Crif

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Challenge

Crif is a global company specializing in the development and management of credit information systems, business information solutions, and decisional support solutions, as well as being the first Italian rating agency registered at the Community level. The Company, founded in Bologna in 1988, operates in Europe, America, Africa, and Asia, catering to banks, financial companies, insurance providers, utility companies, and business from various other sectors, providing support during all phases of customer relationships: from acquisition to the planning of development strategies, as well as portfolio management and the handling of outstanding claims.

Today Crif is a leader - and not only in Italy - in the Credit Information sector of the banking industry and is one of the major international providers of integrated Business & Commercial Information, as well as Credit & Marketing Management. It is no coincidence that its clients include over 3,100 banks and financial companies, in addition to more than 25,000 companies worldwide. Approximately 1,600 employees work at Crif, operating at the numerous locations of subsidiaries in Italy and abroad.

Crif employs an organizational scenario which focuses on technological innovation as the basis for constant development. In order to maintain its competitive advantage, Crif must have at its disposal an Information & Communication Technology infrastructure capable of integrating and delivering its clients high-quality and complete information assets through highly specialized platforms and services. With this objective in mind, Crif has turned to Cisco and VEM Systems to create a project for the modernization of the entire network and equipment in order to adopt a more flexible Data Center architecture that is scalable and able to provide solutions that support the services provided with maximum reliability, thereby also reducing preparation and execution times.

High-performance networks, innovation accelerates growth

Customer Name: Crif

Industry: IT Services in the banking industry

Location: Italy

Number of Employees: 1,600

Challenge• Increasing efficiency to establish new services

• Obtaining a more flexible Data Center to follow the market

• Implementing the new architecture without impacting productivity.

Solution• Cisco Data Center Platform based on Nexus 7000, Nexus 2000, and Catalyst 6500

Results• Faster service delivery times

• Greater simplicity of Data Center management

• Network traffic that is easier to analyze

• Time savings for network administrators

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Customer Case Study

Crif chooses cutting-edge Cisco technologies for a new highly reliable, scalable infrastructure tailored to support the rapid activation of new services for the business, all thanks to the experience of VEM systems

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The Company's objective was to evolve from a mainframe environment, pushing instead for a distributed system. This represents a true challenge for a financial institution. “One of the paradigms of our architecture consisted of environment isolation”, explains Carlo Romagnoli, IT Director Distributed IT Operations at Crif. “With the growth of the network, we were struggling with a level of stability that was no longer adequate for our needs or for the needs of our customers”.

We therefore needed an environment, which was more stable and would allow us to perform maintenance activities, thus further reducing the likelihood of malfunctions.

Specifically, there was a risk of finding ourselves operating with a network infrastructure no longer appropriate for the size that the company had reached, in a sector where it is essential to always have the latest technology in order to design new and popular services, constantly improving and perfecting them. This necessity was also reflected in our responsiveness to the demands and needs of Crif customers. “Business moves fast, and it was essential for us to be able to keep up in order to stay with the market”, says Paolo Marino, IT Manager - Network Operations.

It was also necessary to identify the most suitable way to develop the environment and to overcome any potential setbacks, taking into account the fact that technology had since changed dramatically. “The new network which we were going to design needed to respond primarily to the need for stability and flexibility in order to maintain an elevated performance level and to better facilitate change in response to our business”, highlights Romagnoli.

All of this, of course, took into account the investment required to handle such a substantial transformation with respect to the targets and the cost of managing and maintaining an infrastructure with these characteristics. The progress simply needed to begin, regardless of the time required and the inevitable impact on productivity.

“Changing a network means that everything, from machines to services has to somehow stop and then be restarted”, continues Romagnoli. These steps, even when carried out during the night or on weekends, may have an impact on business. “As such, we needed to proceed with great clarity about where this process would lead and what the final result would be, keeping in mind that the users of the network should remain unaware of the modifications being implemented”.

In addition to this, Crif wanted to achieve a more effective system for controlling the infrastructure, which would allow for more information about the use of the network and the data passing through it in order to act swiftly in the event of fault or fail over problems. “Crif sells information, and information systems are the foundation of our business”, explains Marino.

Solution

Starting in 2010, Crif began to implement a project for technological innovation based on Cisco technology in order to adapt the architecture of the service network, all thanks to invaluable consultations with VEM Systems. Working on such a structural change entails the risk of interferences and creating disruptions in the company's operations. For this reason, great care had to be taken during the complexity analysis phase in order to maintain complete transparency for clients and users during the implementation phase. The objective was to enable Crif - within a span of about one year which actually took only 8 months - to obtain a completely renovated network architecture.

“We are now able to identify what type of traffic passes through the network, monitor it, carry out performance analyses, and execute troubleshooting activities more quickly, easily, and effectively.”

