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Consolidation at Degroof Bank |
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Degroof Bank consolidates more than 130 servers (Unix and Wintel) and storage units into fewer than 10 machines
Degroof Bank had installed its Unix production, test and development environments (Oracle, Sybase, AAA, TSM) on two IBM RS/6000 SP complexes with 12 independent nodes/servers. Some of these systems were implemented on the basis of high availability,
- For storage, the bank had installed three IBM SSA type disk systems with a capacity of around 1.5 TB
- For Windows/Intel type environments, Degroof had used around 70 servers, most with internal local storage.
- A centralised storage server had been installed for certain applications, with a capacity of about 1 TB.
- Degroof Bank decided to review this architecture in depth together with the I.R.I.S. team.
For Unix type environments, the bank opted for a partitioning solution with IBM System p5-570 servers (2 x 8 processors) and IBM System p5-590 servers (2 x 8 processors), these systems being shared between the two data centres.
For the Windows/Intel environment, the bank decided to put in place a virtualisation infrastructure based on VMware and IBM System x technologies.
For storage, a central platform was put in place for Unix and Windows systems. Degroof Bank opted for two IBM DS 6800 systems each with a capacity, after extension, of 7 TB.
Gamal Khaldi, General Manager of I.R.I.S. ICT: “Degroof Bank opted for new IBM packages using Unix servers because of the partitioning opportunities. As a result, we were able to obtain a greater utilisation rate of physical resources (allocation per 1% of physical processors) and a greater flexibility by dynamic reallocation of resources. In terms of virtualisation of the Intel environment, two times two servers were enough to house all the old environments, drastically reducing floor space. We consolidated 12 Unix servers into four servers, 70 Intel services into four servers, and four centralised storage units plus 50 or so local storage units into a single central storage unit. The utilisation rate of acquired resources is substantially improved, while at the same time reducing their total cost of ownership (TCO). In addition, the solutions implemented bring greater flexibility and a vast reduction in the time for implementing new environments, from a few weeks to a few days. Finally, these consolidations enabled Degroof Bank to improve the quality of IT service provided to users.”
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