Customer Story
OCBC Bank
1 million
electronic transactions processed daily
$144 billion
(SG) in total assets
370+
branches and offices in 15 countries
Critical Issue
With more than one million electronic transactions processed every day, OCBC Bank must be able to ensure that its IT systems are protected against both downtime and data loss. Any interruptions to service would have immediate and serious repercussions, damaging the excellent reputation OCBC Bank has forged over the decades.
Business challenge
As part of its mission to become a world-class financial institution in the Asia-Pacific region, the Singaporean-owned OCBC Bank instituted a dynamic three-year IT strategy known as “OCBC 3.0.” One of the priorities of the plan was to implement a world-class high availability solution to keep its network operating around the clock.
Previously, when the system came down for whatever reason, the IT staff had to send backup tapes to the Disaster Recovery Center outside of town, where the data was restored on backup machines. This process required that staff at the bank branches re-key all the transactions for the day or, more specifically, all transactions entered since the last backup.
If the system came down near the end of the day, the recovery period would take longer as nearly an entire day’s worth of transactions would have to be re-keyed after the latest backup data was restored from tape at the Disaster Recovery Center. Actual experience showed that it typically took about eight hours to restore the data for all applications, according to David Hah, OCBC Bank Malaysia’s Assistant Vice President of Information Technology.
Industry
Banking
Results
- Replicates data in real time
- Allows for almost immediate recovery
- Eliminates human error
- Allows for creation of realistic test environments
- Provides peace of mind
Solution
“The Assure MIMIX HA solution has definitely helped reduce downtime and has improved our response to branches and customers. Assure MIMIX has helped us maximize customer satisfaction by ensuring the continuous availability of systems responsible for their transactions.”
Destine Lim, Head of IT
Solution
To begin the project, OCBC Bank Malaysia rigorously evaluated the offerings of various high availability vendors. IBM Malaysia proposed Precisely’s Assure MIMIX HA solution to provide high availability and continuous operations running on the IBM System i servers. After reviewing all the options, the innovative features and superior architecture of Assure MIMIX HA tipped the scales in Precisely’s favor.
“Assure MIMIX HA is stable and easy to configure and mange. It is very user friendly,” says Destine Lim, Head of IT for OCBC Bank Malaysia. “In addition, Assure MIMIX HA allows for intrasystem replication within the same computer.”
OCBC Bank Malaysia’s core banking applications, such as retail banking, credit card, treasury and credit leasing reside on its production server at its main branch in Kuala Lumpur, the Malaysian capital.
In the event of planned or unplanned IT downtime, availability of data and applications is assured through Assure MIMIXmanaged, automated switching to the backup server at the bank’s remote Disaster Recovery Center. Assure MIMIX HA ensures that all applications and transactions are replicated in real time so that the data is always current and ready to use.
The value of Assure MIMIX has also been demonstrated on several occasions when downtime at the production center threatened to delay money transfers under RENTAS, the local fund transfer system introduced by the Central Bank of Malaysia. Thanks to Assure MIMIX HA, OCBS was able to switch operations to the backup system at the Disaster Recovery Center and meet all of its obligations under the RENTAS system.
Precisely’s Business Partner, IBM Malaysia, provided consultancy, installation, technical support, implementation and training for OCBC Bank Malaysia. “The support from IBM is very good and has enabled OCBC to smoothly integrate Assure MIMIX into its operations,” says Lim.
With the real-time backup that Assure MIMIX HA maintains, the bank staff no longer needs to re-key the day’s transactions when the system goes down. This has helped to greatly improve work processes and efficiency at the branches. This is especially important since the OCBC Bank branches generate an estimated one million transactions every day. “The Assure MIMIX HA solution has definitely helped reduce downtime and has improved our response to branches and customers,” says Lim. “Assure MIMIX has helped us maximize customer satisfaction by ensuring the continuous availability of systems responsible for their transactions.”
Technology used
- Assure MIMIX HA
- IBM i production and remote backup servers
- A variety of core banking applications including retail banking, credit card, treasury and credit leasing
Assure MIMIX
Guarantee 24/7 IBM i application availability and protect against data loss with Assure MIMIX