VERNA has implemented an IT infrastructure management system for PJSC “First Ukrainian International Bank” based on Microsoft System Center product family

The system of management makes the servicing predictable both for the clients and FUIB employees in 11 subsidiaries and 130 branches. Managing the entire IT infrastructure from a unique center makes it possible to monitor and quickly react to any changes.

Apart from increasing the reliability and manageability of the IT infrastructure, the project resulted in substantial cutting of the bank’s expenses both at the stage of consulting and implementation and the stage of operation.

The management system has been designed, built and implemented on the basis of Microsoft System Center family products with the support from Microsoft Ukraine. Software sets of the centralized management system are installed on 22 servers located in the FUIB main office in Donetsk and regional branches of the bank all over Ukraine.

As Sergey Tishenko, Head of the IT implementation and consulting line of activities of VERNA said, “The implementation turned out to be successful mainly due to optimally organized IT processes in the bank. The IT strategy adopted by the bank makes it possible to build an infrastructure that meets the highest standards in the field”. The members of the VERNA project team have noted a competent approach of the FUIB specialists to the IT strategy implementation. Joint effort of two teams has made it possible to implement in the project a number of innovations characterized by the Customer and representatives of Microsoft Ukraine as substantial for the business. Namely, the VERNA engineers and consultants have developed a number of solutions that have widened the functionality of used Microsoft System Center products and substantially lowered the bank expenses for software from third-party suppliers. Among these solutions are management of “thin clients”, widening the possibilities of inventory of heterogeneous IT objects, automatic updating of specific banking software. The developed solutions are implemented, tested and obtained a positive estimate.

Yuri Piskarev, Head of IT Administration of FUIB, has described the importance of implementation and scope of the project: “First of all we have obtained a most powerful tool the significance of which it is hard to overestimate. The management system ensures active monitoring of 400 servers of various purposes, 1200 computers at work places, about 1000 “thin clients”, all applications, network devices and services. It makes the bank IT infrastructure more transparent”.

Speaking about the possibilities of automated control over the IT infrastructure, Yuri Piskarev has noted: “The new system of management can access anything that happens in the network. All occurring events that concern the IT equipment, applications and services are automatically registered. Data on malfunctions and errors are processed on a centralized basis and necessary measures are immediately taken according to them. We can say that virtually all important changes in the bank IT infrastructure are under control”.

Yuri Piskarev has also named a number of typical tasks that earlier required substantial expenses: “Accounting of all objects of the bank informational system is automated. This frees huge resources. Now, being in the central office, we can remotely control the composition and state of the equipment in any affiliate, install or replace software in any of our branches. No business trips are necessary for this; everything is done on a centralized basis. We cut the administrative cost by an order of magnitude”.

Vyacheslav Artamonov, Head of the Department for work with corporate clients and partners of Microsoft Ukraine has characterized this implementation as one of the most successful in the Ukrainian banking segment: FUIB is one of our most forward-looking and consistent partners. This project is a logical continuation of the process of IT infrastructure optimization, which the bank has started several years ago in close cooperation with the Microsoft specialists. The aim of this process is to build an optimal IT infrastructure and high-quality management of the IT infrastructure. The very acute for the bank requirements of the IT controllability and manageability were taken into account and fulfilled to the fullest extent due to the usage of software sets of Microsoft System Center family. The main result of the implementation is a high degree of centralization of the FUIB IT infrastructure management. This makes it possible to make IT services, IT expenses and business processes of servicing more predictable and quickly optimize them, if necessary. We can say that today it is one of the most successful projects of IT infrastructure management in the financial sector of Ukraine”.