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Company background:
 Independent Alliance Bank, Inc. (IAB) is an
alliance of community banks, operating
independently of each other to grow their
business by focusing on customers. Every IAB
bank is committed to providing professional,
personal service and strong community
leadership.
Independent Alliance Banks was established in
2005 and is currently a two-bank holding company
that includes Grabill Bank and Markle Bank. IAB
employs approximately 265 people in local
Indiana communities which include Fort Wayne,
New Haven, Leo, Grabill, Harlan , Markle,
Bluffton, Van Buren, Warren and Huntington.
The Challenge:
When Markle Bank and Grabill Bank joined
Independent Alliance bank they merged their
physical datacenters into a single location in
Fort Wayne as part of their consolidation. This
consolidation allowed them to pool their
technical expertise and thus reduce some of the
overhead resulting from multiple physical
datacenters, including such things as floor
space, electricity, cooling, security and fire
suppression. As the overall technology plan for
the new alliance became more focused a paramount
goal emerged. The technology team was faced with
the challenge to develop an infrastructure that
allowed for the integration of new banks into
the system while at the same time reducing
costs. As the infrastructure moved towards a
hosted application model a platform was needed
that would conform to contractual service level
agreements and the related disaster recovery
needs.
The Solution:
ENS worked closely with IAB to understand their
business goals and develop a plan that would
address the challenges they faced. In the
planning phase ENS helped design the new
infrastructure, evaluate costs, and create
timelines for implementation.
The Technical Aspect:
This design included two major infrastructure
changes. The first major change necessary was
the integration of the disparate Microsoft
Active Directory (AD) forests into a single AD
forest. The second major change was a shift to
server virtualization.
Each change provided its own set of benefits and
advantages.
The AD forest consolidation included the
following technologies:
- Microsoft Windows Server
2003, 2000, and NT 4.0
- Microsoft Exchange 2003
and Microsoft Mail
- Citrix Metaframe and
Presentation Server
- Line of Business
Applications included several packages from
the Fiserv (formerly ITI) product line.
The AD forest merger allowed for
multiple benefits, including:
- A reduction in the
amount of AD domain controllers, DNS
servers, hardware, and the associated
Microsoft licensing in comparison to
multiple AD forests
- A reduction in the
amount of Microsoft Exchange Servers,
hardware, and the associated Microsoft
licensing in comparison to multiple AD
forests
- A reduction in the
amount of Citrix Presentation Servers,
hardware, and the associated Microsoft and
Citrix licensing in comparison to multiple
AD forests
- Easier consolidation of
administration
- Reduced complexity
allowing for a simpler administration model
- Less complexity in
application or technology implementation as
integration with a single AD forest allows
for a single point of integration to access
user information and security principles
- A foundation that
allows for a granular security model if the
need arises for delegation of administration
tasks across multiple IT departments
The implementation of virtualization
included the following technologies:
- VMware ESX 3.5
- Storage Area
Network Infrastructure
The benefits derived from
virtualization included:
- Consolidation of
application and operating system hardware
therefore reducing the need for a large
number of physical servers (IAB has been
able to consolidate 20+ servers onto 3
physical hosts). In turn, this reduces the
reoccurring costs of power, cooling, space,
etc.
- Increased redundancy
from hardware failure; if a host becomes
unavailable images can be hosted by any of
the remaining live hosts.
- Portability of virtual
servers as they are not as tied to the
physical hardware as are the traditional OS
installations
- Quicker recovery time in
the event of disasters as virtual OS and
application reinstallation and configuration
are not needed
- Virtual images are
easily replicated across WAN links to
secondary datacenters or disaster recovery
locations thus creating a springboard for a
complete and time responsive disaster
recovery plan
- Reduction of Microsoft
licensing costs
With the assistance of ENS Group’s consulting
and implementation teams, IAB as been able to
successfully and cost effectively meet their
business objectives.
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