The Baikal bank of Sberbank of Russia upgrades the virtualized DPC

"The Baikal bank of Sberbank of Russia" implementation of Windows Server 2012 tries to reduce amount of works on system administration, the press service of developer of a product reported on April 15, 2013.

Before

In 2010 the bank upgraded to the version of Windows Server 2008 R2 and expanded virtualization use, having translated under management of Hyper-V a number of systems and the application, crucial for business, for administration of IT infrastructure. For management of virtual environment the Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2 tools were used.

As a result of the IT infrastructure conversions became simpler and more managed. However need of further decrease in operating expenses required further upgrade. Some servers, especially database servers which are exacting to computing resources and storage systems could not be virtualized because of a number of restrictions of the previous version of Hyper-V. Besides, the possibility of fast switching between two DPCs in case of refusal of one of them became not less important task. On the basis of network of storage (Storage Area Network, SAN) had to refuse expensive implementation of the systems of replication, but without them process of switching borrowed till four o'clock.

"Specifics of our activity such is that transactions cannot be stopped because of scheduled or unplanned downtimes — Sergey Kuzmin, the head of department of system administration of computing resources UTSIT of the Baikal bank JSC Sberbank of Russia emphasized — It is necessary to provide operability of systems, crucial for business, in mode 24*7".

Besides, it agrees to the agreements on the service level existing in bank, planned shutdown of the equipment should be performed only in night, time off. Therefore all operations on setup of systems had to be performed in after-hour hours that, gave additional load of IT personnel. In general maintenance of IT infrastructure took away a considerable share of working time of IT specialists, as a result they had to find less time for studying of the innovative technologies and implementation of the new solutions allowing bank to achieve the best results and to maintain the competitiveness.

Solution

An opportunity to automate routine transactions and to increase efficiency of IT of personnel in bank was seen in Windows Server 2012. To study possibilities of new server OS, the bank joined the program of rapid implementation (Rapid Deployment Program, RDP) software products of Microsoft. Implementation of Windows Server 2012 Datacenter was executed in a test environment which consisted of four a host-HP servers of ProLiant DL580 G7, united in two clusters and connected to SAN IBM 3950. Each server had 0.5 Tbyte of RAM, and all servers in a cluster were united in network via the Cisco switch Catalyst 6509.

Staff of the Russian division of Microsoft Consulting Services and specialists of the Microsoft Services Premier Support program assisted in upgrade of infrastructure. The consultant from Microsoft spent a lot of time on the platform of the customer where the pilot project was performed. He rendered assistance at design of the solution, deployment and migration of systems, helped IT bank staff to study numerous innovations of Windows Server 2012.

"Thanks to cooperation with Microsoft Services we saved a lot of time and were saved from wrong moves. The Irkutsk office is deleted from Moscow more than on five thousand kilometers with time difference at 5 o'clock so we highly appreciated readiness of the engineer of Microsoft to work at the territory of the customer in the period of program implementation of RDP" — Vyacheslav Volkorezov, the lead engineer of department of system administration and computing resources UTSIT of the Baikal bank JSC Sberbank of Russia noted.

Result

With transition to Windows Server 2012 the operability of systems improved, productivity of activity of IT specialists increased. Now the IT service of bank will manage to react to changes of business needs quicker. Besides, IT specialists will have more time for studying and implementation of new technologies.