A Case Study of a Major Financial Institution
How to Consolidate IT Infrastructure Management Amid Rapid Growth and High Availability Requirements
About the Client
A major banking organization in the South American region, holding a leading position in the financial sector, is pursuing an aggressive growth strategy through mergers and acquisitions.
The company's business model places extremely high demands on the fault tolerance and availability of its IT services. Its core systems must function in 24/7/365 mode, as even a brief downtime leads to direct financial losses, disruption of operational processes, and significant reputational damage.
Initial State Before the Project
At the project's outset, the bank's IT infrastructure was a complex conglomerate of disparate systems, shaped by numerous mergers and organic growth:
- Its own core Tier III data center, serving as the primary host for critical banking systems.
- Three regional data centers providing redundancy and low latency for customers in key locations.
- A network of 10+ branches, geographically distributed across the country.
Management of this environment was fragmented. Both the central and regional data centers lacked a unified management system—each site used its own set of tools. Processes for deployment, OS reinstalls, and hardware replacement required engineers to be physically present, taking anywhere from several days to weeks. Keeping inventory data up-to-date demanded significant manual effort from engineering staff. The absence of a centralized inventory system meant the customer had no clear view of their physical hardware's status.
Resolving most server-related incidents required dispatching a technical specialist to the specific site, as the local IT staff lacked the necessary expertise to handle these issues effectively. The equipment in the branches, inherited from acquired organizations, varied significantly, making it difficult for the customer to apply standardized management procedures.
IT assets from merged organizations were transferred with minimal documentation. The process of integrating them into the common infrastructure was lengthy (6–9 months) and required substantial resources.
Consequently, the bank's infrastructure was not a unified landscape but rather a collection of loosely coupled components. Managing this environment carried significant operational risks that directly threatened key business metrics.
Challenges
The IT infrastructure management architecture in place at the project's start created a set of interconnected problems that directly negatively impacted the bank's business metrics and complicated its further development. The client faced the following challenges.
Significant IT staff resources were consumed by routine operations—deploying equipment, physically resolving outages in branches, and manually collecting and updating inventory data. This diverted specialists from strategic tasks, such as developing IT services.
The constant need to dispatch engineers to resolve issues in regional data centers and branches led to a continuous increase in operational expenditures (OPEX).
The 6–9 month period for integrating the assets of an acquired bank was unacceptable from a competitive standpoint. The bank incurred financial and operational losses due to the inability to quickly realize the synergistic benefits of the deal. Each new acquisition exacerbated the problem of heterogeneity and lack of standardization in the IT landscape, increasing the total cost of ownership.
Restoring a branch's operations after equipment failure could, in some cases, take several hours. For the business, this meant direct losses from halted operations, customer dissatisfaction, and reputational damage. The lack of a centralized toolset for rapid response to hardware failures in data centers posed a real threat to meeting SLAs for the availability of critical banking systems.
Due to outdated and incomplete data on IT assets, it was extremely difficult to plan modernization, optimize resource allocation, and build a justified budget. The client lacked a single, reliable picture of the physical infrastructure's state, which complicated risk management and strategic decision-making processes.
Project Goals and Objectives
To overcome the identified challenges and transform IT infrastructure management, a set of goals and specific, measurable objectives was established.
Project Goals:
- Increase operational efficiency and reduce IT infrastructure operating costs.
- Ensure compliance with 24/7 availability requirements for critical banking services.
- Create a unified management framework for the bank's entire physical IT infrastructure.
- Standardize equipment management processes across all bank divisions.
Project Objectives:
- Implement a single platform for managing data center and branch equipment, consolidating 100% of IT asset data.
- Reduce the number of technical specialist dispatches to branches by 75% within the first year of the solution's operation.
- Implement 24/7 monitoring of physical equipment status with integration into the existing incident management system.
- Automate at least 80% of routine equipment management operations in the branch network.
- Reduce the mean time to recovery (MTTR) for branch hardware failures to 30 minutes.
- Shorten the integration timeline for IT assets from acquired organizations from 6-9 months to 3 months.
- Enable remote management of server hardware.
