Soneri Bank, one of the most promising and forward looking banks, has contracted TPS to provide High Availability solutions ranging from centralized backup solutions to global clusters that will proactively monitor the status of applications and resources to enable the bank to reduce services downtime.
This indeed is a milestone for TPS and Soneri Bank as clustering of such critical servers will be done for the first time in Pakistan! TPS, being the Silver Partner of Symantec, has the technical and sales expertise needed to analyze, design, implement and support Symantec solutions.
Soneri Bank Limited operates nationwide through 90 branches and a comprehensive network of 99 ATMs. The bank's countrywide operations are controlled through two most critical systems, namely the web based Online Centralized Core Banking software applications having Retail Banking, Trade Finance, Corporate and Commercial Finance, Consumer Finance, Foreign Exchange & Treasury modules; and the ATM switch. Since even a few minutes downtime is unaffordable and any data loss could be potentially catastrophic, ensuring end-to-end data protection and 24 X 7 availability of these mission-critical systems is indispensable to the bank's enterprise wide remote banking operations.
TPS will execute clustering for bank's critical applications through industry's leading cross-platform clustering solution, Symantec Veritas Storage Foundation. Monitoring the status, health & performance of the services and swiftly switching the services on another server in the event of a fault will greatly minimize application downtime, be it planned or unplanned. This will ensure high availability of Soneri Bank's mission critical applications and systems, particularly ATM switch and Core Banking Host, with ideally zero data loss; thus avoiding complete failure and uninterrupted services to bank's customer over the branch counter as well as on all the delivery channels including ATMs. This robust and reliable solution will assure data consistency and integrity at primary as well as disaster recovery site.
End to end Data Protection with NetBackup 6.5
In addition, TPS will also implement Symantec data protection, archival, and recovery management solution, NetBackup 6.5 to provovide LAN based Backup for Soneri Bank's mission critical systems inclusive of its Switching Middleware, Core Banking Server and Back office Systems (Email MS Exchange Server, Insight Server, Active Directory, IVR / Call Centre etc) that to be be done on as per banks policies in an automated, streamlined, and centralized manner. To ensure end-to data protection, DLO (Desktop/ Laptop option) will also be implemented for true enterprise wide backup of all critical laptops and desktops. Beside the implementation of the entire system, TPS will also provide complete end-to-end consultancy to the bank.
"Pakistani Banking Industry experienced unpleasant situations of major fiasco due to Riots, Fire in building having the Data Centres and Earth Quake during the past 3 years. Implementation of High Availability Solution in true spirit is inevitable and vital for Soneri Bank to serve customers 24 x 7 uninterrupted and make Business Continuity Plan properly functional. Our Bank anticipates the quality implementation of industry's proven, validated and leading cross platform high availability solution from TPS within time frame." Haider Devjianie - EVP -Head of IT Soneri Bank.