1-page Solution Brief - Posted 10/16/2007
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Personnel at Islamic Bank Respond to Messages on the Move Using E-mail System
Employees at Dubai Islamic Bank need Internet-based and mobile access to e-mail to meet their business goals. With the existing IBM Lotus Notes running on UNIX, they lacked the remote tools to send and receive e-mails on the move. To achieve this, the bank rolled out Microsoft® Exchange Server 2007, ensuring people could access their messages securely online or through mobile devices.
Business Needs
Executives at Dubai Islamic Bank have to travel regularly across the Middle East. The bank has assets of more than £101 billion (U.S.$200 billion) and offices in Turkey and Iran. In 2006, it launched new operations in Pakistan and Sudan. These executives play a key role in helping the bank develop outside its traditional United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.) market. While on the move, they need to communicate regularly with colleagues and customers and rely heavily on e-mail.
The bank, which has led the way in delivering modern banking services while following traditional Islamic values, operated the same IBM Lotus Notes e-mail running on a UNIX infrastructure across the UAE for more than six years. However, with user numbers expanding and increasing demand for Internet-based and mobile connectivity, the environment needed a refresh.
Employees lacked the tools to connect to their inboxes outside the office. They were forced to use telephones to communicate with colleagues and customers, and check schedules while on the move. Alternatively, people had to use personal e-mail accounts to receive messages. Furthermore, IT administrators tackled system failures on a daily basis and worked with a system that required greater redundancy for such a business-critical environment.
Mohammed Aslam, Group IT Infrastructure Manager of Dubai Islamic Bank, says: “We had a huge telephone bill as a result of not having an e-mail facility outside the office because workers who needed to contact colleagues or customers had to use their phones. Alternatively, they used their personal e-mail accounts, but this lacked the necessary level of protection and storage safeguards.”
Solution
Dubai Islamic Bank turned to Microsoft for a solution. In 2005, when the bank launched its operation in Pakistan, it rolled out a Microsoft® Exchange Server 2003 infrastructure to ensure executives had remote access to e-mail. For example, with the Microsoft Office Outlook® 2003 client connecting to Exchange Server 2003 using remote procedure call (RPC) over HTTPS, executives had secure Internet-based access to inboxes.
Aslam says: “Employee feedback on Exchange Server 2003 had been really positive, prompting us to contact Microsoft.” He adds that a large number of personnel in U.A.E. had also configured their Lotus Notes e-mail to make it accessible through an Office Outlook interface—highlighting the clear preference for a Microsoft solution.
Dubai Islamic Bank chose not to update the existing Lotus Notes running on UNIX infrastructure and instead began discussions with Microsoft Services to roll out Exchange Server 2003. At the time, the bank was in the process of making all U.A.E. users part of a single Active Directory® directory services domain. It was also a few months prior to the release of the latest-version 64-bit Microsoft Exchange Server 2007. Microsoft Services highlighted the clear benefits of moving both U.A.E. users and those in Pakistan to Exchange Server 2007, and deployed the solution in mid 2007.
For personnel, the Internet-based and mobile access features are vital and include:
- Office Outlook for RPC over HTTPS for secure Internet-based connections using Office Outlook client in cached mode.
- Microsoft ActiveSync® delivering direct “push” e-mail to multiple mobile solutions, including Windows Mobile® 2005-based handsets and BlackBerry devices.
- Outlook Web Access for secure Internet-based connection using Internet Explorer.
Exchange Server 2007 ensures enterprise-class redundancy and disaster recovery. For instance, the continuous cluster replication (CCR) services maximise availability by replicating data in an active/passive server cluster. Data recorded on the active server node is copied to the passive server node. Here the nodes are in separate data centres to improve disaster recovery.
Benefits
Dubai Islamic Bank employees in U.A.E. and Pakistan have an e-mail system that supports them when they work away from their offices and want to access inboxes across the Internet or using mobile devices. In addition, they have a stable messaging infrastructure that protects important data and maximises responsiveness to colleagues’ or customers’ enquires. IT personnel have also reduced the amount of time spent performing routine tasks around the e-mail infrastructure and can concentrate on more strategic work. Finally, the company has created a solid foundation to build new messaging solutions that help increase the value of information workers for driving new business.
- Personnel travel the world promoting the business while accessing messages.
- Executives are responsive to the needs of colleagues and customers regardless of location.
- Workers access shared calendars while travelling to improve programme planning.
- People on the move using a variety of devices can still access their inboxes.
- An intuitive and familiar interface ensures people need only a few hours training, reducing costs and increasing speed of adoption.
- IT employees save, on average, five hours in a normal five-day week previously spent managing the Lotus Notes infrastructure.
- Workers see new security and antivirus protection reduces spamming and the threat of network intruders.
- Employees now look forward to new information worker solutions, such as instant messaging using Microsoft Office Live Communications Server 2005.