Solution Requirements
The DCImanager platform was selected as the core solution. The key selection criteria were:
Its ability to manage hardware from different vendors, which was critically important given the numerous mergers.
Capabilities for mass automation of routine operations.
A single interface for managing equipment across diverse locations.
A flexible API for deep integration with the bank's existing systems.
These specific features made DCImanager the foundation for building the target management architecture that met all the project's strategic goals.
Project Implementation
During the preparatory phase, the bank's IT specialists, with active involvement from ISPsystem's technical experts, conducted a detailed assessment of the existing infrastructure. To mitigate risks, test benches were deployed to practice all equipment management procedures, and training was organized for the bank's IT department staff.
The first practical step was the implementation of DCImanager in the central data center. There, the platform automated the management of physical servers, network gear, and other equipment. The implementation team configured centralized hardware status monitoring and automated routine management operations, significantly increasing the fault tolerance of the critical infrastructure.
The next phase involved scaling the solution to the regional data centers and the branch network. Following the successful deployment in the central data center, the bank's IT department developed standardized configurations for branch equipment, enabling unified management approaches across the entire distributed infrastructure. The phased onboarding of branches was accompanied by rigorous testing.
Special attention was paid to integrating DCImanager with the bank's existing systems. In the final stage, integrations were configured with the SIEM system for security event collection and with the Service Desk for automating hardware-related tickets.
The project was completed on schedule, thanks to thorough preparation and the coordinated work of ISPsystem's support engineers and the client's internal specialists. The active participation of the platform's developers enabled the efficient resolution of emerging technical issues and the adaptation of the system to the specific requirements of the banking infrastructure.
Key Features of the Implemented Solutions
DCImanager was integrated to automate the management of the physical infrastructure, providing the following key capabilities:
Multi-Vendor Support
DCImanager supports hardware from most major vendors. The platform enables administrators to manage equipment from different vendors through a single interface, including rackmount and blade servers, switches, PDUs, and UPSs. This allowed the client to consolidate management of all existing hardware, including legacy equipment inherited from acquired organizations.
Physical Infrastructure Health Monitoring
DCImanager continuously monitors the physical infrastructure: servers, network equipment, PDUs, and UPSs. If the system detects abnormal load or other errors, administrators receive immediate notifications, allowing for faster problem resolution. This helped the bank shift from reactive to proactive management, preventing disruptions before they could impact business processes.
Geographically Distributed Infrastructure Management
DCImanager allows for the management of IT infrastructure regardless of its physical location. This enabled the client to centrally manage all 10+ branches and regional data centers from a single point, drastically reducing the need for on-site dispatches and accelerating issue resolution.
Automated IT Inventory Management
The Equipment Accounting module tracks equipment both in the infrastructure and in warehouse stock. This allowed the client to rapidly conduct technology audits of acquired organizations and accurately plan infrastructure upgrades.
Updating BMC and BIOS/UEFI server firmware, Including from an Internal Repository
DCImanager allows for centralized storage of BMC and server BIOS/UEFI firmware in a dedicated repository—a firmware library. This ensured standardization of firmware across the entire equipment fleet and reduced the risk of failures associated with outdated versions, especially in remote branches.
Hardware Configuration Compliance Control
DCImanager enables control over server configuration consistency through the Server Profiles module. This ensured the organization maintained compliance with security and configuration standards across the entire distributed infrastructure, which is particularly crucial for meeting regulatory requirements.
Results and Future Plans
The implementation of the DCImanager platform enabled the bank to achieve significant operational and financial results:
Increased Operational Efficiency
Engineer dispatches to branches were reduced by 82%, and the mean time to restore branch operations after hardware failures was cut down to 30 minutes.
Ensured High IT Infrastructure Reliability
Overall availability of critical IT services increased to 99.99%. 87% of hardware incidents in branches are now resolved remotely without on-site personnel, and the integration time for IT assets post-merger was reduced from 6-9 months to 3 months.
Improved Financial Metrics
Operational expenses for infrastructure support decreased by 35%. Annual savings on technical specialists' travel costs reached 40%. The reduction in branch downtime generated an additional $2 million in revenue annually.