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Sicoob Unleashing new growth and operational efficiency with an infrastructure transformation
Technology Category
- Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) - Cloud Computing
Applicable Industries
- Finance & Insurance
Applicable Functions
- Business Operation
Use Cases
- Process Control & Optimization
- Predictive Maintenance
Services
- Cloud Planning, Design & Implementation Services
- System Integration
The Challenge
Sicoob, the largest credit union system in Brazil, was experiencing rapid business growth and an increase in the number and range of its products and services. This growth, coupled with the desire for non-stop services, created a perfect storm for Sicoob’s existing distributed infrastructure, which was running all core banking services. Moreover, each time a new credit union joined Sicoob, the organization had to integrate new systems and processes into its operations, scaling to accommodate additional users, transactions, and data. As a result, Sicoob ended up with hundreds of databases to manage, increasing complexity, inefficiency, and cost. To avoid hindering growth, the organization needed to find a smarter approach.
About The Customer
Credit Unions System for Brazil (Sicoob) is the largest credit union system in Brazil, offering banking and credit services to more than 2.5 million people. Sicoob’s customers are also its owners, so the financial returns benefit their communities rather than enriching shareholders. Sicoob has successfully built on the country’s increasing prosperity to execute a successful growth strategy. Embracing mobile and social technologies supported by an ultra-stable backbone, the organization enables the everywhere-and-always-on services that consumers increasingly demand.
The Solution
To support the ongoing rapid growth of its business and the development of new capabilities, Sicoob needed a completely new model for IT. The organization made a strategic decision to migrate its Intel processor-based distributed servers to the Linux on IBM z Systems platform. Today, Sicoob is running more than 300 SUSE Linux Enterprise Server-based virtual servers on IBM z/VM® across an IBM zEnterprise EC12 server and a second IBM z Systems server. A third z Systems server located at a second site provides a disaster-recovery option and hosts the development landscape. Sicoob also embarked on a migration and consolidation of its member databases to IBM DB2 for Linux, UNIX and Windows (DB2 LUW), choosing to host the solution in virtual environments on its z Systems platform.
Operational Impact
Quantitative Benefit
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