applications have 20 years of customization at some of the sites MBS supports, “so they are highly tailored for the business processes,” Kerr explained. The majority of MBS migration engagements involve moving customers onto new applications, rather than migrating such highly tailored code onto new platforms.

Integrating data from MPE applications is more demanding than keeping systems running. “The platform itself is rock-solid, and it won’t go down,” Gates said. “It’s the applications that take the time to integrate.”

Costs for migrations are going to be an eye-opener for 3000 customers used to making budgets stretch.

“That’s going to be the big shock,” Gates said, “the amount of money to transition. The existing platform was so stable, with an IT staff that modified applications. For larger businesses converting to an ERP application, they’re talking millions of dollars to transition just for the application. The amount of money spent redesigning business processes is yet another cost to consider.”

Customers served by MBS start at about $10-$15 million in annual revenues and range up to multi-billion-dollar companies like Agilent and HP. Making transition plans can cost $20,000 and take two weeks to a month for smaller companies. A Global 1000 company could take a year to assess the environment they will transition to and make plans, at a cost in the millions of dollars.

An initial assessment is free, however. Customers can contact MBS through their resellers, or contact the firm directly through its Web site, www.thinkmbs.com.