Insurance provider Real Seguros uses ASNA Visual RPG for .NET to improve its iSeries application portfolio

REAL SEGUROS, SA., is a private company operating in the insurance market since 1988 with the objective to commercialize insurance services (not Life). REAL VIDA SEGUROS, SA was created in 1989 to enter the market of Life Insurance. The two companies had fixed headquarters in Porto, Portugal, and since then have shared infrastructures in the operational and distribution areas. They target the domestic segment as well as small and medium companies with the full range of their products. Presently the company operates through a national network of 43 local outlets that cover the north and south of the country. In the international scope Real Seguros, SA is one of the participants of the New Society of Insurances of Angola (NOSSA, SA.)

The iSeries provides Real Seguros, SA with its IT backbone and core application infrastructure. This is the story of how Real Seguros used ASNA Visual RPG for .NET to enhance, modernize, and extend the existing iSeries application portfolio, while at the same time allowing them to continue leveraging and using existing iSeries assets.

Real Seguros have a great number of iSeries applications that control and manage Real Seguros’ strategtic software offerings. These applications include Policy Management, Loss Management, Agent and Intermediary Management, Collection Management.

In the middle of 2005, the Information Technology System Administration of Real Seguros felt it necessary to enhance and modernize their applications. However, to do so, they knew they had several challenges to overcome. These challenges included:

·         How to improve the UI and presentation layers but keep the proven main business processes and calculations intact and correct.

·         How to extend and modernize their application portfolio with a modern user interface but still take full advantage of the powerful and robust iSeries database.

·         How to leverage the highly competent "legacy" technical skills of their programming team.

·         How to learn to exploit new languages and development environments to extend and enhance their core iSeries application portfolio. 

At first, these issues appeared to the Real Seguros team to be mutually exclusive with little hope of a solution that could fulfill all of their requirements. However, after taking a look at ASNA Visual RPG for .NET, the team knew they had found the product that would allow them to accomplish their needs.

ASNA Visual RPG for .NET (AVR for .NET) has a high affinity for browser-based applications. AVR for .NET integrates with Visual Studio 2005 and, using ASP.NET 2.0, makes it possible to create superb browser-based applications with RPG. These applications can be deployed on the Internet or on a private intranet. AVR for .NET works with ASNA’s DataGate (an iSeries-hosted database access component) to provide superb read/write record level access and, just as importantly, makes fast, robust program calls to iSeries program objects. AVR for .NET’s program call facility is important to Real Seguros because it let much existing iSeries business logic and file IO access stay resident on the iSeries. Because so much of Real Seguros’ existing iSeries logic was left intact, the modernization process’s timeline was able to focus on just the core improvements and enhancements—as it was not necessary to worry about the more crucial iSeries process that would continue to run unchanged.

At first the Real Seguros team thought about just giving their existing application a minor facelift; something that would improve its cosmetics but not its core offerings. But after looking at AVR for .NET and seeing all that it could do, the team realized it was possible to go well beyond cosmetics with AVR for .NET but still keep core iSeries programming logic intact and achieve robust and reliable iSeries database access. The decision was also made to use AVR to make many of their applications available to their many customers and agents on the Internet.

The systems which Real Seguors have now developed are all built on a three-tiered application model. In the case of Real Seguros, the Front Office and the middleware were built with C# (simply because the recent DSI equipment components were available in that language) and, as has already been referred to, the Back Office processes run on the iSeries. AVR provided the “glue” needed to pull all of this software architecture together, as well as provide the core application engine for the new Web applications.

Several new projects have already been developed with AVR for .NET for the Real Seguros DSI equipment, such as:

·         Online policy management, document digitalization, and agent and customer inquiries

·         iSeries 400 "spool" simulation and printing utilities

·         Loss management applications

·         Documentation and workflow management applications

·         Human Resources management, with FAQs ordered by topic and the person responsible.

With the use of AVR for .NET, Real Seguros reaped these benefits:

·         A development time of less than about 2/3 time that was originally planned.

·         Guaranteed reliability, as the "core processes" continues to be hosted on the iSeries.

·         Benefiting from integrating state-of-the .NET application development with the existing iSeries. This combination gives Real Seguros the best of both worlds.

·         The elimination of duplication of data and work.

·         Internet applications have controlled user authorities—ensuring only those authorized to the applications can use them.

·         As a Partner Company, to take advantage of effective support (De Bordo em Popa, Lda) with very low reply times.

The application modernization and enhancement project has been a huge success at Real Seguros and AVR for .NET was central to that success.

For more information about Real Seguros, please visit www.realseguros.pt or contact Carlos Costa, CIO, at carlos_costa@realseguros.pt.