BPER boosts security and cuts costs with IBM System z

Banca Popolare dell’Emilia Romagna (BPER) was originally established as a mutual savings (thrift) society in 1867, in Modena, Italy. Following its incorporation of several other banks in the 1980s, BPER was officially formed in 1992, and has continued to grow through acquisition. The BPER Group now has assets of more than €30 billion, operates in excess of 1,100 branches, and employs more than 11,000 people.

Since adopting the IBM mainframe and DB2 database as its strategic platform in the late 1980s, BPER has built up a significant dual data centre architecture, with an IBM eServer zSeries 990 server and IBM TotalStorage Enterprise Storage Server in each location. When the bank needed to update the teller applications in its local branches, it opted to maximise its investment by centralising the solution to the zSeries.

Piero Cavazzuti, IT Director of BPER, explains: “We continue to choose zSeries as our core platform because of all the conventional mainframe advantages: high transactional throughput, excellent security and reliability, and good disaster recovery capabilities. By replacing our in-branch teller application with a browser-based solution running under WebSphere on the zSeries, we were able to extend those mainframe benefits out to the branches.”


A growing problem solved
Due to BPER’s acquisitions at the time, the BPER Group’s branch network was using a variety of different client PCs to run its teller applications – both under Microsoft® Windows® and IBM OS/2. The lack of standardisation made it difficult and costly to manage the full estate of PCs, and the client software was becoming out-dated. BPER considered two options: redesigning its client software to run as a Windows-based application, or building a centralised solution, accessed through a standard Web browser.

Says Cavazzuti, “The first option would have required us to configure, manage and maintain the software on thousands of desktops. In addition to being costly, this would have created potential security issues.”BPER chose to build its new teller solution as a Java® application, to run under IBM WebSphere Application Server on its zSeries servers. Employees in the local branches use a standard Web browser to connect to the system, which uses the high-security RACF user authentication on the zSeries.

“Running the new teller solution under WebSphere on zSeries gives us centralised control and security,” says Cavazzuti. “With this thin-client solution, functional changes or security updates can be made centrally, without requiring any changes to local PCs. The solution uses the processing power of our zSeries environment, so we will not need to upgrade local PCs as frequently as before, representing a potential long-term cost-saving.”


Reaching out over the Web
The new WebSphere teller solution has been rolled out to 70 per cent of the branches, and is scheduled to reach full coverage by June 2006. The solution offers the same functionality as the various systems it replaced, and is easier to use. The centralised teller solution forms part of the enterprise backup process for the mainframe environment. All data is stored on the fast and reliable Enterprise Storage Server (ESS) systems, which are mirrored using Peer-to-Peer Remote Copy, providing resilience and protection against disaster.

“By moving the teller application to our existing mainframe environment, we have maximised our investment in the zSeries and ESS technologies,” says Cavazzuti. “The solution can communicate quickly and very securely with our core banking systems on the zSeries, and it does not require us to manage a separate server farm or specific backup procedure. In the long-term, creating this thin-client solution under WebSphere on zSeries will produce significant cost-savings.”