Savings and Credit Bank Kuwait

Story Details

The Kuwait Savings and Credit Bank (SCB) had acquired more than 500 desktop systems since its inception, many of which were distributed in remote branches. Managing the bank's desktop environment had become a challenge that consumed a significant amount of the IT department's time. To meet its remote service needs and to save IT staff time, SCB sought a solution to centralize its desktop operations and streamline its business processes.

At the same time, SCB wanted to implement a 24/7 high-availability solution to run its Sybase database, e-mail, and file system, and consolidate its storage backup environment to improve business continuity. The bank selected Sun for the project based on its proven track record in providing enterprise solutions and ensuring high reliability.

When SCB learned about the Sun Ray 270 Virtual Display Client solution, it was clear to the bank that Sun offered far more than competing solutions. The Sun Ray client requires no management on the user side—which made it an excellent choice for SCB for its remote offices. Competitors' thin clients required an embedded operating system and memory to be installed in each user terminal.

Sun Advantage partner, Diyar United Company, understood SCB's requirements, and because Diyar has been an authorized Sun partner for more than 10 years, SCB felt confident that Diyar could provide a full-fledged Sun solution with high-quality service during implementation and support.

With the help of Sun Microsystems and Diyar United, the bank installed a Sun Fire V890 server running Solaris 10 OS for the Sybase database, Sun Ray 270 thin clients for user access in SCB's head office and branch offices, and Sun Fire X4200 servers for the file and e-mail servers. Sun's Solaris Cluster 3.1 software with a Sybase database agent was deployed on two Sun Fire V890 servers to help ensure availability and access to the bank's data. For backup and recovery, the bank implemented a storage area network based on Sun StorageTek 6140 arrays, a Sun StorageTek SL500 tape library with two LTO3 native fiber channel tape drives and 30 cartridge slots, and Sun StorageTek Enterprise Backup software. Sun services has also provided SCB with training and support for the solution.

The Sun platform has provided the bank with 24/7 availability for its database, e-mail, and file systems and an architecture that made it possible to centralize desktop support. With the Sun Ray thin client technology, everyday operations, such as hardware troubleshooting and installing patches, is far easier, eliminating the need to locally manage desktops. The bank can now deploy applications to all locations, including its remote offices, from one place. What's more, because the Sun Ray clients have no built-in operating system, provisioning is as simple as plugging them in. As a result of these changes, the number of calls to desktop support declined from 30 a day to virtually none.

The Sun solution has fulfilled SCB's current business requirements, and it has also provided the bank with a scalable solution as it moves ahead. In addition, with the advanced storage-based replication features of the 6140 array, SCB is positioned to replicate and retrieve its data as part of its future plans for disaster recovery. The entire solution has helped SCB streamline its operations, increase its efficiency and prepare for growth.