OTP Bank Plc Boosts E-Banking Performance by 1,200% and Reduces Operating Costs with Upgraded, Consolidated Server Systems
 
 

OTP Bank Plc Boosts E-Banking Performance by 1,200% and Reduces Operating Costs with Upgraded, Consolidated Server Systems

  • Oracle Customer:  OTP Bank Plc
    Location:  Budapest, Hungary
    Industry:  Financial Services
    Employees:  8,000
    Annual Revenue:  $500 Million to $1 Billion

Printer View Printer View

OTP Bank Plc is the largest commercial bank in Hungary with assets totaling US$28 billion. A leader in all financial services sectors, OTP Bank Plc offers more than 1,000 loan, mortgage, saving, credit and debit card, and investment products. The institution serves 13 million corporate, private, and retail customers in Hungary and eight other countries in central and eastern Europe, and it has a network of almost 1,500 branch locations.

OTP Bank Plc needed to improve system performance for a relaunch of its e-banking solutions portfolio, which provides an interactive user interface with dashboard views of each customer’s accounts, personalized screen views, and short-cuts to favorite applications. To achieve this while retaining its existing Oracle-based IT platform, the bank upgraded its server and processor hardware to Oracle’s SPARC T-Series family of servers, which delivered a 12-fold increase in database-layer performance. The SPARC T-Series servers also generated speeds that were eight-times faster for the application layer, cut server cooling costs by 65%, reduced the hardware footprint by 88%, lowered licensing costs for its Oracle software by 11%, and reduced IT support costs by 71%.

 
 

 
 

Challenges

A word from OTP Bank Plc

  • “SPARC T-Series of servers and processors underpin OTP’s ability to provide some of the most advanced banking solutions in the Hungarian market and a rich user experience for our customers.” – Géza Boros, Head of IT Development, OTP Bank Plc

  • Guarantee scalability and high availability for relaunched, Oracle-based, e-banking platform that provides applications to a growing online customer base for loans, savings, wealth management, credit card information, funds transfers, foreign exchange services, securities exchanges, mobile phone balances and top-up facilities, car park fee payments via mobile phone, and a wide range of other services, 24/7
  • Increase performance for database and application layers by at least 100% to deliver industry-leading transaction speeds and gain the ability to enhance online offerings with new innovations at the speed of customer demand
  • Reduce license and support costs for the Oracle IT infrastructure
  • Reduce power and cooling costs for the servers and processors supporting the e-banking platform, and cut data center storage space for all enterprise hardware
  • Maximize data center efficiency and agility by consolidating and centralizing storage, networking, and virtualization components, to simplify IT management and drive down the lifetime cost of ownership

Solutions

Oracle Product and Services

  • Improved by 12-fold the performance of the database layer that supports online banking solutions and other critical operations by replacing the legacy servers that powered the existing Oracle infrastructure with two SPARC T4-4 servers
  • Improved performance of the application layer that supports the Oracle-based online banking platform by a factor of eight by upgrading to four SPARC T4-2 servers
  • Exceeded internal goals for a 100% performance increase for both the database and application layers
  • Improved customer satisfaction through the capabilities of SPARC T-Series’ multithreaded cores and the ability to process thousands of threads in parallel to optimize e-banking access and service delivery speeds
  • Reduced power consumption for infrastructure hardware by 65% via the eco-efficient cooling system of the SPARC servers
  • Benefited from the small physical footprint of SPARC T4 servers to consume 88% less rack space in the corporate data center
  • Cut IT license costs by 11% as a result of SPARC T4’s lower processor core factors
  • Reduced IT support costs by 71% by eliminating the high support and maintenance needs of legacy servers
  • Began migration of e-banking services’ Web site layer from four legacy servers to three SPARC T4-1 servers, to bring the performance and cost improvements achieved in the application and database layers full circle for the entire online banking platform
  • Continued to run e-banking data center operations on Oracle Solaris 10 to benefit from enterprise-grade performance, enhanced manageability, and unparalleled security
  • Used Oracle Solaris containers to consolidate e-banking operations onto a single server and cut costs, save space, reduce power consumption, protect against outages, and complete upgrades with minimal downtime
  • Benefitted from enhanced high availability, disaster recovery, and seamless scalability for the e-banking platform with Oracle Solaris Cluster

Why Oracle

OTP Bank Plc had enjoyed successful, long-term use of Oracle hardware and software for critical customer-facing operations prior to the upgrade, a large consideration in choosing the SPARC T-Series family of servers as the preferred solution for its e-banking hardware upgrade. The bank also evaluated HP Integrity Servers, but wanted to continue enjoying the benefits of the integrated engineering expertise behind SPARC T4 and its operating system, middleware, and database.

“Oracle gives us the entire technology stack, pre-engineered for maximum availability, stability, and flexibility, from a single vendor. These technical synergies provide unparalleled price-performance for us and give Oracle a unique competitive advantage in the market,” said Géza Boros, head of IT development, OTP Bank Plc.

Partner

Oracle Partner Invigor Informatika Kft managed the migration and upgrade from the existing Oracle infrastructure to SPARC T-Series family of servers. The implementation went live in only four weeks—less than half the time planned—on budget, and without disruption to the bank’s customers or employees.

“SPARC T-Series family of servers and processors delivers breakthrough performance at an unrivalled cost of ownership. SPARC T-Series is the ideal foundation for forward-looking enterprises like OTP that are taking a holistic approach in migrating to an optimized data center model, so they can maximize sustainability and performance for tomorrow,” said Gabor Pap, technical director, Invigor Informatika Kft.

Resources