Download PDF
BLOM BANK's Rapid Expansion with IBM DS8870 Storage Solutions
Technology Category
- Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) - Cloud Storage Services
- Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) - Private Cloud
Applicable Industries
- Finance & Insurance
- Retail
Applicable Functions
- Quality Assurance
Use Cases
- Construction Management
- Infrastructure Inspection
Services
- Testing & Certification
The Challenge
BLOM BANK, a leading Lebanese bank, was looking to expand its market share in Lebanon and the EMEA region. To achieve this, the bank recognized the need to embrace the omnichannel digital banking trend. However, this had to be done without compromising on data availability or efficiency. The bank had a solid track record of profitability and growth in Lebanon and the EMEA region, while following a conservative strategy that includes prudent risk management. The challenge was to maintain this winning approach while providing innovative products and services to customers and staying at the forefront of technology. Achieving this without compromising service quality would require the bank to find a stable technology partner, who could offer a technology mix that would enable growth, efficiency and service continuity as BLOM BANK evolves.
About The Customer
BLOM BANK is a leading Lebanese bank, which offers retail, commercial, corporate, private, and investment banking services. Operating in 13 countries in the EMEA with 257 branches, the bank has assets of USD 28.93 billion and the highest rate of return on average equity at 15.2 percent. The bank has repeatedly been selected as the “Best Bank in Lebanon” by recognized regional and international institutions, and has built up a solid track record of profitability and growth in Lebanon and the EMEA region, while following a conservative strategy that includes prudent risk management.
The Solution
BLOM BANK chose IBM DS8870 storage solutions, deployed in a high-availability configuration, as the backbone for its three-site data center replication strategy. This strategy links the bank’s primary, high availability and remote disaster recovery data centers. To ensure local and remote data replication under a constrained link bandwidth, the bank collaborated with IBM to implement local synchronous replication using IBM Metro Mirror, and remote asynchronous replication enabled by IBM Global Mirror and Metro Global Mirror technologies. The storage solution also integrates seamlessly with the rest of the bank’s IT infrastructure, which includes servers based on IBM® POWER8® processors and IBM DB2® solutions that support its core banking application; and a virtual desktop infrastructure solution supported by IBM Storwize® V7000 storage.
Operational Impact
Quantitative Benefit
Related Case Studies.
Case Study
Improving Production Line Efficiency with Ethernet Micro RTU Controller
Moxa was asked to provide a connectivity solution for one of the world's leading cosmetics companies. This multinational corporation, with retail presence in 130 countries, 23 global braches, and over 66,000 employees, sought to improve the efficiency of their production process by migrating from manual monitoring to an automatic productivity monitoring system. The production line was being monitored by ABB Real-TPI, a factory information system that offers data collection and analysis to improve plant efficiency. Due to software limitations, the customer needed an OPC server and a corresponding I/O solution to collect data from additional sensor devices for the Real-TPI system. The goal is to enable the factory information system to more thoroughly collect data from every corner of the production line. This will improve its ability to measure Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) and translate into increased production efficiencies. System Requirements • Instant status updates while still consuming minimal bandwidth to relieve strain on limited factory networks • Interoperable with ABB Real-TPI • Small form factor appropriate for deployment where space is scarce • Remote software management and configuration to simplify operations
Case Study
How Sirqul’s IoT Platform is Crafting Carrefour’s New In-Store Experiences
Carrefour Taiwan’s goal is to be completely digital by end of 2018. Out-dated manual methods for analysis and assumptions limited Carrefour’s ability to change the customer experience and were void of real-time decision-making capabilities. Rather than relying solely on sales data, assumptions, and disparate systems, Carrefour Taiwan’s CEO led an initiative to find a connected IoT solution that could give the team the ability to make real-time changes and more informed decisions. Prior to implementing, Carrefour struggled to address their conversion rates and did not have the proper insights into the customer decision-making process nor how to make an immediate impact without losing customer confidence.
Case Study
Digital Retail Security Solutions
Sennco wanted to help its retail customers increase sales and profits by developing an innovative alarm system as opposed to conventional connected alarms that are permanently tethered to display products. These traditional security systems were cumbersome and intrusive to the customer shopping experience. Additionally, they provided no useful data or analytics.
Case Study
Real-time In-vehicle Monitoring
The telematic solution provides this vital premium-adjusting information. The solution also helps detect and deter vehicle or trailer theft – as soon as a theft occurs, monitoring personnel can alert the appropriate authorities, providing an exact location.“With more and more insurance companies and major fleet operators interested in monitoring driver behaviour on the grounds of road safety, efficient logistics and costs, the market for this type of device and associated e-business services is growing rapidly within Italy and the rest of Europe,” says Franco.“The insurance companies are especially interested in the pay-per-use and pay-as-you-drive applications while other organisations employ the technology for road user charging.”“One million vehicles in Italy currently carry such devices and forecasts indicate that the European market will increase tenfold by 2014.However, for our technology to work effectively, we needed a highly reliable wireless data network to carry the information between the vehicles and monitoring stations.”
Case Study
Ensures Cold Milk in Your Supermarket
As of 2014, AK-Centralen has over 1,500 Danish supermarkets equipped, and utilizes 16 operators, and is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. AK-Centralen needed the ability to monitor the cooling alarms from around the country, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Each and every time the door to a milk cooler or a freezer does not close properly, an alarm goes off on a computer screen in a control building in southwestern Odense. This type of alarm will go off approximately 140,000 times per year, equating to roughly 400 alarms in a 24-hour period. Should an alarm go off, then there is only a limited amount of time to act before dairy products or frozen pizza must be disposed of, and this type of waste can quickly start to cost a supermarket a great deal of money.