Case Study: ICICI Centralizes Applications

ICICI centralizes applications for 'anywhere' banking

When anytime, anywhere banking came to our country,
ICICI Bank had to move away from the branch-centric
model and make its services available nationwide. The
solution was to centralize its applications. by Minu
Sirsalewala
ICICI Bank, India's second-largest bank with a network of
about 540 branches and offices and over 1,000 ATMs offers
banking products and financial services to corporate and
retail customers through a variety of delivery channels. The
legacy systems at ICICI group (now called ICICI Bank) were
stand-alone systems, networked only for basic e-mail and
none of the core applications were linked to the network.
Around 1998 the company realized that to improve its
operations and increase efficiency it needed to centralize its
core banking applications.
Legacy systems
The traditional systems at ICICI Bank were very centric to
the branch. For example a server at New Delhi was specific
to the branch in that city; the ATMs were standalone
catering only to the city branch. The banking transactions
were thus limited to the respective branch offices as
customer data was not available in other branches. This
made banking a limited service and very branch specific.
ICICI realized the importance of offering nationwide banking
but this would be possible only by having a centralized data
repository.
The shift
The basic network was set up for providing the e-mail
facility, but none of the applications were linked to the
network. The network comprised of a mix of servers running
different applications at various branches of the bank. With
growing business and rapidly increasing accounts, the
company found it extremely difficult to administer and
manage the system.

The Company
ICICI Bank provides banking products
and financial services to corporate and
retail customers in areas of investment
banking, life and non-life insurance,
venture capital, asset management and
information technology.

The need - Being a financial

company with countrywide
operations, it felt the need to
centralize its applications to
reach all its partners and
customers. It needed to
connect various ICICI offices,
banks, branches and over
1,000 ATMs to make its
services available across the
country.
The solution - After a detailed
study of the company activities
and its needs, a network
comprising of leased lines,
VSATs, radio-links and ISDN
was designed and deployed to
centralize its core applications.
The benefit - With the
centralization of applications,
customers and partners can
now avail various services
through any of the branches at
any location in the country.
The group has considerably cut
costs on distributed backend
operations by bringing them to
the frontend with the
centralization of core backend
applications.

This also resulted in duplication of backend services and

procedures, as the systems were not centralized for the core
banking applications.
"There was a lot of additional cost being incurred due to the
duplication of the backend procedures at the branch offices,"
said Manoj Kunkalienkar, Joint President ICICI Infotech
Services Limited.

Click on image for larger view

The centralization procedure started around late 1999. ICICI Infotech (a company promoted
by ICICI) made the first network design for the group in 1999it was a hub and spoke
architecture.
Utmost care was taken to design a network with a strong backbone. According to Manoj, the
key strength of a network is its back-bone. The group's various centers are connected by 2
Mbps or 4 Mbps leased lines.
Manoj said the design considerations not only included high bandwidth availability but also
the fact that a single point of failure should not result in lines going down.
The group realized that it had to enter into the retail space, have local regional presence,
and provide alternate channels to the customer. They needed a solution whereby they could
offer services across the country.
"Centralizing the operations was not the solution, but centralization of data was. We had
already centralized some of the operations but we still had some branch applications running
independently which were not centralized and had ATMs which were stand-alones. Two
major criteria considered before designing were not only the network, but also the
infrastructure available in our country," said Manoj.
In the past, the infrastructure here was such that a company could not rely on leased lines
completely. So ICICI needed backups on ISDN and VSATs, along with the 64 Kbps leased
lines. "The leased lines were too expensive then, now the lines are better, more stable and
offer good connectivity. The cost has also come down by around 15 percent."
Manoj opined that what was really important was to have a world class data center and
centralize everything in one place, as that's where the network can be used at the
maximum. To ensure 24x7 service access and connectivity to customers one needs to have
reliable backups and a robust network in place. From a business perspective, the main
reason to go in for a network was centralization of data, provide all channels of
communication and at the same time provide anytime, anywhere banking. "The problem we
faced with our legacy systems was that they were stand-alone systems and the data from
one branch was not available with another branch."
These problems led us to the new design of the hub and spoke architecture.
The big solution
What ICICI was looking for was a robust network, which would enable it to offer services at
the retail level throughout the country. The in-house ICICI Infotech was the obvious choice
for consultation. The ICICI Infotech team designed the initial network topology in 1999. The
team had put forward a series of designs, not radically different from each other.
Eventually, a design with a mix of VSATs, leased-lines, radio-links and ISDN was selected. A
mixed design was selected because of the disparate locations of the group across the
country. There were different technical problems in different locations and the next best
available solution had to be included.
"The basic topology has withstood over the years. What we have today is still the basic
architecture with just new additions in terms of just more bandwidth," said Manoj.

