Canara Bank

Introduction

Founded in 1906, Canara Bank is one of the premier banks in India, with a network of 2508 branches across the country. The bank was the first to launch networked ATMs in India and obtain an ISO Certification. Canara Bank has also achieved the distinction of being the country's highest net profit earner among nationalized banks for the year March 2005.

The bank has already carved a niche in providing IT-based services such as Networked ATMs, Anywhere Banking, Telebanking, Remote Access Terminals, Internet & Mobile Banking, Debit Cards, etc. Canara Bank has a vision to help improve the economic condition of the common people of India by inculcating the habit of savings in rural areas.

Challenges

Canara Bank achieved 100% computerization very early in the course of its operational history. It deployed a number of bank automation tools such as a customized Total Branch Automation (TBA) package called Integrated Branch Banking Software (IBBS), which was developed by its subsidiary, CanBank Computer Services Ltd. (CCSL). IBBS was deployed on Novell NetWare at close to 1400 medium sized branches across the country.

Canara Bank follows a detailed tendering process for new hardware purchases, in which contracts are awarded on the basis of bids. After nearly a decade of deploying IBBS, the bank had purchased different types of hardware from multiple vendors. As a result, standardization on Novell NetWare became difficult, and supporting the legacy IBBS application became a challenging task.

Moreover, IBBS was developed using Microfocus COBOL and designed to run in a 16-bit DOS environment. With poor support for the TCP/IP protocol stack, the NetWare servers running IBBS could not be integrated into the corporate network easily. Essentially, the NetWare servers functioned as branch file servers, without any data connectivity. Regular maintenance of different versions of IBBS across 1400 branches was a painstaking effort in the absence of network support. Patching, troubleshooting and version upgrades had to be conducted onsite. Branches in rural and remote areas were particularly difficult to access and required support personnel to travel frequently. Also, the availability of certified hardware on NetWare was limited, which made adding new machines difficult.

As Canara Bank's customer base expanded, its banking services began to scale, creating an immediate need for Internet Banking, Anywhere Banking (banking from any CanBank branch across the country) and an expanded ATM network. Novell NetWare's closed legacy environment did not allow room to accommodate these new technologies. Canara Bank had to purchase additional machines running Microsoft Windows to interface with these new technologies, which was extremely inefficient from a hardware utilization standpoint. New hardware and Microsoft Windows licenses strained budgets and made new technology projects difficult to scale and sustain.

When additional branches were added to the bank's network, procuring new servers that were certified to run on NetWare was difficult, as IHVs had ceased to provide support for older versions of the OS. Micro Focus had also ceased support for the COBOL version on which the IBBS package had been developed. A combination of all these factors made migration attractive.

Migrating the 1400 odd legacy NetWare servers posed another challenge: Canara Bank wanted to switch platforms but not hardware. Deploying the latest OS available, without going into a hardware refresh cycle that would cost millions of rupees was a challenging task. The bank had amassed about a dozen different types of machines after a decade of deploying IBBS. This heterogeneous mix of hardware that spanned across more than 1,000 servers and 10,000 desktops made the project very complex. Canara Bank began to look for a platform that could deliver the latest innovation along with complete hardware freedom.

Solution

After a detailed evaluation phase, Canara Bank decided to modernize branch automation by re-deploying IBBS on the Red Hat Enterprise Linux platform. The bank selected Red Hat Enterprise Linux as its platform of choice to replace NetWare servers at more than 1,000 branches across the country, after a successful pilot run. The project marks the largest roll out of Red Hat Enterprise Linux in the Indian BFSI vertical so far. The package was ported from NetWare to the Red Hat Enterprise Linux platform by CCSL.

The architecture of the application deployment was changed to a server-based processing model from the earlier client processing model. In addition to leveraging the improved performance provided by Red Hat Enterprise Linux on the server, this architecture provide several other benefits. For example, performance improvements can be achieved by upgrading only the server and clients need to be replaced only in case of hardware failure. This will result in substantial savings on hardware over the life of the system.

A customized, light version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux v.3 was specially developed by the Red Hat Engineering team to suit Canara Bank's existing desktop hardware infrastructure. SSH connectivity allowed Red Hat Enterprise Linux servers to be easily and securely networked. This connectivity was used for both client access as well as for secure access for remote maintenance.

Upon the completion of the project, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, will be deployed on more than 1,000 servers and 10,000 desktops at Canara Bank. Under the first phase of deployment, Red Hat Enterprise Linux has been rolled out at approximately 500 branches in a record time of three months. Close to 500 Red Hat Enterprise Linux servers and 5000 Red Hat Desktops have been deployed in this phase. As part of its vision to introduce 100% modernization into its banking services environment, Canara Bank is actively pursuing deploying Enterprise Linux in additional branches as well.

Red Hat worked closely with Canara Bank to provide a stable and fine tuned platform for its desktop and servers. Red Hat also provided training and help desk services to Canara Bank for deployment and sustenance of the project over a long term. Reliable support and professional services and consulting were key factors behind Canara Bank's decision of selecting Red Hat as its vendor of choice.

Benefits

Daily closure of books under the IBBS system running on Novell NetWare used to take over two hours on an average. With Red Hat Enterprise Linux v.3, the closure time was brought down to 15 minutes. Systems became more responsive with Red Hat's 32-bit operating environment as opposed to the earlier 16-bit DOS technology running under NetWare.

With Enterprise Linux, Canara Bank could eliminate the need for purchasing separate hardware and Windows licenses for deploying ATM listeners.

According to officials at Canara Bank, “Red Hat Enterprise Linux has enabled Canara Bank to reduce infrastructure costs significantly. However, the low TCO aspect was just a small part of the overall benefits received. In Enterprise Linux, Canara Bank has found a secure, reliable platform that has delivered flexibility and choice to its infrastructure. This in turn has empowered the bank to provide affordable services to the common man.”

Canara Bank has also opted for dedicated onsite support services from Red Hat, through a 24x7 help desk manned by Red Hat Engineers. The engineers remotely log on to the IBBS servers in branches across the country and troubleshoot problems directly.

Canara Bank officials add, “The bank has been able to roll out the TBA project at a rapid pace due to the collaborative efforts of Red Hat's Professional Services team.”

Migration is currently underway at a rapid pace and Canara Bank expects to complete the project three months before the projected date.

Future Plan

Moving from the legacy NetWare platform to Red Hat Enterprise Linux has opened up significant opportunities for Canara Bank. With networking support now available, Canara Bank is planning to deploy Red Hat Network Satellite to send updates for both IBBS as well as the operating system to all distributed machines across the country. Enterprise Linux has also made Remote Management and health monitoring of remote servers possible.

With the tremendous benefits provided by Enterprise Linux, Canara Bank plans to move its Anywhere Banking and Internet Banking listeners to the Enterprise Linux platform. Enterprise Linux has provided Canara Bank with the freedom and choice to develop a scalable growth plan, which was not possible under NetWare's closed legacy environment.

The power of Linux is not restricted by hardware limitations, as it can run on different kinds of architectures. Canara Bank has managed to save crores of rupees in new hardware acquisition costs, by using a lightweight customized Linux distribution on its existing hardware.

Conclusion

As part of its vision of using technology to provide affordable banking services to the vast rural population of India, Canara Bank has extended the performance and cost benefits of Enterprise Linux to its customers. With a modernized branch infrastructure, Canara Bank hopes to serve customers in a timely and efficient manner, reinforcing its image of being a customer savvy bank.