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Over the last several years, the largest banks in the industrial world have become complex financial institutions, offering a growing variety of services to international markets and managing billions of dollars in cash and assets. Notwithstanding this global trend of consolidation at the high-end, banks of all shapes and sizes are looking for innovative uses of technology to identify new business niches, to develop customized services, to implement innovative strategies and to capture new market opportunities. As globalization, consolidation, deregulation and diversification continues, firms that demonstrate the ability to quickly adapt in such a dynamic business environment are best positioned for success.
Each financial institution faces its own particular set of circumstances, but they all share one ultimate goal: to make profits, primarily from the margin between the rate a bank pays for its funds and the rate that it earns by lending or investing those funds. By adopting technology that enables business flexibility, financial services companies can improve this fundamental ratio—and transform the firm into a high-performance organization capable of delivering value in the face of cyclical economic forces. Customer service can be a key factor for competitive advantage and critical to improving revenue and profitability. So, too, are back office functions that allow for more effective management of data and risk and compliance concerns.
Furthermore, many banks are performing advanced customer analytics with data warehouse and business intelligence applications to find new sources of business from their existing clients. Add to that the challenging effects of industry consolidation and mergers that typically result in the emergence of one entity’s administrative systems as the standard across the newly-merged institution. This type of systems and operational consolidation can place a huge premium on IT standardization, as well as flexible, easy-to-manage IT solutions.
The dynamics of global financial trends are testing the industry’s mettle as never before. The good news is that financial institutions are emerging from the crucible in better competitive shape: The survivors are leaner, more responsive and more profitable. The leading institutions are anticipating change and adapting to these market realities by adopting the technology that enables business flexibility. Financial services firms also can face serious consequences—including lost revenue and dissatisfied customers—if their ability to process business trans-actions is interrupted, even briefly.
Moreover, the tremendous attention on new and existing regulations is forcing financial institutions to implement rigorous compliance measures to protect not only their investors but also them-selves. With such mandates, the cost of not protecting critical financial and customer information can be enormous. Succeeding in this challenging environment, therefore, requires financial services firms to align their data storage infrastructures with their business processes as they work toward effectively managing and protecting their corporate data.
The IBM System Storage™ DS Family is designed to help businesses optimize storage infrastructure, leverage information, mitigate risk and enable business flexibility. These systems combine cost-effective scalability, consistent enterprise-wide data storage and access, streamlined data management tools and advanced virtualization technologies. The potential benefits are clear: increased efficiency, lower power consumption, employee productivity, enhanced data protection and improved return on investment.
Consolidate critical storage assets to enhance cost-efficiency
Consolidation begins with interoperability. The IBM System Storage DS Family supports a broad array of IBM and non-IBM server platforms, including IBM z/OS®, z/VM®, OS/400®, i5/OS® and AIX® operating systems,as well as Linux®, HP-UX, Sun Solaris, Novell NetWare, VMware, UNIX® and Microsoft® Windows® environments. Organizations have the freedom to choose preferred vendors and applications while extending previous IT investments.
Virtualize storage systems to boost flexibility and availability
Virtualization software provides capabilities to logically combine separate physical storage systems into a single virtual storage pool. This capability helps to enable consolidation by simplifying storage management and reducing system complexity and IT costs. Innovative IBM Virtualization Engine™ logical partitioning technology, which is available in select configurations of the IBM System Storage DS8300, introduces a new level of virtualization. Storage administrators can maintain two completely separate virtual storage subsystems running the same or different storage environments. The virtual subsystems can be used for separate production, test or other unique storage environments, all operating within a single physical enclosure—helping to reduce costs and allow further consolidation of the storage environment. Such consolidation helps create an energy efficient storage environment while addressing the increasing demand for storage capacity.
Streamline storage management to enable business flexibility
The IBM System Storage DS Family incorporates streamlined management tools with easy-to-use interfaces, extensive remote management capabilities and the ability to automate important tasks. IBM System Storage DS8000™,DS6000™ and DS4000™ series storage systems include sophisticated element managers that are based on the Storage Networking Industry Association’s Storage Management Initiative Specification (SMI-S). All include high-function graphical-user interfaces and are designed to allow users to manage subsystems and controllers, perform logical configurations and administer copy services functions.
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