Hypo Investment Bank (Liechtenstein) AG

Investment Bank Chooses Solaris 10, Sun Servers and Sun Storage in a Complete Restructuring of IT Environment

Hypo Investment Bank (Liechtenstein) AG (www.hypo.li), headquartered in Vaduz, was founded in 1998. The institution’s share capital amounts to 20 million Swiss francs. As of December 31, 2005, the bank had twenty-nine employees. The sole shareholder of Hypo Investment Bank (Liechtenstein) AG is the Vorarlberger Landes- und Hypothekenbank Aktiengesellschaft. It has approximately five hundred employees and its total revenues are around 8 billion euros. The bank carries Moody’s top credit rating of AAA.

Customer Challenges

Find an operating system with a guaranteed future
Achieve scalability for new users and applications
Gain flexibility to integrate SWIFT or SIC credit standards
Develop mirrored disaster recovery site

Solution

Hypo Investment Bank (Liechtenstein) AG of Vaduz completely replaced its IT infrastructure to serve customers more quickly and comprehensively, and to integrate new applications into its SunGard APSYS environment. The bank is also now ready to build a second computer center to enhance security and disaster recovery.

Business Results

Improved customer service performance and effectiveness
Gained flexibility to add compliance application to environment
Gained projected ability to mirror environment for disaster recovery

Products and Services

Story Details

After receiving an announcement that Tru64 UNIX operating system was being discontinued, Hypo Investment Bank (Liechtenstein) AG of Vaduz began searching for a solution with a solid future. The old system with HP hardware and an Ingres database had been pushed as far as it would go. When it was new, the bank had fifteen users. Now there were thirty-five. On top of that, new applications had been added.

After a detailed evaluation, IT management decided to completely replace its IT systems. The bank chose a Sun solution from SoSyS AG. Key reasons why included a system design that better fit requirements, increased flexibility, and the positive experience of many years of prior collaboration with SoSyS AG. In addition, it was important to the bank that the external systems engineer who worked in close cooperation with SoSyS would also help migrate the bank to the new platform and be available for future consultation.

" With the second level of construction, we can mirror the system environment and thus we will achieve a higher level of fail-safe security. In the face of the growing volume of business of our bank, that makes a lot of sense – because it’s all about prevention. "

— Sabine Bergner, IT Head, Hypo Investment Bank

The solution is built around Sun Fire 440 servers, a Sun StorageTek 3320 SCSI array, a Sun StorageTek LTO 3 Tape Drive, and Solaris 10 Operating System. The bank also chose an Oracle Database 10g and the most recent version of the APSYS bank application from SunGard. A SunSpectrum Support agreement provides prompt resolution of any problem that may arise.

The first step was hardware installation, which began in the middle of September 2006. In early October 2006, the team used a test database to inspect functionality of the new APSYS release version 1.10 P5. At the same time, the printers and the APSYS clients were installed. When software installation was complete, Sabine Bergner, IT head of Hypo Investment Bank, planned a test phase of about two months, scheduled for December 2006.

The increased flexibility and efficiency of the new system will enable Hypo Investment Bank to improve service to customers, reducing system response times that were as long as 30 seconds.

In addition, the new system enables applications that had to run separately before to be integrated, and the infrastructure was consolidated, further improving service. These applications perform critical steps such as crediting an account in compliance with the SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) or SIC (Swiss Interbank Clearing) standards. The integration is planned for the first quarter of 2007. An attempt to integrate the SWIFT system into the bank’s old environment in the summer of 2006 led to a system crash.

Another benefit is increased scalability. The new environment is flexible and can easily be adapted to the bank’s future requirements.

Within the next two years, the new system also will enable Hypo Investment Bank to deploy a redundant IT system. “Then our new building will be ready and we will have more room for IT,” says Sabine Bergner, IT head of Hypo Investment Bank.