Speedy Processing

SAS®9 Turns AMB Generali Skeptics into Believers

AMB Generali Informatik Services is a full service IT company for AMB Generali AG, one of the largest financial services groups in Germany. With four locations in Germany, their IT Service Teams keep 40,000 people across all of the other subsidiaries of the AMB Generali AG on a network that is safe and secure. With their IT solutions, products, IT structures and IT services, they make future innovations in the insurance industry possible. Solutions which were unimaginable yesterday become possible tomorrow. AMB Generali, the parent company brought in €11.7 billion (US$13.25 billion) in premiums in 2003.

Dr. Wilhelm Engels is a member of the data warehouse infrastructure team in AMB Generali Informatik Services, the company's IT division, which has responsibility for keeping the data center running at optimal speed.

So when a colleague approached Dr. Engels and asked him to consider testing SAS®9 – particularly its multithreading option – he was interested.

"In our business, the most important thing is to realize performance gains and speed up the whole data processing process," Dr. Engels said.

Benchmarking the Options
Dr. Engels' staff uses the company's database, containing some 50 million records, to ease the application process and improve marketing efforts. Because much of the work is done in batches that are processed overnight, it is critical that he be able to predict how long each batch will take to run so that he can run as many batches as possible during that window of time.

Dr. Engels was initially skeptical that SAS®9 would make so much difference. The results, however, have turned him into a believer.

"At first we didn't expect a lot of benefits from the SAS parallel processing opportunities because it's UNIX-based, and we're using the IBM mainframe. But instead, elapsed real time, or "clock time," as well as CPU time dropped substantially. "We're going to have real-time improvements of the processes."

Dr. Engels' staff ran a couple of tests – one compared the company's existing SAS software to the new version; another looked at what would happen when they tested SAS®9 with the multithreading option and without it. SAS®9 with multithreading was 60 percent faster than SAS 8 with DB2 parallel processing. And the multithreading options increased processing speeds of SAS®9 by 30 percent. SAS®9 alone also improves clock times (over SAS 8) by 20 percent. That figure jumps to 40 percent when parallel processing is included.

Speed = Cost Savings
The successful test convinced Dr. Engels to move to SAS®9. "If you achieve performance gains in clock time, you can stick to the time frames at night. That means you don't have to buy more hardware," resulting in cost savings for the company.

And the savings didn't come with any installation hassles. Says Dr. Engels, "It was done in one day." He was particularly pleased with the assistance from SAS staff on enhancing the parallel processing options.

AMB Generali is using SAS®9 for processing. Now Dr. Engels' staff is testing more uses for the product, particularly putting real-time information into the hands of marketing people and claims processors. "SAS®9 is going to be used for its performance benefits."

About AMB Generali
AMB Generali Holding AG is the strong management holding company of one of the biggest and most successful primary insurance groups in Germany.

It is the parent of the German units of the international Generali Group. It is the engine for the continuous development of the Group and has the function of a brace for the Group companies.

AMB Generali controls the Group and ensures the concentration of expertise and the realization of economies of scale, such as in IT, asset management, issues of valued-based controlling and the implementation of major projects.

Companies of renown operate under the parent AMB Generali, such as Aachener und Münchener, Volksfürsorge, Generali, CosmosDirekt, Central Krankenversicherung, AdvoCard Rechtsschutzversicherung, Deutsche Bausparkasse Badenia, Dialog and AMB Generali Asset Managers. These companies offer the full range of financial services. Up-to-date products satisfying customer requirements, qualified advice coupled with financial strength and security: from life, health, property/casualty and legal expenses insurance over tailor-made building finance to attractive fund and bank products and further services, such as asset management for third parties and real-estate broking.

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