4-page Case Study - Posted 5/11/2007

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Banco Central de Costa Rica

Costa Rica’s Central Bank Uses 64-Bit System for Greater Performance, Reliability

Ensuring that monetary transactions go smoothly between banks, financial services firms, and the federal government is a mission-critical responsibility for the Banco Central de Costa Rica (BCCR). For several years, the technology platform that the BCCR used for these tasks ran on a system using 32-bit hardware and software. To improve the overall performance of the system and to prepare for future growth, the BCCR decided to migrate its database servers to a pure 64-bit computing platform that runs on Windows Server® 2003 Enterprise x64 Edition operating system and the Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2005 database. The software, combined with new 64-bit IBM server hardware, is helping the bank improve the performance of financial transactions, increase the reliability of the system, and attain scalability that will enable the transaction system to grow with future demand and new financial services.

Situation

The Banco Central de Costa Rica (BCCR) has a role in Costa Rica that is similar to one that the Federal Reserve Bank plays in the United States. The BCCR is responsible for the internal and external stability of the country’s monetary unit—the colón—and its conversion to other currencies in international transactions.

We were mandated to get ‘five 9s’ uptime, but at this point we are getting better than that. Since our deployment, the system has not been out a single second.  Glenn Burgos Server Coordinator Banco Central de Costa Rica

One of the most important technology platforms operated by the BCCR is the Sistema Interbancario de Negociación y Pagos Electrónicos (SINPE), a nationwide network that is used for negotiating and clearing electronic payments. It processes an average of 2.7 million transactions a month. The SINPE network connects many different kinds of financial organizations, including local and regional banks, insurance companies, brokerage firms, the Costa Rican tax agency, and other kinds of financial services organizations.

Since 2003, the bank has operated SINPE on the Windows Server® 2003 Enterprise Edition operating system and the Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2000 database. About every three years the bank upgrades its hardware to ensure a high degree of performance and availability for the SINPE system. Last year, during its hardware evaluation process, the bank’s IT staff also began considering the idea of moving the SINPE database servers to a 64-bit computing platform.

“We received a mandate from our Financial Services Director that required us to provide ‘five 9s’ of availability,” Glenn Burgos, Server Coordinator for the BCCR, says, referring to the IT goal of having near-perfect operational stability of 99.999 percent uptime for SINPE.

“When we were evaluating the possibilities for a hardware upgrade, we looked at the 64-bit options from Intel. However, our applications were not designed or tested to run in a pure 64-bit environment. We were concerned that we might not be able to get the maximum performance out of SQL Server 2000 if we installed it on the 64-bit hardware.”

Burgos says this dilemma put the bank at a crossroads in terms of upgrading the SINPE system for the future.

Solution

Working with Microsoft representatives in Costa Rica, the BCCR decided to migrate the SINPE database servers to a pure 64-bit Windows® architecture using the Windows Server 2003 Datacenter x64 Edition operating system and the Microsoft SQL Server 2005 database. Both take advantage of the features of 64-bit hardware, including the ability to use much more system memory than 32-bit systems. Data in memory is accessed thousands of times faster than it is on a disk drive, offering a tremendous performance boost for the SINPE system.

Due to the mission-critical nature of SINPE, the BCCR IT team began by moving its operating system to the 64-bit Windows Server edition in December 2006. The bank is gradually migrating its database information from Microsoft SQL Server 2000 to SQL Server 2005, a process that is scheduled for completion in May 2007. The bank plans to eventually move the entire SINPE system to the 64-bit platform.

The database system is deployed on a total of 11 IBM X Series servers. Most of the database servers currently are equipped with 8 gigabytes of RAM. Two of the servers running SQL Server 2000 are clustered for failover protection, and the bank also uses one of the servers for online analytical processing (OLAP).

Benefits

By moving the SINPE database servers to the 64-bit Windows platform, the BCCR has achieved several benefits that will help maintain the confidence that the bank’s institutional customers have come to rely on. The performance of the SINPE system has increased dramatically, helping speed transactions among financial institutions.

The reliability of the system has been enhanced, helping the BCCR IT team easily respond to the mandate for “five 9s” operational stability. The SINPE system is now also more scalable so that the bank can continue to expand the system in the future to meet the country’s financial needs.

Because of its scalability, the 64-bit Windows software is as valuable an investment as the new hardware that we buy for ensuring the performance and integrity of the SINPE system.  Glenn Burgos Server Coordinator Banco Central de Costa Rica

High Performance for Financial Transactions

A key role of BCCR is to ensure that transactions move between different parties quickly and efficiently. Burgos says that by moving SINPE to the 64-bit Windows technology, BCCR is able to handle very high volumes of transactions.

“Currently we are handling about 2.75 million transactions a month,” Burgos says. “The big difference between the 32-bit and 64-bit systems is that the activity going through the SINPE database servers can take advantage of the 64-bit version’s ability to use much more system memory. Plus we can always add memory as demands increase.”

Greater Reliability with 64-Bit Platform

Burgos says that the reliability of the SINPE system, although very good in the past, has now exceeded expectations after the migration to the 64-bit system.

“After the migration was completed, one of the things that we noticed is that the event logs are almost always very clear—they rarely display any problems,” says Burgos. “Normally, we expect some warnings that there has been problematic activity in the system. But this simply has not occurred following the deployment of the 64-bit Windows technology.”

He says that the new database system has made it easy to reach the mandated reliability level of “five 9s.”

“In the past with the 32-bit platform, we would sometimes have to reboot because of unexpected activities. That has simply not happened since we’ve installed the 64-bit system on our database servers. At this point, nearly four months into production, we have not had any suspicious activity, and more uptime than we originally planned for. We were mandated to get ‘five 9s’ uptime, but at this point we are getting better than that. Since our deployment, the system has not been out a single second.”

More Scalability for Growth

Another benefit of the new 64-bit Windows platform is that it helps the bank protect its investments over the long term. Burgos explains that because the BCCR is publicly funded, the bank’s IT department does not have a lot of flexibility in making hardware purchases. The IT department has to evaluate and plan its buying very carefully, and has to follow a series of procedures every time it needs to make new hardware purchases.

“When we make an important hardware investment, we have to make sure that the investment is going to be good for us for several years,” he says. “If we acquire a new server that gets close to its maximum performance level in the second year, we need the assurance that it can be scaled up for the rest of the period that it will be in production. And if our software programmers design a new service that will affect our servers, we need to know that our systems will be able to respond to dynamic changes in our environment.”

The 64-bit Windows environment helps assure the IT department and bank management that the SINPE system will be able to adapt to changes and demands down the road. “If the situation arises that we need to scale up the amount of memory that we need to handle more transactions or new services,” he says. He adds that after the deployment, CPU utilization was reduced by 48 percent, which means there is more capacity for dealing with increased workload.

“We are very confident that the 64-bit Windows environment will be able to respond to growth needs,” Burgos says. “Because of its scalability, the 64-bit Windows software is as valuable an investment as the new hardware that we buy for ensuring the performance and integrity of the SINPE system.”

For More Information

For more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (877) 568-2495. Customers who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234 in the United States or (905) 568-9641 in Canada. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to:
www.microsoft.com

For more information about Banco Central de Costa Rica products and services, visit the Web site at:
www.bccr.fi.cr

Windows Server 2003

The Windows Server 2003 family helps organizations do more with less. Now you can run your IT infrastructure more efficiently, build better applications faster, and deliver the best infrastructure for enhancing user productivity. And you can do all this faster, more securely, and at lower cost.

For more information about Windows Server 2003, please visit:
www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003

This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.

Document published April 2007