VerityThree Virtualizes Legacy and Aging Servers into SAN with VMware

Dell EqualLogic Storage, Dell PowerEdge Servers and VMware Server Virtualization upgrades American Community Bank & Trust, located in the suburbs of Northern Chicago, from an aging infrastructure to a robust and flexible computing environment.  Balancing daily operations, data security and compliance are key components of success in the highly competitive financial market.  VerityThree, Inc. has the expertise to solve these unique challenges and provide valuable solutions that work.

VerityThree, Inc. (VTI) is focused on technology solutions for Banking, Engineering and Business.  VTI takes a proactive approach to strategic and operational challenges through analysis and understanding of long-term goals and the implementation of solutions for success.

American Community Bank & Trust (ACBT) was facing an aging infrastructure in terms of both hardware and software.  VerityThree developed a detailed knowledge of the bank infrastructure and the needs of the organization.  When many legacy systems were identified for replacement, VerityThree conducted a strategic review with management and recommended a migration to virtualization for their server environment.  The benefits of this migration included a more robust and powerful server system with the flexibility needed to respond to growth, business continuity and disaster recovery.

Challenge

Several legacy systems identified for replacement prompted the need for a design that would take this organization forward utilizing the many advantages of virtualization.

Legacy systems create the following challenges:

• They can run on aging or obsolete (and potentially slower) hardware.
• Spare parts are difficult to locate.
• Difficult to maintain, improve, and enhance.
• Security vulnerabilities
• Integration with new systems

American Community Bank was founded in 2000 by senior financial professionals, area entrepreneurs and local investors. It was June 2005 that both Entrepreneur magazine and PricewaterhouseCoopers honored them as the 37^th fastest-growing new business in America in the “Hot 100″ list. In 2007, the bank was honored as one of the fastest growing companies in America in Entrepreneur, the magazine’s Hot 500 list, as well as Inc. magazine’s 5000.

American Community Bank offers a wide variety of services including personal banking, mortgage banking, business banking and wealth management.

The Transformation Process

The transformation of legacy and aging servers into a Storage Area Network (SAN) with VMware required detailed planning and scheduling. With 100 employees in the organization, care was taken to ensure as little downtime as possible.

As the customer-proven leader in virtualization and cloud infrastructure, it was decided utilize VMware as a solution that would ultimately allow the bank to lower costs, while increasing system agility and flexibility.  While VMware allows the flexibility to move to the cloud, this was not a critical consideration in the decision to use VMware. Due to security requirements imposed by the FDIC, cloud transitioning was not an option at the time of the project.

At the time of investment, the implementation of Storage Area Network (SAN) needed to be included.

Overall Improvements

The decision was made to install Dell EqualLogic SAN equipment, a move that would allow expansion as storage needs change. Dell EqualLogic also provides many integrated tools such as snapshots, replication and monitoring that are included with the cost of the hardware.

Another integral component of the virtualization hardware was the purchase of Dell PowerEdge servers. These servers are optimized for virtualization and can be custom configured to provide the necessary horsepower needed for the project goals.

To complete the upgrade project, an upgrade to the Microsoft Windows Server 2008 operating system was included.  Microsoft Exchange 2010 was implemented as well to provide a robust communication and collaboration platform for the bank.

For Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity, the virtual environment will be replicated to an alternate branch.  The replication of virtual machines offsite is accomplished through a combination of EqualLogic replication tools and the use of Veeam backup and replication software.

Future Strategy

Once the time is right, American Community Bank and VerityThree will look into the possibility of Citrix desktop virtualization.