TIMETOACT takes over Managed Services for Hamburg Hochbahn

A performant and transparent IT are the basics to be able to quickly react to new demands. IT specialist take over managed services for the complete IBM WebSphere platform of Hamburger Hochbahn AG (HOCHBAHN). TIMETOACT supports HOCHBAHN with the optimization of their IT infrastructure that grew over the years to its existing whole.

Many long-established companies accumulate waste in over the years their IT. Affected are mostly modern and innovative companies such as HOCHBAHN. The successful company is an important part of Hamburg’s local transport for more than hundred years now. Each day HOCHBAHN transports approximately two million passengers and therefore is the second largest local public transport corporation in Germany. Its modern and innovative service structure proves HOCHBAN not only on rail and street, but also in many virtu-al outings.

“Next to our website hochban.de we also operate a couple of other Internet and intranet platforms, for examp-le switch.de or sauberbus.de”, says Timo Röntsch, team leader IT web services & mobility of Hamburger Hochbahn AG. HOCHBAHN operates vaguely 25 portal applications for online services at the moment.

The WebSphere architecture steadily advanced. “With time we added more and more components to our system and enhanced our infrastructure. As a result our stringent structure diminished,” summarizes Stephan Rings. To stop this process it was first necessary to get a complete overview of the existing hard- and software. Legacy systems had to be removed and the remaining components then got perfectly synchronized. HOCHBAHN approached this challenge with the help of TIMETOACT and IBM.

In a first step the complete WebSphere environment was put to the acid test. What hardware and what software are operated? What components get actually used? A Sisyphus’ work accomplished by a dedicated team. With this kind of groundwork the foundation was set for a new concept and adaption of the existing infrastructure with the main goal to achieve a more performant and transparent solution on the base of existing components.

TIMETOACT removed all unnecessary components step by step and optimally synchronized the remaining elements. The developers also brought needed software artifacts up to date and documented the new resulting structure precisely. To guarantee perfect collaboration of all components TIMETOACT also aided on organizational level. IBM WebSphere operating processes were simplified and therefore more transparent. TIMETOACT defined and documented for example:

• Setup of the new WebSphere structure
• Definite operational software developing demands
• All available software component manuals
• Unified Build and Deployment processes by Maven, nexus,
• Jenkins, Git (SVN)
• Transfer guidelines for all productive components
• Templates for manuals, projects, decisions of architecture etc.

All necessary operation processes are distinctively governed. With the monitoring tool “AppDynamics” the team also introduced a software that timely recognizes possible errors and performance problems. Defined roles and responsibilities furthermore ensure a smooth communication. A mutual platform serves as data depot and place of interchange. The more than 60 WebSphere participants work with the new structure now and in the future more effective together.

With this new elaborate infrastructure HOCHBAHN saves operational costs and creates a perfect starting position for future projects and enhancements at the same time. The IT specialists of TIMETOACT take over the operation of various HOCHBAHN platforms and portals.