STORAGE

By Uwe Harms - Munich, Commerzbank AG, Frankfurt, the well known German Bank reduced its cost realizing the initiative "Efficient IT Production". It resulted in a slim organization and an optimized operation. The starting point was 19 Sun Microsystems Enterprise 10000, 5 Fujitsu-Siemens Computers (FSC) PrimePowers and several midrange servers of both vendors. The checking of the offerings of Sun and FSC, Commerzbank decided to accept the Sun package. It was the most economic offering and reduced costs as well realized the removal into the new computer center and improved the performance by about 20%. Businesses in the bank arena are difficult and the risks are growing. Therefore financial services providers have a high interest in cost reduction wherever. A major priority has the information processing infrastructure and management of all the systems. In 2001 Commerzbank AG started its cost reduction and server consolidation initiative "Efficient It Production". It is one of the biggest Solaris users worldwide, they operated 19 Sun Enterprise 10000, 5 Fujitsu Siemens Computers (FSC) Primepower 2000 and several midrange servers like Sun 4800/6800 and FSC M800. The FSC servers are used primarily for SAP applications, for example HR (Human Resources), personnel planning, or MM (Material Management) and the traveling costs of the employees. The Sun servers are used for different applications in the investment banking, for example risk analysis. In 2002 both vendors presented their proposals for the server consolidation and the removal. Within the "Financial Engineering Concept" the winner had to take over the whole installed base, including the machines of the competition, and to consolidate the computer center. In the end there should be a renewed, homogeneous server landscape, which Commerzbank then will lease. Additionally the machines have to be installed in a new computer center in 2002, following a prescribed schedule. The result of this project should be a significant cost reduction in the production environment and probably an improvement of the performance. Commerzbank AG checked the Fujitsu Siemens Computer and the Sun Microsystems offerings and decided for Sun. The Sun package for cost reduction, the removal and the performance improvements by UltraSPARC processors was the most economic one for the bank. In the first step Sun reduced installed 7 Sun Fire E15K, with 900 MHz SPARC CPUs, and 9 Sun Fire E10K, 466 MHz CPUs. This reduced the total number form 24 computers to 16. As the new computer room had more floor space, it was possible for Sun, to install not fully equipped computers. This allows in the future - in the second phase - to add additional SPARC processors instead of new machines, following new performance requirements. The Sun Fire E15K allows the parallel operation of differently clocked processors in one partition. Thus the new GHz processors can operate in the 900 MHz SPARC environment. The reduced number of servers and the path to new technologies reduced the administration and maintenance costs. A side-effect of the faster processors and the well-balanced architecture of the Sun Fire E15K was the performance improved of about 20%. The removal took place end of last year and all the machines are in full production without any problems. Additionally a Commerzbank Team migrated and consolidated applications too, sometimes to new versions of Solaris. Solaris is very important in the banking world, as the application software for the investment banking was developed on Solaris platforms. This operating system is always the first choice, here the newest versions of the software are available first. Other operating systems, if they are supported, always follow later. The Commerzbank and Sun Professional Services (PS) implemented the new server infrastructure. Sun PS realized a SunReady Availability Assessment (SRAA). This assures that the defined service level agreements are fulfilled and the stability of the systems are improved regularly. In the mainframe environment operational standards and process chains are available and have grown and ripened over the decades. The professional operations in these big Unix computer centers are new and have to be realized following the standards in the mainframe world. The Commerzbank uses ITIL (IT Infrastructure Library) for the service and operations management. SRAA of Sun Microsystems is based on ITIL too. Thus the operational approaches of both enterprises fit very well. The ITIL books are best practice guidelines for service management, with the guidelines describing what rather than how. Service management is tailored to the size, the internal culture and, above all, the requirements of the company. To the Service Support belong the Service Desk, Configuration, Incident, Problem, Release and Change Management. In the Service Delivery we find Service Level, Financial, Capacity, Availability, IT Continuity and Security Management. ITIL describes a systematic, professional approach to managing IT services. These ITIL guidelines are very interesting for the Unix world. Details and the history can be found on the ITIL web site. http://www.itil.org http://www.commerzbank.de