IBM has announced new Grid computing implementations with Japanese regional Higo Bank and Italy's UniCredit.
In Japan, Higo Bank has instituted an information Grid that provides data on demand from various loan systems at multiple platforms, providing real-time application integration, and speeding up the customer loan process from application to completion by 30%. The Grid solution was built on IBM eServer pSeries, TotalStorage (Enterprise Storage Server and Linear Tape Open Drives), DB2, and WebSphere Information Integrator.
The Grid centrally manages information collected from customers and transactions to build a database of customer information. It also provides a system environment that enables the bank to process all financing operations - from the reception of requests for financing to the management of credit - under the same system platform.
In Italy, UniCredit has engaged IBM to install a dedicated Grid environment for a new near real-time risk management application using IBM BladeCenter technology. IBM implemented a total of 44 IBM BladeCenter HS20 blade servers running the Red Hat Linux Enterprise Server V3 operating system in a Grid configuration with DataSynapse Grid computing software.
The bank is using the power of the Grid to analyse a larger volume of data in a shorter period of time, say the vendors, ensuring that customers receive the most appropriate and up-to-date prices.