Bank Saves with iSeries Server Consolidation

by Alex Woodie

Consolidate all of your servers with a new iSeries, IBM tells you, it will save you money and make your life easier. A major South American bank has taken this message to heart. Last week, IBM announced that Banco do Brasil, the largest bank in Brazil, has consolidated its European data processing operations on three iSeries servers that run OS/400, Domino, Java, and Linux applications and manage six Windows servers, via the Integrated xSeries Adapter servers.

Rarely does the iSeries' ability to manage multiple operating environments and run such a variety of applications coalesce in a single example. Banco do Brasil had a number of individual AS/400s spread throughout Europe, running its native OS/400 banking application and Domino for e-mail, calendaring, and workflow. The bank decided that it could save money and reduce the complexity of its IT environment if it consolidated its numerous, smaller AS/400s onto fewer, but larger, iSeries hardware.

Today, the bank supports its entire European operation with three iSeries servers--two Model 820s and one Dedicated Server for Domino Model 270--at an office in London. The first Model 820 runs its OS/400 banking application, while its second Model 820 is configured with Linux logical partitions, open-source file and print server software, and Integrated xSeries Adapters that allow the server to manage six Windows-based xSeries servers that are the basis of a storage area network.

Banco do Brasil managed to eliminate a Windows NT server farm by moving its file and print servers to open source software running in Linux logical partitions on the iSeries. Running open-source Linux software on the iSeries has substantially reduced the license fees that the bank used to pay in order to run file and print services on Windows operating systems. By consolidating on iSeries hardware, the bank has also simplified server administration and will be better suited to scale upward to meet growth requirements, said Tim Evans, the bank's IT manager. "We expect to achieve significant reductions in total-cost-of-ownership, as well as increased reliability and ease of management," he said.

IBM says that Banco do Brasil is the first bank to begin using iSeries Linux in production. The bank, which has branches in 30 countries, is also the first Brazilian bank to expand internationally beyond its domestic operations. The bank is also planning to roll out WebSphere to provide customers with new services they can access over the Internet.

OS/400 is a popular choice among banks in the EMEA (Europe, the Middle East, and Africa) region. More than 14,000 financial institutions use AS/400 or iSeries servers to manage business processes, says Henrik Schlegel, vice president of iSeries sales for the EMEA region. IBM business partner Platinum Blue provided consulting and integration expertise in the Banco do Brasil implementation. Further details of Banco do Brasil's server consolidation efforts were not available at press time.

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