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The Bank of Nagoya, Ltd.
Experiences of an early adopter of Windows Server 2008
The Bank of Nagoya, Ltd.
When attempting to reconfigure its Active Directory The Bank of Nagoya, Ltd. came to realize that it needed a more manageable solution. The improved flexibility and manageability of the Windows Server 2008 operating system appeared to resolve several IT challenges the Bank faced. The Bank of Nagoya, Ltd. subsequently chose to adopt Fujitsu PRIMERGY industry-standard servers to run Windows Server 2008, and commenced an IT transformation project aimed at incorporating the industry’s latest technologies. [First published in Japanese in June, 2008]
Overview
- Industry
Banking and finance - Hardware
PRIMERGY RX300 S4 rack-mount servers - Software
Windows Server 2008
Since its establishment in 1949, the Bank of Nagoya, Ltd. has served its customer communities based on its business philosophy of “contributing to the growing prosperity of the region”. As a leading and foresighted local financial institution, The Bank of Nagoya, Ltd. has continued to grow together with its community. While upholding its traditional and solid management strategies it has at all times strived to maintain its trusted Bank status and good reputation.
In demonstrating its commitment to better customer services The Bank of Nagoya, Ltd. has also invested in the latest effective IT technology. They were, for example, an early adopter of Microsoft SQL Server 2005. In this same spirit, the Bank became particularly interested in Microsoft’s newest operating system. They started collecting information on Windows Server 2008 a couple of years ago through attendance at vendor-sponsored seminars.
Situation
Simplified user management and decreased server administration time
Hideyuki Hiraoka Manager Systems and Operations Division The Bank of Nagoya, Ltd.
The Bank of Nagoya, Ltd. is always looking for ways to reduce its IT total cost of ownership (TCO) Banking servers, ATMs and information systems were being managed and operated by about 40 IT administrators. The Bank also operated some 100 servers, including a number of Windows 2000 Server based systems that would reach their end-of-support life in 2010. These issues generated the need for mid-term and long-term solutions in the redesign of the existing system. In 2007, as part of the Bank’s effort to maintain their IT leadership into the future, they began to seriously consider the use of the latest version of the Windows operating system.
It was during its evaluation work that The Bank of Nagoya, Ltd. came to understand the feature-enhanced Windows Server 2008 benefits that would really work for them. In particular, addressing their challenges in user management and the reduction of system administration work. At that time, however, The Bank of Nagoya, Ltd. could not access detailed information on Windows Server 2008 as it was not yet officially launched.
It was in this situation that The Bank of Nagoya, Ltd. turned to Fujitsu for help. Fujitsu already had access to abundant information on Windows Server 2008. It also had extensive validation experience and a high level of Active Directory skills. They were all important considerations for the Bank. The Bank was confident that working with Fujitsu would make possible the deployment of the Windows Server 2008 environment quickly and securely.
Deployment in progress (Business needs and solution)
Now, The Bank of Nagoya, Ltd. was able to evaluate the new features in Windows Server 2008 with expectations of accruing the following benefits.
Password policies that support different privilege-levels
Throughout the daily operation of Active Directory, it had always been a problem that IT administrators at The Bank of Nagoya, Ltd. could not setup multiple password policies within the same domain. From the Bank’s viewpoint it needed to be able to enforce different password policies (administrator privileges, normal user privileges, etc) depending the authorization levels of each user. However, the existing Active Directory environment at the Bank did not allow such settings. In performing its daily banking operations there was no way the Bank could compromise the security levels of the system. With no other choice, The Bank of Nagoya, Ltd. had continued to apply the same authorization levels to both its IT administrators and normal users. This had resulted in some usability limitations on normal use. Now Windows Server 2008 is helping The Bank of Nagoya, Ltd. eliminate such restrictions, allowing them to setup different password policies that can match each user’s privilege-level. As a result The Bank of Nagoya, Ltd. is anticipating it will be able to achieve security and usability benefits at the same time from this improved password management capability.
Reduced PC installation and management time
Previously The Bank of Nagoya, Ltd. IT administrators were required to physically go to branch offices to perform installation work. This took up too much resource and extended the deployment times for application and operating system upgrades following disk failure events. Now with the Bank wishing to upgrade its some 2,000 personal computers (PCs) to Windows Vista or later operating systems by 2010 it needed a better way. By taking advantage of Windows Deployment Services (WDS), an enhanced feature in Windows Server 2008, The Bank of Nagoya, Ltd. is expecting to significantly reduce the time taken for such serial installation tasks. WDS deployment will also allow the Bank to distribute all supported operating systems and applications as image files from their main office. This will dramatically simplify initial setup of PCs at their 108 branch offices. Now instead of having to setup each PC manually, the IT administrators at The Bank of Nagoya, Ltd. will be able to address other important tasks with the time and resources saved.
Systems and Operations Division at The Bank of Nagoya, Ltd. Hiraoka Hideyuki, Manager (Left rear) Kiyoshi Nakamura, Chief (Center rear) Masahiko Shibata, Assistant manager (Right rear) Atsuo Nakajima (Left front) Noriaki Ikeda, Chief (Center front) Masao Kitou (Right front)
Simplified PC status checks and higher levels of security
As part of its security policy, personal computers at The Bank of Nagoya, Ltd. must run the latest program updates and virus definitions. In order to maintain this high security level policy, IT administrators at the Bank were required to physically enter each branch office. There they would check on the status of program updates and virus definition files on the 2,000 or so PCs. Aware that this was clearly an inefficient use of valuable administrators’ time, the Bank will now be able to use Network Access Protection (NAP) to resolve the situation. The NAP function has the ability to automatically check patch application status, updates to antivirus pattern files, and security settings including personal firewall settings. Using NAP, PC’s that do not comply with the Bank’s current security policies can be automatically fixed and updated before connection is allowed to the Bank’s business network. The Bank of Nagoya, Ltd. is anticipating that this automated procedure will greatly reduce the time required for PC management.
The Bank of Nagoya, Ltd. is now fully confident that implementing Windows Server 2008 technology is the right choice and that it will help address many IT challenges.
Overview of the new system
New Active Directory system based on Fujitsu PRIMERGY servers running Windows Server 2008
To replace its Active Directory system, The Bank of Nagoya, Ltd. chose to adopt Fujitsu PRMERGY RX300 S4 industry-standard servers running Windows Server 2008. Testing of the new system commenced with the actual cutover planned for June 2008.
System Structure at The Bank of Nagoya, Ltd.
The current Windows 2000 Server systems and PCs at The Bank of Nagoya, Ltd. are being replaced by the latest operating system.
Ongoing Plans
The plan is for The Bank of Nagoya, Ltd. to complete the deployment of new domain controllers by the end of June 2008. After that, the Bank will migrate to the Windows Server 2008 operating system for all servers and then install Windows Vista or later on its PCs before going into full production.
About The Bank of Nagoya, Ltd.
Headquarters: 19-17 Nishiki 3-chome, Naka-ku, Nagoya-shi, Aichi 460-0003 JAPAN
Founded : 1949
Common stock: 25 billion Japanese yen
Nature of business: 8Banking operations
Company website : http://www.meigin.com/
Note:
Information in this case study, including figures, names and job titles are based on information supplied at the published
date and may have changed when this information is viewed.
For more information:
- PRIMERGY RX300 S3 rack-mount server /current model: PRIMERGY RX300 S4
