BULL : Cr?dit Agricole in Belgium chooses integrated storage and Escala server solutions from Bull

Cr?dit Agricole in Belgium chooses integrated storage and Escala server solutions from Bull

Brussels, March ?14,?2012?-

To meet its growing needs for storage and servers, Belgian banking and insurance group Cr?dit Agricole has turned to Bull, for both hardware and services. Bull's flexibility and speed in presenting its solutions, based around the Escala server family, played a decisive role in Cr?dit Agricole's decision.

Banks are some of the biggest consumers of information technology. So when one of them takes over a competitor - as Cr?dit Agricole recently did in Belgium, with Centea - they need to merge the two IT infrastructures or bring them all together onto one of the existing platforms. In this instance, the bank chose the second option: Centea's infrastructure, which ran on the same systems as its former parent company KBC, has been migrated to Cr?dit Agricole's ITC platform. The key task is to perfectly integrate these critical functions in the shortest possible timescales.

A rapid conversion

In general, Cr?dit Agricole has grown its installed base of servers structurally, every four or five years, in response to its normal requirements for growth. But this time round, with the acquistion of savings bank Centea, increasing server capacity represents a strategic ITC project, with a high profile within the group.

"An initial study showed that incorporating Centea into the Group was going to quadruple the number of transactions, although there would only be double the processing power available and staff numbers would only be growing by 50% at most," explains Yves Danneels, CIO of Cr?dit Agricole Belgium. "So we needed to put in place a server infrastructure offering much faster reaction times and much higher processing capacity, as quickly as possible. A really tough challenge!"

A successful proof-of-concept

To satisfy itself that Bull's mission-critical servers would respond effectively to the new demands, Cr?dit Agricole insisted on organizing a proof-of-concept. This enabled it to test its own installation of an Escala M7-700 - made available by Bull - and see how it performed on the basis of future needs. Following approximately a month complex and intensive tests in a critical environment, Cr?dit Agricole was reassured: the results obtained demonstrated that the bank could confidently cope with the quadrupling of transactions. CIO Yves Danneels had all the guarantees needed to submit the project to the Board for approval

Today, the bank's four Bull Escala M7-700servers are running in a test environment, and are due to go into live production in April 2012. The machines will be used to replace the bank's current Bull Escala PL1660R-L servers, based on Power6 technology. Each of the new Escala M7-700 machines is exceeding expectations in terms of performance, availability, efficiency and virtualization. The modular and scalable systems have been designed for both increased business flexibility and IT efficiency. They bring unprecedented openness and robustness to the bank's applications.

Consultancy on maintaining the bank's storage platform

Virtually in parallel to this development, Cr?dit Agricole Belgium renewed its contracts with EMC, which supplies its VMAX storage platform. Cr?dit Agricole decided to award Bull the maintenance consultancy contract and everything surround it. As Yves Danneels explains: "For us, it was a logical step to work with a player that could offer us an integral, totally dependable service for our combined server and storage platform".

An open partnership, and future possibilities

As well as a better balanced quality/price ratio, Bull's responsiveness and flexibility convinced Cr?dit Agricole Belgium to put its trust totally in the French IT firm. "We were able to organize the proof-of-concept very quickly, and that won over Cr?dit Agricole," says Saskia Van Uffelen, CEO of Bull Belux. "The flexibility of our organization means we can meet the needs of customers looking for a rapid solution."

The partnership between Bull and Cr?dit Agricole already dates back eight years. In 2003, the bank adopted a new Bull Escala architecture, based on the AIX/Power platform. In the beginning, the servers were Bull Escala PL1650 models, based on Power5 technology. Then in 2009, these were replaced by Bull Escala PL1660R-L servers. The collaboration with Bull is going very well, as Yves Danneels confirms: "We have known each other for a long time, and we communicate with each other very directly, in total transparency. In the future, Bull will still have significant potential business with Cr?dit Agricole. Every one of our projects is run as an open competition, but we are setting the bar increasingly high. That takes time and resources. But in exchange, the added value is worth the investment: as Bull has proved once again."

Bull continues to support its Escala customers, like Cr?dit Agricole: its specialist teams can call on internal centers of excellence that bring together experts in different areas. Together, they define and implement critical application architectures (such as databases, ERP systems, high-availability systems...).

The Cr?dit Agricole group consists of five business entities: the mutually owned bank Cr?dit Agricole and its four subsidiaries, Cr?dit Agricole Assurances, niche bank Europabank, on-line bank Keytrade andCentea. The Group's shareholders are the Belgian co-operative banks Lanbokas and Agricaisse (50%) and Cr?dit Agricole France (50%).

Today, the Cr?dit Agricole group sees itself as a universal provider of banking and insurance services offering an alternative to the major banks. In 2011, the Group made a profit of ?55.5 millions and employed 3,923 people. The ITC Department at Cr?dit Agricole, based in Brussels, employs 100 staff. Eventually, the Cr?dit Agricole group hopes to recruit a further 100 IT specialists, in an ongoing campaign.

Contact
Saskia Van Uffelen
CEO Bull Belux & European Institutions Bull
Saskia.Van-Uffelen@bull.be
Tel. +32 473 21 41 78

Jos? Delameilleure
Bull Communications Department
communicationsdepartment@bull.be
Tel. +32 473 93 83 24

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