EMC Middle East, an affiliate of EMC Corporation, has announced that Ajman Bank, the Islamic financial services institution, has selected EMC’s storage solutions to redefine IT infrastructure in a bid to reinforce the bank’s vision to transform the experience of Islamic banking for customers across the country.
The UAE’s first Shariah based Islamic bank has deployed EMC and VMware virtualisation and cloud infrastructure technologies to expedite operations and service delivery while enabling maximum scalability to meet rapid business growth. The bank has selected EMC VNX unified storage with the EMC Fully Automated Storage Tiering (FAST) Suite and EMC Unisphere to create the right IT environment to better support consistently growing data streams and better manage rapid customer growth.
Ajman Bank will further reinforce this deployment with EMC next generation Data Protection solutions to avail the benefits of a centralised, backup, archiving and recovery environment. Ajman Bank is already in the process of deploying EMC Data Domain systems together with EMC Networker to enable cost-effective and continuous data protection and disaster recovery to facilitate uninterrupted access to applications and services.
With EMC SourceOne and Centera, Ajman Bank can better protect critical data in order to keep up with internal governance and compliance policies in addition to meeting industry regulations.
Customer benefits
• Enhanced Performance- Using EMC VNX unified storage, Ajman Bank has successfully scaled it’s traditional siloed storage infrastructure to improve the performance of mission critical applications while meeting the demands for higher data availability
• FLASH 1st Strategy for Increased Efficiency- Using VNX together with EMC FAST Cache, the institution has successfully optimised storage utilisation and reduced data centre footprint by 50%.
• Simplified System Administration- EMC Unisphere included with VNX has helped Ajman Bank simplify management of its storage environment resulting in a 50% reduction in storage administration efforts and associated costs
• Enhanced Scalability- The deployment has enabled the bank to create a firm foundation for future business growth by enabling improved access to critical applications, enhanced visibility and scalability that allows 30% year on year growth in storage capacity.
• Rapid Provisioning- Through EMC’s Data Protection solutions, Ajman Bank can leverage the centralised single-console reporting and monitoring system to monitor the overall health of data protection environment and resolve issues in a timely manner.
• Trusted Environment- With the Data Protection solutions, the bank can look forward to a tightly consolidated and unified backup, recovery and archiving environment to protect critical data and applications, while simultaneously meeting governance and compliance requirements.
Customer challenges
Established in 2009 and headquartered in the Emirate of Ajman, Ajman Bank is the keystone of the emirate’s economic development strategy. Offering tailor-made products and services to hundreds of thousands of customers from across the UAE, the bank projects ambitious business growth as the institution continues to introduce a host of industry leading products and services and enhance overall customer experience.
Acknowledging the critical importance of the right storage infrastructure to manage steadily increasing data streams, improve scalability and reliability to meet the needs of their rapidly expanding customer base, the bank aimed to establish a truly integrated infrastructure.
Ajman Bank selected EMC for its tight integration with VMware and other operating systems to enhance remote access to mission critical and business applications in addition to the host of e-service and mobile banking applications for consumers. The consolidation of the storage environment on EMC has enabled a significant reduction in managerial complexity and associated costs while enabling the high requirements for data redundancy and availability to meet stringent compliance regulations.
The flash 1st strategy allows the institution to automatically provision performance levels in accordance with growing customer demands, enabling them to expedite service delivery and operations. Using VNX and Unisphere, Ajman Bank has not only improved storage utilisation but also enhanced productivity of storage systems.
With plans to reinforce the storage deployment with EMC’s award winning data protection solutions, Ajman Bank is working towards implementing a tightly consolidated storage, backup and archiving environment to deliver rapid and uninterrupted services across branches and customers. Through the deployment, Ajman Bank aims to create a truly integrated, unified data protection environment that not only expedites backup and recovery processes but also significantly drives the ability to meet stringent compliance protocols.
“As a leader in the UAE’s financial services industry and a cornerstone of Emirate’s economy, Ajman Bank continues to work to extend a host of award winning products and services for customers across the country. A truly consolidated IT infrastructure is instrumental to our ability to meet the ever growing demands from consumers who today need secure, uninterrupted access to financial services and products anytime, anywhere.
Electronic and mobile services are a compelling element in Ajman Bank’s strategic roadmap and we need a trusted IT partner who can work with us to provision customer needs in a safe and reliable manner. Our partnership with EMC goes well beyond IT, it is a step towards our vision to transform the delivery of Islamic banking services and improve the overall experience for our customers across the country,” said Hisham Hamoud, EVP, Chief Business Officer of Ajman Bank.
“Ajman Bank continues to lead the country’s financial services sector with their ambitious business strategy that is further reinforced IT transformation initiatives. With EMC VNX, Ajman Bank has created the unified and reliable service infrastructure to ensure that they are able to effectively extend the host of world-class products and services to an ever expanding customer base across the UAE.
We look forward to continuing on this exciting journey of growth, as the bank continues to establish the data protection environment that will further reinforce the consolidated storage environment to enhance backup and archiving capabilities that remain critical to provide an outstanding and completely trusted financial service offering,” said Habib Mahakian, Regional General Manager, Gulf and Pakistan at EMC Corporation.
