Bank of New Zealand (BNZ) was close to reaching capacity in its data centre and needed a new solution that could maximise space and resources while keeping costs down. With a heavy carbon-neutral focus as a core part of its corporate values, BNZ looked for ways to green its IT architecture and carve out costs.

"BNZ had defined two important goals for the future, both of which relied heavily on IT. The first was for the organisation to become carbon neutral by 2010 and the second was to explore open source opportunities through the adoption of Linux," said Lyle Johnston, infrastructure architect at BNZ. "We also faced the challenge of creating a disaster-recovery solution for our data centres in Auckland, New Zealand and East Melbourne, Australia."

In mid 2007, BNZ began overhauling its mission-critical front-end IT environment, including its Internet banking and bank teller functions, and its middleware layer providing connectivity through to its core back-end data. It migrated its systems to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 running under z/VM on the mainframe. Today, BNZ utilises both IBM System z10 and z9 systems, exclusively running Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, to power the bank's customer-facing banking systems, including Internet banking and teller platforms.

"When it came to selecting a Linux provider, the choice to invest in Red Hat was largely based on its commitment to the ongoing development of the platform and its strong support capabilities, particularly in reference to supporting Red Hat Enterprise Linux on the mainframe," said Johnston. "Deploying IBM mainframes with Red Hat Enterprise Linux to address our carbon footprint and cost savings concerns was a very big deal, especially at the senior management level."

A critical component in the successful deployment and ongoing management of its new systems, BNZ also incorporated Red Hat Network (RHN) Satellite to provide BNZ with the ability to provision, update, patch and maintain through simple, easimple, easy-to-use functionality. By utilising RHN Satellite, the bank was able to re-provision its entire teller platform development environment in just two hours.

The combination of z/VM and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 enabled BNZ to virtualise and consolidate a largely distributed SUN environment, which incorporates all of its front-end systems, down to just one box. It boosted the speed and simplicity of the bank's new deployments - instead of taking days, a new environment can be deployed in just minutes.
Also, just one administrator is now needed per 100 virtual servers, so BNZ can save and reallocate resources that would traditionally have been used to manage the platform.

With the combination of Red Hat and IBM solutions, BNZ has achieved significant cost savings and made major steps to green its IT systems.
In just three months, BNZ was able to consolidate its servers and reduce its front-end systems data centre footprint by 30 percent. It has recorded a 33 percent reduction in heat output and a 39 percent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions for its front-end systems. The solution has also helped BNZ to carve out costs, as the bank expects approximately 20 percent return on investment (ROI) over the life of the platform.

"We have also managed to substantially reduce our front-end power consumption by nearly 40 percent, which means we are well and truly on our way to becoming carbon-neutral by our 2010 goal," said Johnston.

For the future, BNZ has adopted a long-term strategic view that incorporates expanded use of Red Hat Enterprise Linux throughout its IT architecture. "Introducing Red Hat Enterprise Linux into the organisation has breathed new enthusiasm and life into the business and the people behind it. This project has been a gateway for us, and working with Red Hat has opened our eyes to what's possible with open source," said Johnston.