Seven Bank banks on HPE Integrity NonStop to handle critical transaction switching.
Ensures continuous operations with HPE Integrity NonStop BladeSystem NB54000c
To meet customer expectations of anytime, anywhere availability, Seven Bank deployed HPE Integrity NonStop BladeSystem NB54000c servers to ensure continuous availability of switching services critical for completing ATM transactions with no data loss.
Seven Bank, Ltd. was founded in 2001 as a unique Japanese financial institution specializing in ATM services, driven by demand from Seven-Eleven customers looking for in-store ATMs. The bank has since grown to offer a range of banking services, including online bank deposit, loan, payment, and wire transfer services.
Today, Seven Bank handles as many as 5,700,000 transactions per day through its 22,000 bank-owned ATM machines in Seven-Eleven convenience stores, Itoyokado, shopping malls, metro stations, and airports all across Japan. With a goal to provide anytime, anywhere access to its services, Seven Bank required an IT infrastructure designed for continuous business.
The relay server that supports our core business must run nonstop while also enabling us to grow as demand increases. Only HPE Integrity NonStop BladeSystem NB54000c servers have both high availability and scalability to support all our ATM services today and into the future.
– Masaaki Matsuhashi, Executive Officer and Director, ATM Solution Department, Seven Bank
At the core of the bank’s infrastructure is a mission-critical server that aggregates all requests from ATM machines and relays them to internal accounting systems, as well as systems at partner institutions. This relay server must handle a rapidly growing volume of transactions in real time with no disruption 24/7/365. However, the bank’s previous platform lacked sufficient performance and scalability to keep up with the enormous processing demands projected for the next ten years.
Ensures continuous availability of critical services
After considering an upgrade to its conventional server, Seven Bank worked with its trusted IT partner, Nomura Research Institute (NRI), to explore alternative solutions. After an extensive technical evaluation, Seven Bank turned to Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) and replaced its conventional server with HPE Integrity NonStop BladeSystem NB54000c servers powered by the Intel® Itanium® Processor 9300 Series. The HPE platform runs Intelligent Wave Inc.’s NET+1 application, which authenticates ATM card transactions and online connections to banking services. In addition, Seven Bank relies on an HPE Integrity NonStop NS2200 Server for development.
Mr. Kazuki Nishizaki, Seven Bank’s Manager, comments, “While migrating NET+1 to the NonStop operating system, we consolidated many functions that had been extended over the last 14 years since the company started. At the same time, we enhanced development efficiency by simplifying the structure of the entire application. This optimizes the environment to respond quickly and be flexible for future enhancements.”
NRI led the project, from design and build through ongoing infrastructure operations and management. There are four HPE Integrity NonStop BladeSystem NB54000c servers, two systems are deployed in East Japan and the other two systems are deployed in West Japan. These four systems are production. With the two sites synchronized for active-active operations, this configuration ensures continuous availability of relay services should one of the data centers go down. It also enhances agility to handle unexpected spikes in workload.