Paolo MarinoIT Manager - Network OperationsCrif

Customer Case Study


The new network is distributed across two sites - the office in Bologna and a branch near the Capital - in order to offer services to the Business Community. In total, the infrastructure is composed of four Cisco Nexus 7000 and over 25 Cisco Nexus 2000, used to grant access to the servers. “Thanks to VEM Systems, we have developed both the core project with the introduction of Cisco equipment and all of the security components in addition to the firewalling”, explains Marino.

An integral part of the project was the re-engineering of the network subdivision, or the way in which the logical levels are organized, and the complete redesign of the system for accessing the internet. Therefore, a more robust and flexible system was created that allows for the possibility of adding and changing the service providers employed for users to connect transparently. Crif is also equipped with a network architecture suitable for interconnecting all of its offices and remote locations in order to connect and provide services to all offices distributed across the globe. VPN management, MPLS endpoint, and the security of input ports have all been optimized.

The project was jointly developed in full by the Crif team dedicated to Networking and VEM technicians. “We expressed our requirements to VEM, which in turn made a few proposals that we gradually modulated and revised based on our actual needs”, adds Marino. In fact, VEM's role proved to be decisive starting with the design phase. “We were able to create a cohesive work group with Crif staff”, says Gabriella Attanasio, VEM Technical Director, “by capitalizing on our technical expertise. This factor was crucial for the project, on a broad spectrum, and included more than one technology”. Added to this were changes to cope with issues emerging during the implementation phase, demonstrating that companies such as VEM are essential for adapting vendor solutions tailored to specific companies. Furthermore, in the case of Crif, it was possible to arrive at a final definition of an architecture whose benefits would not need to be awaited.

Results

During the implementation phase, the goal of protecting the transparency in the transition from the old to the new Cisco infrastructure was fully achieved. “We succeeded in maximally limiting slowdown times in the delivery of service. In the analysis phase, we anticipated a dozen or so non-consecutive days, but in the course of the work we managed to not exceed a total of four days of downtime over the span of the nine months when everything was implemented”, says Marino. “It was an extraordinary achievement, seeing as how it was not easy to execute such complex work with so few consequences”.

Today, Crif's IT platform is very flexible in relation to the business. Additionally, thanks to the new Cisco network, the time required to set up new services has been drastically reduced compared to previous experiences. This flexibility can be seen in operations to add, modify, or replace network components without such activities generating periods of infrastructure unavailability, as was previously the case. “We can operate more easily on network devices without having to interrupt any of their activities”, adds Marino. Add to this all of the benefits from having technology available with higher performance.

“Bandwidth has increased in the order of ten times compared to the recent past, going from a 1 GB connection to several 10 GB connections, with fundamental improvements in terms of the speed of internal traffic”. All Clif branches offices have therefore been connected with the headquarters in Bologna, which provides corporate services.

Customer Case Study

“The total contribution of those managing the technology for the Crif Group was perceived as a key factor in the growth the Company has made.

Carlo RomagnoliIT Director Distributed IT OperationsCrif


Additionally, there is the added advantage of manageability. “Thanks to the new infrastructure, we have centralized everything as much as possible”, Marino continued. “Using few management consoles allow us to act on multiple points and at multiple levels of the network”. Not to mention the added value from having a greater amount of information compared to the previous situation. “We are now able to determine what type of traffic is passing through the network, to carry out the respective monitoring, conduct performance analyses and execute troubleshooting activities more quickly, easily, and effectively”.

A result of all this can also be seen in the increasing amount of time available to network administrators. “We have also gained in terms of involvement, considering that we now need less times and resources to perform tasks that were required to carry out before all of this”, explains Marino. “As for problem analysis, from the time when the problem arises until a solution is identified, we now require 30% less time”.

But in general, even if the benefits we have achieved do not adhere to easily measurable criteria, reliability and stability are perceived in related activities and in the performance of the services which Crif provides. “Although not always immediate - for non-experts - to match operational improvements with actions taken to adapt IT systems”, says Romagnoli, “the total contribution of those managing the technology for the Crif Group has been considered a key factor in the growth which the Company was pursuing”.

It is no surprise then that there has been much satisfaction with the professional relationship established with VEM systems, which has been active for several years now. “VEM Systems has proven to be an excellent business partner, not only because it has completed the installation on time and in the manner expected, but also because it was present during the delivery of the project and it was always willing to accommodate our requests, even when these presented entirely new challenges compared to standard business scenarios”, says Marino.

The project carried out by Crif demonstrates the value of the Cisco architectural framework, which helps companies to focus IT investments for tangible business results. “Cisco solutions enable the Data Center to be more flexible, efficient, and transformative”, concludes Alberto Degradi, Cisco Infrastructure Leader. “In particular, they help companies to make the most of their resources by accelerating the delivery of new services, thus increasing profitability and enabling new IT and business models”.

For More InformationMore information about the Cisco architecture and solutions presented in this customer case study are available online at: http://www.cisco.com/web/IT/solutions/datacenter

Customer Case Study

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