IBM (NYSE: IBM) and Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE: RHT), a leading provider of open source solutions, today announced that Handelsbanken, one of the four largest banks in the Nordic Area, has achieved strong business continuity, security and cost-efficiency results by deploying virtualization technology using Red Hat Enterprise Linux on System z servers and IBM System z operating system, z/OS. The bank's newly deployed technology solution will help maintain a highly resilient and secure network that scales based on business demands.
Today's announcement comes at a pivotal time for Handelsbanken as the bank continues its path as one of Europe's most innovative lending organizations with Internet banking features, such as unique branch office web sites and direct email addresses to each branch site for enhanced customer service. Handelsbanken joins the world's top 50 banks that currently call upon the IBM System z server to run their banking transactions.
"Customers entrust us with their hard earned savings so it's paramount that we select one of the industry's most powerful and secure servers - the IBM System z," said Roger Rydberg, technical manager at Handelsbanken. "System z servers are 'almost perfect' because of its availability and performance. It allows us to keep up with business climate changes because we can add or eliminate capacity any time based on customer demands. We can even make changes easily without having to stop any services."
"One of the main reasons for us to standardize our Linux environment on Red Hat Enterprise Linux was the ability to lower costs and use our IT personnel more effectively by leveraging the solution's integrated virtualization functionality. We can now fully harness and utilize the knowledge and experience of our IT staff who manage our existing distributed Red Hat Enterprise Linux systems for our System z environment," said Peter ter Laag, Central Data Department at Handelsbanken.
The bank's virtualized environment has helped to lower costs by minimizing the need for additional systems that require more energy and space, translating into a greener IT infrastructure. The combination of Red Hat and IBM solutions has helped the bank move closer to meeting its greener computing initiatives.
To maintain business operations for Handelsbanken's 660 branch offices across Sweden, Great Britain and the Nordic countries to run smoothly, the bank utilizes Parallel Sysplex IBM's System z clustering technology and IBM's availability and disaster recovery solution branded as GDPS (Geographically Dispersed Parallel Sysplex). Parallel Sysplex and GDPS together allows Handelsbanken to run its System z mainframes as highly powerful "clustered" servers that move new work requests to the available resources so that even planned or un-planned outages in multiple and distant data centers have little to no impact on business operations. Known for its ability to share system resources with one of the highest degrees of efficiency among other systems, the System z mainframe can consolidate hundreds of virtual servers into a single mainframe - allowing customers like Handelsbanken to run critical customer transactions in the midst of executing other strategic IT projects. Handelsbanken currently runs GDPS version 3.5. IBM most recently released Version 3.6.
In addition to standardizing its Linux systems on Red Hat Enterprise Linux for its virtualization technology and benefits of scalability, performance and reduced costs, Handelsbanken also utilizes the System z operating system, z/OS, to perform ongoing simplification features and health-checking mechanisms. The bank's infrastructure also includes extensive use of innovative policy-based networking services across multiple z/OS-based networks. Built-in automated reporting capabilities help Handelsbanken manage countless workloads and network traffic across its systems. Handelsbanken currently runs z/OS version 1.10, the latest release of the operating system.
"Most important for Handelsbanken is that we can achieve all the benefits of virtualized systems, while still maintaining a secure and flexible environment with high availability and reliability through Red Hat Enterprise Linux. These elements are extremely important to our business, especially when running transaction-intensive applications. Red Hat Enterprise Linux on System z has helped us meet mission-critical needs for our organization," said ter Laag.
For more information about IBM System z mainframes, please visit www.ibm.com/systems/z.
For more information about Red Hat, visit www.redhat.com. For more press, more often, visit www.press.redhat.com.
For more information about Handelsbanken, please visit www.handelsbanken.se.
About Red Hat, Inc.
Red Hat, the world's leading open source solutions provider, is headquartered in Raleigh, NC with over 65 offices spanning the globe. CIOs ranked Red Hat as one of the top vendors delivering value in Enterprise Software for five consecutive years in the CIO Insight Magazine Vendor Value survey. Red Hat provides high-quality, affordable technology with its operating system platform, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, together with applications, management and Services Oriented Architecture (SOA) solutions, including JBoss Enterprise Middleware. Red Hat also offers support, training and consulting services to its customers worldwide. Learn more: http://www.redhat.com.
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- Forward-Looking Statements
Certain statements contained in this press release may constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements provide current expectations of future events based on certain assumptions and include any statement that does not directly relate to any historical or current fact. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors, including: risks related to delays or reductions in information technology spending; the effects of industry consolidation; the ability of the Company to compete effectively; the integration of acquisitions and the ability to market successfully acquired technologies and products; uncertainty and adverse results in litigation and related settlements; the inability to adequately protect Company intellectual property and the potential for infringement or breach of license claims of or relating to third party intellectual property; the ability to deliver and stimulate demand for new products and technological innovations on a timely basis; risks related to data and information security vulnerabilities; ineffective management of, and control over, the Company’s growth and international operations; fluctuations in exchange rates; and changes in and a dependence on key personnel, as well as other factors contained in our most recent Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q (copies of which may be accessed through the Securities and Exchange Commission’s website at http://www.sec.gov), including those found therein under the captions "Risk Factors" and "Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations". In addition to these factors, actual future performance, outcomes, and results may differ materially because of more general factors including (without limitation) general industry and market conditions and growth rates, economic and political conditions, governmental and public policy changes and the impact of natural disasters such as earthquakes and floods. The forward-looking statements included in this press release represent the Company’s views as of the date of this press release and these views could change. However, while the Company may elect to update these forward-looking statements at some point in the future, the Company specifically disclaims any obligation to do so. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing the Company’s views as of any date subsequent to the date of this press release.