The advantage in a hub and spoke architecture is that multiple nodes (spokes) are
connected with a hub location through a ring of single-mode fiber. Each hub-node connection
can consist of single or multiple wavelengths (lambdas), each carrying a full Gigabit Ethernet
channel. Protection from fiber cuts in the ring is achieved by connecting the hub and nodes
through both directions of the optical ring. Service provider Gigabit Ethernet metro access
rings are the main applications for this architecture. And another advantage is that nodes
can be added to the network more easily.
Methodology
The most important aspect to setting up a network is to have a good relation between the
technology consultant (network integrator), the vendor and the client.
"The vendors in the market are more or less capable of giving the same results, like the
same amount of redundancy or strength of the network," said Manoj. "What really matters
is the relation between the three. If there is harmony amongst the three, then better results
will be achieved."
The client plays the most important role as he has very low time to market, and delivery is
required at the earliest.
"A series of products are available in the market. As the time to market is so short, we
(ICICI Infotech) select the products available in the market and integrate them. This takes
care of 98 percent of the solution requirement and then we build the other two to three
percent around it and deliver the perfect solution to the client," explained Manoj.
The Network
As we said before, the network follows a hub and spoke architecturea mix of VSATs, leased
lines, ISDN and radio links. It has around 800 leased lines, about 600 VSATs, approximately
800 ISDN lines and multiple 34 Mbps lines.
The network supports the ICICI group offices, banks, branches, and over 1000 ATMs. There
is a primary site from where spokes go out to the regional branches and the other offices.
The secondary site has the disaster recovery system.
There are around eight hub locations, which have 3, 4 or 8 Mbps lines as per the
requirements for connecting to the branch and regional offices.
High-end Cisco routers and switches have been deployed for connectivity. The network is
monitored using HP OpenView and CiscoWorks. Over 30 portals are operating using a highly
secure state-of-the-art security architecture, which consist of firewalls, intrusion detection
systems, virus protection and various other tools.
The main production site is at Mahalaxmi, Mumbai (the primary site), and has been built to
international standards.
The disaster recovery site (the secondary site) is located at ICICI towers in Bandra-Kurla
complex, Mumbai and is used for replication of data. A distance of 25-30 kms separates the
two centers and they are linked with two 34 Mbps leased lines. To ensure reliability and
24x7 availability, the leased lines pass through separate exchanges.

Before the data moves on to the leased lines, it passes through two CNT storage directors
that convert this data into WAN-related traffic before it is sent on the leased line to the other
data center. The high-speed leased lines make it possible to synchronize data in real-time
between the two centers.
Hardware at both these sites varies from low-end NT servers to the high-end SUN E 10K
along with 12 terabytes of data storage at each end connected through a SAN. The group's
facilities management team manages over 9,500 desktops, 500 servers and works around
the clock. CA Unicenter is used for managing the helpdesk, desktops and servers, asset
management, software delivery and remote control.
Unix is the preferred OS for most of the hardware while most of the databases use Oracle
with a few on Sybase and MS SQL. Over 200 databases are supported with 24x7 processing.
The state-of-the-art technology architecture adopted by ICICI Bank needed robust security,
and this was designed by qualified experts from its Systems Security Cell. This security
design includes preparation, implementation and maintenance of the Systems Security
policies and procedures across all systems, ensuring general user awareness about these
policies and enforcing the policies through systems audits. The security cell has developed
several tools, which are the first of its kind to address several vulnerabilities on Unix, NT and
MS-Exchange. The system security is audited by KPMG.
Challenges
Once the network was up, ICICI Infotech faced the challenge of ensuring smooth operation
and minimum downtime. Manoj agrees glitches cannot be avoided and while one has to try
and prevent these, one also has to think about the growth of the network, in line with
business expansion.
"No walk is very smooth. Glitches are, and will always be there," said Manoj. "What was of
prime importance was to keep pace with the business and its expansions. Technical
problems are not difficult to handlethere is always a solution to them but other problems
like the existing infrastructure of the country, the individual business needs are very taxing."
According to Manoj, the real challenge came while designing and deploying the network, as
the team had to view business processes at a very micro level. They had to identify the
exact areas where the business needed to be expanded, and then find the best suitable
option to connect to those locations.
The ICICI VSAT network is large, with almost a thousand nodes. Keeping it going turned out
to be an even bigger challenge for the group. The entire network is monitored from one
center. Any error in the network at any point is rectified in a short span of time and the
system is up and running with minimum downtime.
Another challenge was to keep pace with business growth. "The only technological
challenges we face are in terms of the quality of the lines, as they are not same all the time.
Typically, the router and switch software is written assuming a certain quality of the line. As
a result, if the quality of the line is not stable and fluctuates, the systems do not function
efficiently. Ensuring the required line quality is a major challenge. An obvious solution to this
is to interact and talk with the vendors and get it customized for an Indian client's

requirements," explained Manoj.

Manoj reiterates that it's important for the vendor and the client to have a good rapport so
that they do not just provide the client with boxes but change the operating system (and
other relevant software) as and when needed.
The basic topology has not changed. "Initially we had started with connecting seven
locations. Today all the centers and offices are connected making virtual banking a reality,"
said a proud Manoj.
Benefits
With the centralization of data all applications are controlled, modified and administered
from one location. The network has enabled the bank to shift from traditional banking to
virtual banking thus offering modern banking services to its customers. All backend
applications run from a centrally located data center. This eliminates duplication of processes
like backend operations, training of staff, administration cost, and other system related costs
at branch levels. Clients can avail of anytime-anywhere banking on the Net and make use of
their ATM cards at any of the ATM centers across the country. Considerable amount of cost
has been saved as the backend operations of regional offices have been eliminated. The data
for all the customers is centralized and processed from the centrally located data center.
Information for any ICICI client will be available at any of the ICICI branches.
Minu Sirsalewala can be reached at minus@networkmagazineindia.com