Today, in conditions of increased competition and because of the prevailing economic situation in Ukraine, the effectiveness of resource management, cost savings in support of existing systems and managing the introduction of new technologies have become particularly important for business. This applies to the banking sector.

With the proper understanding of the development strategy of the banking business literate CIO to successfully introduce advanced technology at the lowest possible cost, that address not only existing business objectives, but also to provide sufficient "reserve" for the development and implementation of strategic plans for business.

Stable operation of Bank Forum, the long-term development plans, as well as the centralization and reorganization of the branch network were the main cause of the beginning of modernization of the existing IT infrastructure.

Evidenced by executing "Bank Forum" project for the consolidation of information and computing resources.

In the course of the project by SI BIS and technicians Bank forum on the site of the bank installed a new corporate system, IBM Power 770, which contains up to 64 cores POWER7.

Currently, an automated system of the Bank Forum is working on the IBM Power 570 server, which needs to cope with the challenges of increased productivity and are reserved. However, the translation of the Bank's branches to a single balance and concentration of resources in the head office will lead to increased load on the server core banking system and will require a migration to more productive resources. Currently, IBM Power 770 system is operated in a mode of Stand-By and is a decent prospect for the development of the Bank.


According to the Director of the IT department of the Bank Forum Peter Zhukov, the consolidation of information and computing resources, the Bank will provide the Bank's work after the project of centralization of the branch network, to facilitate the task of managing the regional network and increase the efficiency of doing business in general. "In terms of handling and maintenance, consolidation of information resources and computing power, automation of branches based on IBM Power 570 and 770 is the Bank's more profitable and reliable solution," - said Mr. Zhukov. - "In the head office of the Bank's easier to correctly organize the reservation, bekapirovanie and provide the appropriate level of skilled maintenance and data protection. To achieve this in all regions where the Bank operates, is difficult and expensive. Not all branches are equally have the opportunity to keep its staff of highly qualified specialists and provide the appropriate level of redundancy and backup data. "


To consolidate the Bank experts considered two platforms. Platform IBM, which is currently used by the bank for basic automation system and server platform SUN Microsystems, which is the corporate standard Commerzbank AG (Germany), which includes the "Bank Forum.

In rezutate conduct stress testing of the two platforms, it was decided in favor of the platform IBM. Among the advantages the introduction of IBM Power 570 and IBM Power 770 specialists of the Bank noted:

- Opportunity to develop a decision within a short period of time;

- Availability of specialists within the Bank, as well as outside experts able to install equipment and provide service support;

- Favorable financial conditions.

Since the draft was necessary to introduce in a fairly short time, another plus for the Bank was an opportunity to test the solution prior to its implementation and evaluate all the advantages of working with new equipment.

Moreover, the IT infrastructure of the Bank has included a number of hardware IBM, therefore, the introduction of IBM Power 770 has simplified many of the integration processes in the consolidation of computing resources.

The bank plans - a series of additional load testing the new system before its transition from the Stand-By in commercial operation as the primary server: Test mode Stand-By (already running), testing the processing of transactions our branches, testing at full operating loading and transfer of the system as the primary server ABS.


"I am confident that the purchase of IBM Power 770 is a good investment in the development of the Bank. - Said Petr Zhukov. - "Moreover, the Bank's management now understands payback in terms of project centralization of information resources. IT infrastructure audit and preliminary calculations that we performed, demonstrated the feasibility of consolidating information and computing resources and advantages of this decision. The main advantages are the following: the need disappears, accompanied and supported by the main and backup server operating days of branches, there is no need to administer almost all infrastructure related to the provision of the operating subsidiaries of the day, reducing the risk of data loss, reduces the cost of acquisition and maintenance of licenses on the software for branch offices. Saving resources is quite evident.

And due to stress-testing that we conducted during the selection platform, we were able to choose the optimal configuration solutions, and thus provided a budget savings that have been allocated for the project. "


The solution based on IBM Power 770, the embedded specialists SI BIS, streamlined IT infrastructure of the Bank, reduce the cost of its support and maintenance, simplify administration and provide a perspective of further development of the Bank as a whole.