OTP Bank replaced network equipment of Cisco with F5

On February 18, 2015 OTP Bank announced completion of upgrade of the IT equipment. As the platform the product of F5 Networks company - Local Traffic Manager (LTM) is used. Replaced with it the solution of Cisco existing at that time. Integrator in the project F5 Networks company.

Project Tasks

OTP bank selected the solution F5 Networks Local Traffic Manager (LTM) as the new platform for delivery of applications and balancing of a network load.

Office "OTP Bank", 2014

Failure of Cisco Systems company in 2013 from production and support of the equipment of ACE used in OTP bank as the balancer of loading for several years became premises to change of the platform. Thereof before experts of bank there was a problem of the choice of new vendor and the technological solution. Considering and testing different options, specialists of OTP of bank gave preference to the solution F5 Networks.

The platform of delivery of applications for OTP of bank - a key link of all IT system. It provides continuity and fault tolerance of work of all external services:

• online applications,
• e-mail,
• internal core banking system.

Project Progress

Within an implementation project it was necessary to solve a number of problems for the organization of smooth operation of important information services of bank:

• Provide balancing of a network load and traffic management

• Organize reliable secure access to services

• Provide the accelerated disaster recovery and disaster tolerance of all system

"C 2012 when for the first time we began to be engaged in projects on replacement of the outdate equipment Cisco ACE in Russia, we managed to collect the knowledge base sufficient for the offer of the fastest and painless transfer of services on F5. For OTP of Bank we a separate task saw increase in reliability of a subsystem of delivery of applications. Solution F5 provides this a system, critical for operability of services of Bank, with the hot reserve ready to get instantly into gear instead of the main node", - Alexander Serebryakov, the F5 Networks system engineer told.

After tests of the equipment specialists of F5 Networks together with network administrators of bank analyzed an environment configuration, all points where balancing, and the used load control methods is required. And, after a week of the analysis of a network load, created and started a configuration of the F5 Networks BIG-IP device.

As the solution architecture and a control interface of Cisco devices are similar similar from F5, did not begin technical complexity - to make migration for specialists of bank and to switch to use of F5 LTM.

As the bank works across all territory of Russia and in all time zones, special approval of a technology window for work on switching of systems is carried out. Put several hours, however, according to the bank representative, switching to F5 took place in read seconds.

Project Results

Use of the hardware solution on traffic management and a network load of BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager from F5 Networks helped OTP to bank to segment risks of each component of the IT system, to optimize work by means of fast deployment of business applications and more effective use of computing resources.

"Our system administrators already try to balance traffic not just at the network layer, but also to use data of the transport and application layer for uniform distribution of resources of servers. For example, on the credit pipeline there was a task to distribute data on the different processing nodes depending on URL of a request, – Sergey Konstantinov, the head of department of DPC and the OTP TV set of Bank noted. - At the moment OTP Bank carries out implementation of the current version of the application of development of CFT for which the failover cluster of controllers of delivery of the F5 Networks applications as they have the necessary performance and functionality will also be used. Installation and implementation of the equipment F5 happened in the summer 2014, but the number of the services dried by it constantly increases, the bank develops, the new systems appear, and we already use BIG-IP LTM as an obligatory component in infrastructure of applications and as a component of a core of network since are sure of its reliability. Also in plans there is use of solutions F5 in such isolated segment as processing of bank".

"We are very happy with interaction with F5 Networks, the vendor proved to be as the reliable partner and therefore, creation of reserve DPC and creation of balancing on two websites, i.e. further development of a katastrofoustochivy system will be a further stage of development of cooperation. Let's move from the solution which allows to increase availability and to balance services in one DPC to the solution which will provide the same tasks within two DPCs and it is more difficult task and as development looks attractively for increase in reliability of services of bank", - Sergey Gusev, the director of directorate of IT transactions OTP of Bank reported.