Ghana International Bank gains full visibility of core systems with Orb Data

The last five or six years have seen rapid growth in GHIB’s infrastructure. Core banking systems have been changed and implemented and interfaces updated. Monitoring was performed manually and reactively, and as a result, GHIB needed to invest in a monitoring solution . This would ensure that the IT department was proactively made aware of errors so it could take appropriate actions before the business was impacted.

Gino Brenzini, Head of IT, considered a number of options in his search for the right monitoring solution for GHIB. At that point, IBM Tivoli was not even on the cards. Its preceding reputation conjured up images of big enterprise solutions designed only for large financial type organisations: a solution which would cost a fortune and would take weeks to implement. It would be over-spec’d for Gino’s specific requirement. Gino considered smaller, non-enterprise solutions which would provide out of the box monitoring of OSes and go some way to easing the situation. The major stumbling block was that certain applications that required monitoring, such as WebSphere MQ were not included in these tools and  would have to have a bespoke script written for them. Consequently, external developers would have to be used to build and maintain it. 

It was around this time that Gino received a call from Orb Data, telling him about IBM Tivoli Foundations (now IBM Solutions for Smarter Business). These appliance-based systems have been designed specifically for the small to medium business with limited IT staff that want to implement specialised IT business solutions without the complexity or hassle of traditional technology packages. Gino was impressed with Orb Data’s expertise in the Appliance space, and soon realised he could achieve all the functionality of Tivoli but without the complexity or cost traditionally associated with it –out of the box. All the agents he needed – including MQ – were included, and it could be up and running within days, not weeks.

Other companies Gino spoke with did not demonstrate the knowledge or experience in the IBM Tivoli Foundations area he was looking for. They quoted longer deployment times and higher costs, and did not give Gino the confidence that they could actually deliver.For GHIB, it is essential to create long-term relationships, and not one-off short-term projects. Gino was convinced by the people he met within Orb Data that he was dealing with experts who had his interests in mind,

The solution was up and running in under 5 days; all the implementation and agent configuration. Training was provided directly by one of AAA-accredited Orb Data’s Principal Consultants. The next step will be a requirement review after a few months to extend the use of the monitoring agents included in TFAM such as SQL, Exchange and Active Directory.

For more information about Orb Data, visit www.orb-data.com