Case Study: Sparda-Datenverarbeitung eG achieves 24x7 banking availability and lower TCO with IBM System z

Leveraging a world-class enterprise computing system to ensure 24x7 customer service

Sparda-Datenverarbeitung eG (SDV), the IT service provider for a group of German banks, faced the challenge of ensuring 24/7 availability for its banking services while managing increasing regulatory demands. They needed a highly reliable, cost-efficient platform with minimal downtime to run large databases and sophisticated analytics software, all while seeking to reduce their total cost of ownership to remain competitive.

IBM provided a solution built around the IBM zEnterprise EC12 server running SUSE Linux. This platform consolidated Oracle and DB2 databases and application servers, leveraging virtualization with IBM z/VM and advanced high-availability features like IBM Geographically Dispersed Parallel Sysplex for automated failover. The results were significant: SDV reduced its total cost of ownership by approximately 50%, cut administration effort enabling a team of three to manage 120 servers, and achieved excellent system availability with failover within seconds.

Sparda-Datenverarbeitung eG

Oliver Röthinger

System Programmer and Administrator