Rabobank

Services Savings Compound In Greater Benefits For Bank

Rabobank Cuts IT Infrastructure Service Maintenance Costs By 33 Per Cent And Boosts Data Centre Availability To 100%

When Australia's rural and food sectors do business, chances are it is with Rabobank.

Whether it is online banking for farmers or handling the foreign exchange on a major grain export deal, Rabobank's centralised data centre in Sydney makes it happen.

Armed with around 60 Sun Microsystems servers and tape library infrastructure, Rabobank relied on Sun Microsystems support services to keep its data centre running smoothly.

After reviewing its Information Technology Infrastructure operation in October 2005, Maria Kent, Head of IT Infrastructure, identified IT service maintenance as an area where savings could be achieved.

Working with Sun, Rabobank not only cut IT service maintenance costs by 33 per cent, it increased data centre availability to 100 per cent and IT staff satisfaction soared.

The Challenge

The world's leading food and agribusiness bank, Rabobank has 46 branches throughout Australia.

In February 2006, Rabobank's data centre was running at around 99.84 per cent availability.

With a new PeopleSoft application set to go live in November 2006 and a Treasury Application due soon after, the ITI team was stretched keeping pace with new projects as well as maintenance.

Faced with the need to increase the data centre space and the challenge of doing more with less, Ian Nunn, Rabobank's Chief Manager, ITI Operations and Support, turned to his maintenance service providers for opportunities.

Outsourced support costs with Sun were well into the six figure range and on the rise annually.

"When we first called Sun to chat about cutting our IT infrastructure maintenance costs, we spoke about using third-party service providers as a possible solution," said Ian.

"What we found, however, was that we could generate bigger savings and improve the performance of our data centre by applying best practice services methodologies," he said.

After a series of meetings, Rabobank embarked on a Sun Managed Services program that saw the two organisations working collaboratively to achieve clearly defined business objectives.

The Solution

Based on ITIL* (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) best practices and proven methodologies, the Rabobank program was divided into two stages: Get it Right and Keep it Right.

Get it Right involved a realistic assessment of Rabobank's data centre health based on measurable risk indicators and the development of a treatment plan.

The program would move to the Keep it Right phase after targeted improvements had been sustained for 90 days.

The engagement began with Sun's team coming on site to conduct a Service Definition Workshop.

This involved an assessment of five Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that address people, processes and products (the 3 Ps).

Sun Net Connect software was installed on more than 60 Sun Microsystems servers to measure variables that affect availability and to generate reports to measure improvement.
At the end of the assessment, Rabobank and Sun set the following monthly targets:

• System Availability - 99.9 per cent
• Service Incidents - 4
• Availability Risk Index - 40
• Employee Skills - 300
• Process Maturity Index - 4

Key organisational changes put in place in 2005 by Maria Kent set the scene for further efficiencies within the ITI Operations Data Centre team. Rather than having one generic Unix team, the group was split into two: one that provided Unix data centre services and a second that focused on Unix engineering systems and projects.

Patching was also an important area for improvement, according to Nunn

"Historically, we did all our security patching, but elected not to do some of the weird and wonderful patches that applied to obscure areas of the operating system. Ironically, these were the patches that had the biggest impact on our down time," he said

"What's more, when you apply these more obscure patches, you often fix the security holes at the same time which generates significant efficiencies."

Results

Rabobank graduated to the Keep it Right Phase in October 2006 - the first Australian company to do so - a year after it embarked on the Managed Services program.

It has recorded 100 per cent data centre availability (up from 99.84) for four consecutive months. Its service maintenance costs have been cut by 33 per cent for the year and the company is on target to reduce these by an additional 11 per cent next year.

"We have far exceeded what we set out to achieve when we thought about cutting services costs," reports Ian Nunn.

"Costs are down, performance is up, and the benefits continue to flow through from our investments in training and processes."

"We have team members who take around 10 minutes to perform a task that, prior to working with Sun, would take around one hour."

"Staff feel justifiably proud of what they have achieved. Job satisfaction is high and our people talk to their peers about what a great place Rabobank is to work."

"The key to success of Sun's managed services program is its holistic view of people, processes and technology."

"It takes a huge commitment from the entire ITI operation to put in place the processes and then adhere to them."

"There were times when we were tempted to say 'This is too hard', but by working alongside the Sun consultants, we were able to keep each other motivated. The Sun team got a lot out of it too."

"When companies talk about a partnership approach, this is what they try to achieve. The project has delivered great benefits - to both companies."

About Rabobank

Rabobank Australia & New Zealand is a part of the international Rabobank Group, the world's leading specialist in food and agribusiness banking. Rabobank has more than 100 years' experience providing customised banking and finance solutions to businesses involved in all aspects of food and agribusiness. Rabobank has a AAA credit rating and is ranked as one of the world's safest banks by Global Finance magazine. Rabobank operates in 38 countries, servicing the needs of more than nine million clients worldwide through a network of more than 1500 offices and branches. Rabobank is one of Australia's leading rural lenders and a significant provider of business and corporate banking and financial services to the Australian food and agribusiness sector. The bank has 46 branches throughout Australia.

About ITIL

ITIL outlines an extensive set of management procedures that are intended to support businesses in achieving both quality and value for money in IT operations.

These procedures are supplier independent and have been developed to provide guidance across the breadth of IT infrastructure, development, and operations.