2 page Case Study - Posted 11/16/2009

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Banca IFIS

Bank Decreases Processing Time by 75 Percent with High-Performance Computing Solution

Banca IFIS wanted to speed up its batch processing to meet an increase in customer demand for services. The bank worked with its partner Teamlab to migrate its existing Electronic Credit Line Management application to the Windows® HPC Server 2008 operating system. Doing so helped the bank reduce its batch-processing times by 75 percent, ensure high availability, and avoid purchasing additional hardware to accommodate the heightened demand.

Business Needs

Banca IFIS provides financial support to small and midsize businesses that need credit to make significant changes, bring new products to market, expand, and weather an economic downturn. Banca IFIS has experienced an increase in its number of new customers as more small businesses continue to seek credit during the global economic recession.

That growth presents certain challenges for the bank. For example, Banca IFIS uses its Electronic Credit Line Management application to automate several customer-related processes, such as factoring credit authorizations, managing customer information, and completing composite risk evaluations of prospective debtors. The bank built the application in partnership with Teamlab, a Swiss financial services software developer.

As its number of customers grew, Banca IFIS pushed the limits of its application. Of particular concern was the “financial maneuvers” function, which activates a batch process that recursively computes data in a business database, correctly repositioning financial conditions for the various products and services provided to customers. The process—which took approximately 12 hours to complete prior to the rise in customers—began to take longer and demand an increasingly large proportion of the bank’s available computing resources.

“Working with financial markets requires significant and relatively frequent variations to be applied to financial conditions for thousands of customers and transferred debtors,” explains Giovanni Bossi, Managing Director at Banca IFIS. “We expected an influx of customers, and we saw that our data recalculation times for factoring management procedures risked compromising the proper operation of our applications infrastructure.” The bank wanted to not only reduce batch-processing times but also increase the availability of application services—without making any major, costly hardware upgrades.

Solution

Banca IFIS decided to redefine its Electronic Credit Line Management application by shifting from a sequential logic to a high-performance parallel computing process. For such a computing environment, Teamlab proposed using the Windows® HPC Server 2008 operating system, which it identified as the best high-performance data processing product—one that could be implemented without creating infrastructure issues for the bank.

Now that it runs on Windows HPC Server 2008, our financial maneuvers process takes a maximum of about three processing hours, which is 75 percent less time than before. Giovanni Bossi Managing Director, Banca IFIS

Teamlab developers defined a migration path to convert the application’s sequential logic into logic for a new parallel computing environment. They used Windows HPC Server 2008 to make multiple, parallel calls to Windows Communication Foundation on a given number of physical or virtual server computers, while providing the required infrastructural recovery, restart, and failover services. Developers also quickly reorganized the process logic and updating services to ensure full integration with Windows HPC Server 2008. The data access layer and workflow processes did not require any changes to operate on Windows HPC Server 2008.

Within two months, following a testing and fine-tuning phase, the bank rolled out the new application using five virtual server computers. “Teamlab has a clear understanding of our IT infrastructure and operating needs—and of Microsoft technology,” says Bossi. “The project took very little time to complete and caused no implementation issues. Plus, we’ve had no problems in the subsequent management of our environment and core business.”

Based on its successful migration of this application to Windows HPC Server 2008, Banca IFIS plans to apply the same logic to its other applications that use complex algorithms and mixed data sources.

Benefits

Using Windows HPC Server 2008, Banca IFIS significantly reduced data-processing times and provided maximum system availability, helping the bank accommodate the recent surge in new customers. The bank also quickly evolved a process that, in the past, required excessive linear processing times. “This project demonstrated the effectiveness of Windows HPC Server 2008 and provided us with a rapid, satisfying response to a problem that threatened to become critical within a short time,” says Bossi.

Dramatic Reduction in Processing Times

The bank’s new environment has greatly reduced batch-process times. “Now that it runs on Windows HPC Server 2008, our financial maneuvers process takes a maximum of about three processing hours, which is 75 percent less time than before,” says Bossi.

Greater System Availability

Banca IFIS now has full availability of application services for its daily operations because the Electronic Credit Line Management application no longer interrupts regular activities. Comments Bossi, “We’re pleased with the availability of our new high-performance, parallel computing environment.”

Cost Avoidance

The bank did not have to purchase expensive hardware to accommodate its new high-performance computing environment and ensure consistent performance. “We acquired our solution at a substantially lower cost with Windows HPC Server 2008 than we could have with the equivalent hardware that companies often purchase to resolve individual application problems,” says Bossi.

Ability to Extend Architecture

Banca IFIS plans to use its experience to enhance processes and applications throughout the bank, such as treasury and ratings calculations. “The straightforward management tools that come with Windows HPC Server 2008 will help us with further applications using high-performance parallel computing logic,” says Bossi.