Customer case studies

The business environment
ING Vysya Bank provides a wide variety of banking services, including corporate banking, retail banking, commercial banking, treasury management, rural banking and private banking. The bank also provides a number of financial products such as credit and debit cards, mutual funds and demat accounts to its customers.

ING Vysya Bank has been an early adopter of technology, implementing world class IT systems to support its business operations. "We realised very early that technology would play a critical role in helping us establish and maintain industry leadership," says V Viswanathan, Head- Information Technology, ING Vysya Bank.

The Indian financial services industry has seen tremendous changes in the last few years, with the entry of new banks and increasing expectations of customers bringing about sea changes in the way banks operate. "Technology to us is not just about backend operations, it is about customer satisfaction," adds Viswanathan.

The challenge
Data is critical to the operations of any financial institution. The wide range of operations ING Vysya Bank was engaged in and its massive customer base of more than 1.5 million customers meant that it generated on an average - transactions per day.

ING Vysya took a full 12 hours to back up the data from the day's transaction onto a disk based storage system, which meant that a tremendous load was being put on its infrastructure and transaction processing capabilities. This long day end window also meant that the bank could not extend the hours it actually dedicated to serving its customers.

"Backing up the data we generated was itself in danger of being a bottleneck to our business growth," remarks Viswanathan.

The bank clearly needed a cutting edge data storage solution that would obviate these issues and allow it to concentrate on its core business.

IBM's storage solution - clearly the best option
ING Vysya Bank decided to implement a SAN solution that would reduce the extremely long day end backup window it had, and that would release its IT systems to conduct business activities. The bank issued an RFP for its storage requirements, which IBM won on the basis of its products' superiority. Another factor in favour of IBM was its long and successful association with ING Vysya Bank and IBM's expertise in the BFSI.

IBM implemented its SAN solution, the ESS 800 as well as its Storage Virtualisation solution, the IBM SAN Volume Controller. The IBM ESS 800 offered the unparalleled scalability that could keep pace with the exponential increase in its data backup volumes without compromising on performance. "The ESS 800 can scale up to 55.9 TB, which essentially means that the bank future proofed its storage requirements" says Shailesh Agarwal, Country Manager-Storage, IBM India. "Another major advantage to the bank is that the physical capacity of the ESS 800 can be scaled without any service disruption or downtime at all." In addition, the bank can now make FlashCopies - point in time copies of its data - for data security and integrity.

IBM's storage virtualisation solution ensured that the bank could integrate and let multiple storage systems coexist with each other, providing a high degree of investment protection. The IBM SAN Volume Controller also ensured easy and dynamic allocation of storage to various applications depending on the need.

"IBM implemented the storage solution very judiciously and cost effectively," says Viswanathan. "For example, we implemented a disk based system for backing up the FlashCopies, instead of investing unnecessarily in a high end system." IBM also implemented a number of other storage technologies to ensure a robust storage infrastructure. These include:

• LTO 3583 tape library
• DS 4300- mid range disk based storage system
• IBM Tivoli Storage Manager
• IBM Tivoli Storage Network Manager
• IBM Tivoli Storage Resource Manager

ING Vysya Bank also runs a number of its mission critical applications and services on IBM solutions, including its core banking solution, internet banking and ATM infrastructure.

Clear benefits
The banks' end of day activity of building backup has been reduced to 5 hours from the original 12 hours thanks to IBM's solutions. This translates to a more than 40% performance increase. In addition to higher I/O throughputs, the bank can now handle the exponential increases in its backup requirements with ease. This has been accompanied by a significant reduction in the stress put on the network and its systems. And most importantly, ING Vysya Bank can now offer new levels of service in a market scenario where any dissatisfaction can lead to a customer exodus to competitors. "Customers across the banking industry are becoming more demanding by the day," says Viswanathan. "With the help of IBM's storage solutions, we are now an 8 am to 8 pm bank, leading to a huge increase in customer satisfaction."

Going forward
ING Vysya Bank and IBM will continue their partnership to enhance the bank's IT infrastructure. On the anvil immediately is a data replication solution to build in further reliability and integrity of data. "We are confident that IBM, with their comprehensive range of solutions, is the right company to partner us in the future," said Viswanathan.

ING Vysya Bank was formed with the coming together of erstwhile, The Vysya Bank Ltd, a premier bank in the Indian Private Sector and a global financial powerhouse, ING Group, during October 2002. It is a premier private sector bank with 75 years of history, which has been effectively transformed into modern technology driven Indian foreign Bank. With 1.5 million customers, 480 outlets and 6000 employees it is known for its innovative banking services and for pioneering several products and services. ING Vysya Bank's strength lies in its long-standing relationship with its customers and deep understanding of the Indian market.

ING is a global financial institution of Dutch origin offering banking, insurance and asset management to over 60 million private, corporate and institutional clients in more than 50 countries. With a diverse workforce of over 114,000 people, ING comprises a broad spectrum of prominent companies that increasingly serve their clients under the ING brand.