This strategic program, named 'One Bank', is an important step in the Swiss bank's transformation into an international financial service provider. The project is focused on the roll-out of the Java Application Platform (JavaAP) in Europe, Asia and the USA. With this project the international financial service provider is achieving competitive advantages for its IT based services and products.

Time and cost savings with a unified application infrastructure

Credit Suisse already uses a Java Application Platform in its Zurich headquarters, which currently manages approximately 250 applications. The core of this J2EE-based platform is BEA WebLogic Server 9.2. An important advantage of the BEA technology is the strong focus on standards, which enables the integration and portability of applications as well as the good integration third party / peripheral systems and backend systems. To help ensure the worldwide adoption of all Credit Suisse applications in the future, the company has decided to implement JavaAP at its two central IT locations in Asia and America. Credit Suisse believes that BEA WebLogic Server will provide the needed stability and performance from the application server perspective.

"The rollout of the platform is currently being realized in New York. "The rollout for Singapore has been processed successfully in only one year—including the pilot installation," explains Roger Süess, Global Head Web Enterprise Platforms, Technology Infrastructure Services, Credit Suisse.

"Now, we can develop an application anywhere and use it worldwide," describes Süess the advantages of a worldwide unified IT infrastructure. "In the past everything had to be reprogrammed three times or developed from scratch before we were able to use an application at a new location."

Through centralized planning, the development costs will decrease significantly in future and the operational costs will be much lower. A rough estimation shows that the project cuts down wn several months of infrastructure development and new implementation. Depending on the size of a project this results in a considerable amount.

Similar branding for all services with a standard portal framework

Credit Suisse is taking an important additional step towards a unified IT infrastructure with the adoption of a unique portal solution. Users who are currently using a portal as their front-end will be converted to the standard BEA WebLogic Portal framework. The new portal generates significant cost savings because numerous small, partly self developed solutions will be substituted.

There are two further benefits of the portal which are crucial to Credit Suisse. The unified solution simplifies a global branding and makes the fast combination of new services for customers and employees possible. Süess explains, "All of the services are available over the new portal internationally in a standardized look and feel. This ensures the delivery of high quality services in every country." Right now Credit Suisse is converting the first major applications over to BEA WebLogic Portal.

With the worldwide JavaAP rollout and the unified BEA portal solution, Credit Suisse is achieving a unified IT infrastructure. The platform thought is a trend-setting/ground-breaking initiative and for the bank a critical/key competitive advantage. The Technology Infrastructure Services department is now able to deliver a end-to-end solution for the bank and to manage the application platform centrally. This generates significant savings compared to other solutions, where IT has to manage separated business-oriented infrastructure units individually.

"At Credit Suisse there is no integration overhead any more or barriers to portability," says Süess. "We are extremely satisfied with BEA WebLogic Server as the core or our Java platform. In the near future we will migrate to the newest version of BEA WebLogic Server 10 to benefit from the current BEA developments and innovations."