A large bank in Belarus, DBRB, wanted to reduce the costs associated with maintaining its virtualized IT environment without compromising on performance. The bank initially used VMware software for server virtualization, but it was expensive and restricted vendor lock-in.
To address these challenges, DBRB migrated its virtualized servers to Red Hat Virtualization, a flexible, subscription-based software that maintains or improves system performance while reducing total cost of ownership. DBRB had already successfully used Red Hat Enterprise Linux with Smart Virtualization for several years internally, which made it easier for the bank to identify and solve any virtualization issues working with the same vendor.
The migration from VMware to Red Hat Virtualization went smoothly, with the conversion utility offered in Red Hat Virtualization helping DBRB to import most of the data from its VMware environment into the Red Hat software. Today, machines virtualized with Red Hat support all of the bank’s internal-facing IT services, including day-to-day operations to analytics processes, from one common, consistent environment within its central office and six branches — a total of more than 400 users.
DBRB has also reduced the total cost of ownership (TCO) for its virtualized IT environment by taking advantage of Red Hat’s subscription-based pricing model, rather than making large initial licensing investments. Virtualizing with Red Hat’s flexible product subscriptions has also helped the bank avoid vendor lock-in, potentially leading to further future cost reductions. With the money that it saves, DBRB has been able to invest in increasing the number of hypervisors, thus increasing the capabilities of its IT environment.
By standardizing on Red Hat Virtualization and Red Hat Enterprise Linux, the bank can ensure its IT systems are stable and highly available. Now, all of the bank’s business services, including critical ones, operate in the Red Hat virtualization environment. With access to support from Red Hat’s highly qualified technical teams, the bank can resolve problems quickly and make changes as required.
As a result, DBRB has gained new automation capabilities and increased productivity, while reducing costs. It plans to evaluate several additional Red Hat products for its IT environment, such as Ansible, to further automate tasks in its network infrastructure.