IBM Geneva ERS

Geneva ERS is an enterprise reporting system for IBM mainframes. It is a data warehousing ETL tool with either a CICS-based traditional 3270 or graphical user interface.

Geneva ERS can access multiple types of mainframe-based data, including DB2. For example, it can read sequential files based on the input format specified, then lookup certain fields in a VSAM file or in another sequential file. Geneva ERS can produce output in yet another format with some additional calculations, as required. The entire process is called a VIEW, and any number of VIEWs can be defined.

IBM sells and markets Geneva ERS through IBM Global Services. This software product solves unique business intelligence problems for extremely large operational databases, especially in insurance and financial industries, and was originally created by PricewaterhouseCoopers Consulting as part of their practice. (IBM acquired PwC Consulting in 2002.) Geneva ERS is also popular among SAP users, including manufacturing companies, with large databases and significant reporting needs.

Geneva ERS uses a "single pass" I/O approach and takes advantage of the IBM mainframe's extreme parallelism to create multiple reports concurrently. The software is extremely CPU-efficient, with an internal capability to execute report queries using generated, high performance ESA/390 assembler code. Most Geneva ERS users run reports daily, overnight, during a batch window, but jobs can run at any time.

See also

* zIIP
* z/OS