Client
VTB BankWeb-site: https://vtb.ua/ru/
About Client
VTB Bank (Ukraine) is a stable universal bank that is among the country’s largest banking institutions according to the classification by the National Bank of Ukraine. The bank specialises in all-inclusive servicing of large corporate clients, small and medium-sized businesses, as well as services for private clients.
Tasks
At some point in its development, VTB Bank needed to set up a disaster-proof software and hardware system. Such solutions are based on a storage, backup and data processing network. The new complex was meant to be extremely reliable and powerful to support functioning of existing applications. In addition, scalability and a sufficient level of data redundancy were required. SI BIS was hired to implement the project.
Problems
To ensure correct operation of B2 CBS and meet performance and disaster-proofing requirements, it was decided to deploy an integrated system with vertical scaling focus (i.e. in which capacity expansion is achieved through server modernization (addition of processors, RAM, etc.), and not addition of new servers).
Criteria
The proposed software and hardware system consisted of two high-performance IBM p570 Power System RISC servers with the creation of a standby cluster.
Solutions
Base infrustructureProducts
IBM p570 Power System
Advantages
The main cluster‘s database was in constant operation, and the standby node remained in standby mode. The databases were identical since the data was synchronously sent to standby. Should any issues with the main server arise, the database on the standby site was activated.
The IBM p570 servers were connected to the existing SAN storage network via several independent links to provide the server complex with the required amount of disk space. For on-demand expansion, additional disk trays could be connected to the existing storage systems. Such modernisation of storage systems was carried out “on the fly” without interrupting operation of the storage system.
A separate SAN zone was also set up to provide access to the tape drive and organize LAN-free backups, as required by the rules of the storage network organisation with high backup speed in mind.
Results
SI BIS deployed a highly reliable hardware and software solution with redundancy of main components (power supply, internal server drives, network interfaces, FC adapters for storage network connection).