Promsvyazbank created one of the largest OLAP cubes in the world

Speed of preparation of the reporting and its quality – the crucial indicators in work of modern bank influencing acceptance of strategic decisions. Promsvyazbank could achieve significant growth in these indicators without significant increase in capital costs thanks to the Microsoft SQL Server platform^[1].

Promsvyazbank has the developed IT infrastructure. Earlier for automation of separate activities the company used several platforms. It significantly complicated creation of the uniform analytical tool allowing to prepare the reporting with a high speed and quality. Solution was system deployment of online analytical processing of data of OLAP (Online Analytical Processing) based on the Microsoft SQL Server which not only conforms to strict technical requirements, but also has the smallest cost of ownership.

The situation in financial market is extremely strained. Crisis requires from banks to work more productively, to foresee changes of a situation and to react quickly to them.

Banks promptly enter a digital era. A basis of their activity today – banking systems on which quality business performance directly depends. Promsvyazbank – one of the largest credit institutions of the country. It enters in TOP-500 the largest financial institutions of the world by the amount of equity, according to the The Banker magazine, and services more than one hundred thousands of enterprises and about 2 million individuals. The bank collects, processes and keeps a huge number of information: the amount of data of only several departments on the basis of which the reporting is prepared is about 15 Tbyte.

Reports from pieces

Promsvyazbank created the IT infrastructure within several years. During this time practically all business processes were consistently automated. However use of the separate solution for each of them led to a serious problem. The bank faced lack of uniform data source for formation of the general reporting and analytics.

During crisis of 2008 need of creation of the effective tool which will give the chance quickly became obvious to the management of Promsvyazbank and with a high accuracy to analyze the saved-up information volume. The "scrappy" reporting received from the separate systems not only did not allow to see an integral picture, but also caused errors because of inconsistency of data and their low quality.

The automated banking system (CORE BANKING SYSTEM) and other information complexes of Promsvyazbank store primary data. But financial institution also needs and in qualitative analytics for which receiving it is necessary to transform data, at the same time changing their format and enriching contents. Besides, the company needed more productive, than the core banking system, the tool. Thus, the management of bank made the decision to unroll analytical storage based on the Microsoft SQL Server and an OLAP cube – special data array which supports technology of analytical information processing in real time. This platform also allows to avoid additional load of the available primary systems.

The first prize – deployment speed

According to the associate director of finance department and management accounting of Promsvyazbank Vasily Korol, the organization aimed to save a basis of the infrastructure as for many years in it considerable investments were made. The solution which could aggregate data from different sources was required, creating of them a uniform array: on its basis a system would build the "show-windows" of data intended for analytics and creation of the reporting.

Promsvyazbank created the system on the basis of the Microsoft SQL Server: the platform will transform information of different formats and structure, it can be unrolled and configured quickly. According to the vice president for information technologies of Promsvyazbank Andrey Ovsyannikov, means of the Microsoft SQL Server allowed bank to create a reliable and convenient data warehousing framework and to deploy the working solution in short terms.

The balanced indicators of TCO (total cost of ownership) became not less important advantage. The Microsoft SQL Server enjoys deserved popularity and is well familiar to specialists. Thanks to the optimal cost of licenses and also small costs for support and upgrade of a hardware platform, Promsvyazbank saved funds for team building, the new system which is engaged in creation.

A system developed several years and today is a basis of IT infrastructure of Promsvyazbank. 1200 employees of the central office of bank and its regional departments work with an OLAP cube. The cube provides the solution of all tasks connected with analytics of the financial block to its use there is a preparation of all financial and management reporting and key reports for top management.

All and is even more

The OLAP cube keeps the multidimensional analysis on more than 700 key indicators of activity of bank, maintaining more than 1500 attributes which list constantly is replenished in process of emergence of new business challenges. It is one of the largest solutions in Russia on the volume of the processed data, and in the world the OLAP cube of Promsvyazbank enters one hundred leaders.

It is no wonder that the analytical cube became for Promsvyazbank the main tool of a business intelligence. It displays all key indicators, at the same time is capable to detail information to within the specific client or the agreement, or even before specific postings. At the same time work directly with data does not require special tools. The solution is "seamlessly" integrated with Excel using which users independently build necessary report forms, carry out data visualization and generate documents.

With input of an OLAP cube in operation the speed of preparation of the reporting considerably increased. Besides, for its formation not primary data from the core banking system and other systems, and the consolidated and processed information are used now. It allows to consider many additional factors that well affects the general quality of the created reports.

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