2 page Case Study - Posted 5/6/2008

Views: 495

Rate This Evidence:

Banco Azteca

Fast-Growing Bank Maximizes Technology, Improving Efficiency and Customer Service

To keep pace with performance demands and update its IT environment, Banco Azteca decided to migrate its applications to a Windows Server®-based operating system. Unable to fully migrate the core banking system, Alnova, to Windows Server 2003, the bank began testing Windows Server 2008. Windows Server 2008 was fully compatible with Alnova and also improved performance in Web server layers, reducing the input/output queue from 30 per minute to 2.

Business Needs

In 2002, Banco Azteca revolutionized banking in Mexico by focusing on low-income customers and offering them the opportunity to open savings accounts for as little as 50 pesos (U.S.$5.00). “No one believed that low-income families would save money,” says Luis Niño de Rivera, Vice President, Banco Azteca, “but we now have $3 billion on deposit.” Banco Azteca is currently one of the largest banks in Mexico, with over 8 million customers.

With Windows Server 2008 we … anticipate the Web and application performance enhancements will result in faster transaction response time for our customers and improved performance overall. Angel I. Montes Beltran Operations Analyst, Banco Azteca

To keep pace with its growth, Banco Azteca decided to migrate its applications to 64-bit technology in Windows Server-based operating systems. It began by migrating its database servers to a 7 terabyte Very Large Database (VLDB) Microsoft SQL Server 2005 database running a Windows Server 2003 cluster. It also migrated Web servers to Windows Server 2003, and the non-OLTP (online transaction processing) application servers to Windows 2000 Server. The bank deployed Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2003 Datacenter Edition for Itanium-based Systems, but was unable to migrate all of the batch processing components of its Alnova Financial Solution using Windows Services for UNIX (SFU) version 3.5 included with the operating system.

Alnova, a mainframe-based program, is the bank’s most important banking application. Banco Azteca uses Alnova to capture financial transactions and handle queries that are made by customers in branch offices and on the Web, processing over one million transactions per day.

Banco Azteca began looking for a solution that would allow it to fully migrate Alnova to the Windows Server environment, while also increasing operating efficiencies.

Solution

To keep its IT environment aligned with business needs and strategies, Banco Azteca decided to participate in Microsoft’s Rapid Deployment Program for the Windows Server 2008 operating system. Banco Azteca deployed Windows Server 2008 on HP Integrity rx4640 and SuperDome 64B server computers in a test environment to determine whether the improved integration capabilities of the Subsystem for UNIX-based Applications (SUA) feature would support complete migration of Alnova to the Windows Server environment.

“We implemented a test environment by installing Windows Server 2008 on both a Web server and an application server in order to run performance and stress tests in a simulated target environment,” says Angel I. Montes Beltran, Operations Analyst, Banco Azteca. “We also implemented a test environment by installing Windows Server 2003 on a Web server and Windows 2000 Server on an application server in order to run the same tests in a simulated environment similar to the one currently operating in the bank.”

Banco Azteca conducted a comparative performance analysis of the current environment versus the target Windows Server 2008 environment by:

• Injecting 4,200 transactions to a testing environment like the one in production: a Web server running Windows Server 2003, an application server running Windows 2000 Server, and SQL Server 2005 running Windows Server 2003. Banco Azteca used a cloned backup of the 7 terabyte VLDB SQL Server 2005 database in production. 
• Injecting the same amount of transactions to the target environment: the Web and application server running Windows Server 2008 and SQL Server 2005 running Windows Server 2003.  
• Conducting these tests again, this time injecting over 70,000 transactions.

Benefits

The comparative analysis showed that Alnova is fully compatible with Windows Server 2008, and that the new operating system also improves performance in the bank’s Web server layer.

Improved Performance

Banco Azteca’s tests revealed the following performance enhancements:

• The input/output (I/O) queue was much shorter in Windows Server 2008─2 per minute versus 30 per minute in Windows Server 2003.
• Windows Server 2008 exhibited 23.5 times less page swapping than Windows Server 2003, which means less I/O and better performance.
• Windows Server 2008 used 3.6 times less central processing unit (CPU) time than Windows Server 2003.
• Windows Server 2008 exhibited 375 times fewer CPU interruptions than Windows Server 2003.
• Windows Server 2008 used 4.2 times less CPU capacity than Windows Server 2003. Windows Server 2003 reached its maximum CPU capacity processing 45,000 transactions per hour during the last minutes of the stress testing.
  

More Efficient Load Management

Windows Server 2008 used 52 percent more threads to manage the transaction load more quickly and efficiently.

The only exception to these improvements was Alnova’s COBOL application (in the application server layer), which will need to be recompiled as soon as a compiler for  Windows Server 2008 is released.

Based on the success of the pilot, Banco Azteca plans to immediately update its Web server layer to Windows Server 2008. As soon as the COBOL compiler is released, the bank will perform a phased migration of the remaining servers.

Montes Beltran concludes, “With Windows Server 2008 we will be able to fully migrate Alnova using the enhanced SUA features. We anticipate the Web and application performance enhancements will result in faster transaction response time for our customers and improved performance overall.”

Windows Server 2008
Windows Server 2008, with built-in web and virtualization technologies, enables you to increase the reliability and flexibility of your server infrastructure. New virtualization tools, web resources, and security enhancements help you save time, reduce costs, and provide a platform for a dynamic and optimized datacenter. Powerful new tools like IIS 7.0, Server Manager, and Windows PowerShell, allow you to have more control over your servers and streamline web, configuration, and management tasks.  Advanced security and reliability enhancements like Network Access Protection and the Read-Only Domain Controller option for Active Directory Domain Services harden the operating system and protect your server environment to ensure you have a solid foundation on which to build your business.

For more information, go to:
www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008