AIX-based banking system
Delivering a bespoke performance enhancement upgrade
The Challenge
In the world of banking, even a short period of system unavailability can affect operations and the quality of service. As an independent, family-owned bank, maintaining outstanding levels of customer service is central to Julian Hodge Bank's success.
Part of the Bank's infrastructure consists of a third party AIX based banking system and a growing volume of data meant there was a marked increase in the overnight processing time. The bank needed to improve its system performance to ensure that the service provided to its customers remained unaffected.
PSU's specialist engineers were therefore asked to identify the source of the issue and action bespoke enhancements accordingly.
The Solution
In order to minimise the amount of change taking place, PSU were asked to introduce performance enhancements that wouldn't modify the operating system or necessitate the upgrade of the third party application.
PSU's specialist team began by monitoring the system usage & performance trends and assessing how to approach the upgrade process. The planning stage included building a full replica of the bank's system at PSU's headquarters which was used as a test rig for scenarios that could potentially be encountered on the live system. This ensured full business continuity was maintained before, during and after the work was carried out.
The upgrade was completed out of hours, over the course of a weekend, and was a resounding success - with a reported 30% performance improvement on the first working day.
Dave Gush, the Bank's Information Services Support Manager, said "Congratulations to your team for all the preparation work, it really paid off."