Johannesburg, 30 Apr 2010
IT systems, software, hardware and consulting services provider, Datacentrix has completed a major upgrading of critical data storage capacity for community banking and related financial services provider, Teba Bank.
A leading, black-empowered IT company focused on providing computing power and solutions that generate business value, Datacentrix was asked to present a proposal to extend and upgrade the existing Teba Bank Storage Area Networks (SAN).
Marius Bosman, chief technology officer at Teba Bank, says the upgrade was prompted by rapid growth in the business, which had led to a "tidal wave" of additional data requiring storage. "We were running out of capacity needed to expand our resources, and as a result, evaluated a number of storage systems through major vendors."
A solution using IBM XIV storage hardware was proposed by Datacentrix, an IBM Premier Partner of long standing. According to Bosman, this proposal was selected because it represented a paradigm shift in storage technology.
"It enabled so-called second tier storage to be elevated to first tier technology, but at second tier cost. For a smaller bank like Teba, obtaining tier one performance at lower cost was an attractive proposition."
Integration capability to allow IBM-to-IBM data transfer was also required and implemented. "The speed with which the solution was implemented - just four weeks from order placement to go-live - was a bonus, as was the three-day period it took from equipment delivery to commissioning," adds Bosman.
"This was a painless exercise for us. The transition from the old SAN to the new IBM solution took place transparently in the background and was completed flawlessly within a week. The process was handled in a first-class manner, slick and professional."
Three storage sites, two at Teba Bank's headquarters in Sunninghill and a disaster recovery site in Midrand, were upgraded with the new IBM equipment, considerably extending the terabytes available for storage and providing spare capacity for future dynamic growth.
"We have tested the new storage solution on its ability to replicate and have been pleased to see serious savings in the making of back-ups and in restoration and recovery. It is efficient and very quick," said Bosman, who adds that, to his knowledge, the Datacentrix implementation of the new IBM XIV system was only the second of its kind internationally at that time.
"This is critical technology for Teba Bank as any form of outage or loss of our core banking, accounts and customer master data will impact on our customers and place the business recovery capability at risk. We have to achieve 24/7 availability at all times."
Datacentrix account manager, Kobus Smith, says the solution proposal for Teba Bank had been focused on enabling the business to continue to grow and providing the flexibility required for success in a changing business landscape. “We also set out to ensure that the new storage infrastructure will cost-effectively and efficiently provide the required data security as well as a platform for future dynamic growth."
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