Hybrid infrastructure with Disaster Recovery – ProService Finteco case study

From this case study you will learn:

1. What ProService Finteco’s IT infrastructure needs were
2. Which factors influenced the selection of the solution and how it was implemented
3. What benefits the client gained thanks to hybrid infrastructure with Disaster Recovery

About the client

ProService Finteco has been providing professional IT solutions for over 25 years. It offers services to the financial industry in Poland and abroad, including Luxembourg, Austria and Germany. The company supports key processes of handling financial products and services. The company’s clients include investment and pension funds, insurance companies and banks.

The company’s aim is to provide customers with comprehensive IT solutions and business applications. In addition, the company provides outsourcing services in the managed services model, tailored to individual needs and requirements. ProService Finteco operates in a regulated market and is certified to ISO 9001, ISO 27001 and ISA 3402.

Client’s needs

Based on an analysis of its own IT infrastructure, ProService Finteco decided to develop across three key aspects:

• Adaptation of the IT infrastructure to rapidly changing business requirements
• Data security and stable operation of systems and applications
• Operational and cost efficiency

The strategy that ProService Finteco has taken is to focus on the development of its own business applications and to ensure the continuity of its anywhere operations model. The company wants to offer its employees the ability to work from anywhere in the world. The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated this was the right approach – within four weeks the company achieved full remote working readiness.

Solution selection

After analysing the IT environment models available on the market, ProService Finteco decided on a model based on technology partnerships, which will provide IT infrastructure services based on MAIN data centres (including a second MAIN data centre, located at Equinix IBX® WA3 in Warsaw) and the Microsoft Azure public cloud, in terms of using M365 for ProService Finteco’s internal needs and development work including software development.

Why hybrid infrastructure?

1. It allows safe operation in 2 vectors:
   • – geographic – ProService Finteco is growing in the European market and therefore needs a partner to ensure secure connectivity and business continuity across Europe;
   • – at the interface between the public cloud and your own IT infrastructure;
2. It ensures a high level of business continuity and flexibility to keep up with rapidly changing business needs, by introducing a Disaster Recovery solution in a service model – cost optimisation;
3. It enables compliance with ISO standards and the regulations of Poland’s Financial Supervision Authority (KNF), among others;
4. It facilitates digital sovereignty, i.e. the company’s control over its own data and the software it uses and creates.

Preparation for implementation

The entire preparation and implementation process was jointly carried out by a team consisting of ProService Finteco and MAIN employees, with support from Equinix.

The project consisted of the following phases:

1. Analysis of needs and data collection (including implementation of a configuration management database – CMDB). This provided detailed information on the IT infrastructure and prepared the data centres for migration;
2. Technical design preparation;
3. A series of consultancy workshops and selection of the most-fitting solution;
4. Configuration and Proof of Concept – verifying that the chosen tools are secure. Assessment of whether they are efficient and meet defined requirements;
5. Implementation.

It is always a process of getting to know each other. We identify the client's needs and present possible solutions.

We support the customer in the development of the transformation project and point out how important it is to involve their IT team and management, in order for the new service to be created and function properly.

MAIN has developed its own mechanisms that automate the migration process and make it efficient and effective.

Michał Kaczorowski Solutions Architect, MAIN

Implemented environment

The MAIN team created an IT environment tailored to the individual needs of ProService Finteco – two data centres with symmetrically allocated computing resources in a hybrid model.

This hybrid infrastructure also forms the basis of the Disaster Recovery solution introduced. This in turn ensures a high level of business continuity, with fully automated replication of the environment from the primary centre to the secondary centre. Both data centres are redundant and the DWDM link ensures high quality and speed of the connection between them.

In this configuration, either location can act as the primary data centre. Regardless of the situation, be it failure or servicing, it is always possible to run the environment or production systems with the same parameters (e.g. resources, quality of network connections, disk subsystems, etc.).

With MAIN and Equinix, ProService Finteco also gained a private, direct connection to the public cloud – to Microsoft Azure, in this case.

Hybrid infrastructure – administration and support

In addition, MAIN engineers provide full administration and support of the established environment, including:

• Infrastructure maintenance,
• Backups,
• Updates to operating systems and databases,
• Deployment of applications.

The team at MAIN also designs new solutions and is in constant dialogue with the client’s IT department, supporting it with experience and knowledge, also in terms of developing HA (High Availability) systems.

Client testimonial

Ensuring data security and process continuity are the top priorities for ProService Finteco. We also aim to operate in an 'anywhere operations' model.

We have met these objectives with the hybrid IT architecture developed and implemented with MAIN. It is secure, efficient and flexible, and above all meets the requirements of the KNF and ISO standards.

Using MAIN's experience and professional, open approach, we have created an IT infrastructure that ensures a high level of business continuity and the security of our customers' data.

Adam J. Kępa Board Member, ProService Finteco

Hybrid infrastructure – benefits of implementation

• The hybrid infrastructure proposed by MAIN is compliant with KNF requirements and ISO standards,
• IT efficiency through the use of leading virtualisation and replication software from VMware,
• Operational efficiency – more efficient operation of IT teams based on procedures developed by MAIN and ProService Finteco,
• High performance – stability of systems and applications and business continuity thanks to the Disaster Recovery solution,
• Flexibility – the ability to expand the environment quickly and efficiently, e.g. when launching ProService Finteco services for the next customer and their deployment in the next country, through direct connections at Equinix,
• Security – the hybrid infrastructure has been designed to provide a high level of security, both digital and physical, and is constantly evolving in this area,
• Full control and reporting to ensure cost efficiency.