Pension Plan Makes the Grade
Digitask Enhances Legacy system for Teachers' retirement fund

by Ramin P. Jaleshgari, Senior Editor/Writer
 
 

The world's largest pension fund needs to rate an A+ when it comes to tracking and reporting the performance and viability of its investments. That fund is known as the Teachers Insurance Annuity Association-College Retirement Equity Fund (TIAA-CREF), and it provides retirement investment services for teachers and research organizations to the tune of more than $150 billion.

So, when the legacy VMS system that warehouses data for stock market analysts needed performance enhancement, Jim Walker, director of CREF Technical Services, realized it was time to consider a relational database and client-server environment.

"Our users are our analysts, who need to make different cuts of the data we are warehousing," says Walker. "The data is used to create reports about how different stock funds are doing compared with industry benchmarks, so TIAA-CREF is always on top of giving best value to its customers."

The main issue relating to the database's use was performance. The mainframe's database was an enormous one that did not lend itself to the fastest retrieval of different information combinations.

Walker, formerly a technician at Digital Equipment Corp. [now Hewlett-Packard.], knew the complexity of the task ahead and realized that the help of an experienced systems integrator was essential. He called on Manhattan-based Digitask Consultants Inc., a VAR with which he was familiar from his days at Digital.

"Based on my previous work with Digitask, I felt confident that it had experience in the systems we hoped to implement," says Walker. "Digitask helped us settle on the Alpha server line-it has the range of processes and growth that allowed the optimum use of the Oracle relational database we had chosen."

Show And Tell

Input from Digitask vice president James Gursha, an expert in server clustering and author of High Performance Cluster Configuration Systems Management, helped TIAA-CREF realize that clustering was the way to go. What was decided: three two-node cluster members of Alpha 2100s with four CPUs each.

"Whenever you do a system like this, you have to be constantly aware of the need for infinite growth capacity," says Gursha. "Cost-savings is always an issue, too, so what was needed was an architecture that doesn't require extra coding for scalability. A clustered system such as this one means a reduction in the investment of parts and time in the long run."

Digitask's work on updating the TIAA-CREF database accessed by 175 end users was so effective that the company was asked to participate in another job for the pension fund's trading group.

To learn what Digitask's newest assignment entailed, visit our Web site.

---

Case Study

VAR: Digitask Consultants Inc.

CLIENT: TIAA-CREF

THE PROBLEM: TIAA-CREF had to enhance its existing legacy system to handle larger database functions for the purposes of stock fund reporting/analysis to CREF's trustees.

THE SOLUTION: Digitask bolstered TIAA-CREF's existing mainframe-based system with a large data warehouse based on an Oracle database, running on Digital (Compaq) 2100 servers.

The Teachers Insurance Annuity Association-College Retirement Equity Fund (TIAA-CREF) provides retirement investment services for teachers and research organizations to the tune of more than $150 billion.

 So, when the legacy VMS system that warehouses data for stock market analysts to work from needed performance enhancement, Jim Walker, director of CREF Technical Services, realized it was time to consider a relational database and client-server environment. Working with VAR Digitask, updating the TIAA-CREF database accessed by 175 end users was considered so successful that Digitask was asked to participate on another job for the pension fund's trading group.

"We were asked to create an environment suitable for more efficient handling of TIAA-CREF's custom stock trading software, Landmark, from Longview Inc.," says Marlene Brill, Digitask president. "What we put in place was a platform of Digital Alpha Servers running Windows NT."

 Once again, Digitask's quality work put them in line for another contract and TIAA-CREF called the VAR in to set up a cluster of Alpha servers for the Quantitative area of CREF where the company's index funds are managed. Dependent on the optimization routines it used to develop algorithms and modeling of stock market behavior, the staff of this division found it needed more power behind the extensive database it had developed to predict trading behavior.

Graduation Time

 The three-part implementation that Digitask provided for TIAA-CREF has allowed analysts to increase productivity because of the relational database's high level of automation. Particularly in CREF's Quantitative division, flexibility has been increased thanks to the cluster approach, which enables different algorithms to be used for different geographic regions and new markets.

 TIAA-CREF's future plans for its enhanced environment is one of graduated improvement. The task of automating additional components of the network is receiving ongoing attention. In the interest of performance enhancements, the Alpha 2100s will be migrated to 4000s in a Unix-based cluster soon.

 For Brill and Gursha, continued dedication to the client has meant not only placing two Digitask employees--one versed in VMS and the other in overall networking architecture--but also being on call 24/7 if need be.

 "People rely on us to do a job that's not just adequate but above and beyond the call of duty," says Brill. "That means our clients have our home numbers and that there are many hours of on-the-phone consultation that we consider part of what we are paid for: That's the job. Working with Digitask has allowed us to make the most of our finite IT budget and people resources. The two consultants that are with us full time give us expertise and proactive decisions that make these transitions smooth ones. They've never let us down."