The Sparkasse Osnabrück can look back on more than 180 years of success. With the fusion of the Kreis (District) and Stadt (Town) Sparkasse Osnabrück in May 1997, the bank which specializes in private and medium-size customers has grown to 60 branches with around 1400 employees. The bank is adapting its IT infrastructure to the tough competition in the financial service provision branch with an efficient thin client architecture.

Thin clients replace OS/2 and Windows NT workstations
The strategic decision in favour of more efficient workstations was already made in 2004. At that time, the ASP partner FinanzIT had announced that support for around 650 OS/2-driven workstations would cease at the end of 2006. Detlef Hohaus, DV employee responsible for the thin client migration, remembers: “In view of the necessary modernisation, we evaluated three options: upgrade of the operating system from OS/2 to Windows XP, conversion of the existing PC workstations to thin client-like operation using Windows CE-CD, or the introduction of real thin clients.” The common study of investment costs and security aspects spoke for the introduction of slimmer terminal devices. “thin clients can preclude many common risks with expensive consequential costs such as virus infections via bootable CD-ROMs or the installation of unauthorised applications.”

The customer Sparkasse Osnabrück 1400 employees, 60 branches 180 years of success

Preparation for migration
In the initial test phase, Detlef Hohaus evaluated various thin client models. “Initially we decided on a device from an American manufacturer. However, shortly before the roll-out we identified problems with printing in the course of which we had bad experiences with the support. It took two weeks before the supplier admitted the fault and another two weeks before the problem was solved. In the meantime, the German manufacturer IGEL had convinced us with a mature product.” The Linux-based IGEL model from the Compact LX series was even better suited to the Sparkasse’s security requirements, according to Detlef Hohaus. “All external interfaces such as USB ports and connected CD-ROM drives can be deactivated. Besides which Linux, unlike Windows, doesn’t install standard network drivers that allow malicious programmes to access the network without being asked to do so.” According to Detlef Hohaus, a further incentive to change the solution partner at short notice was the administration solution included in the scope of delivery. “The IGEL Remote Management suite contains a comfortable administration tool for individual devices and groups and numerous deployment tools that shortened our implementation phase significantly.”

Roll-out: more than 500 appliances in four weeks
The first phase of the roll-out began in September 2005. In order to ensure that the conversion was as trouble-free for the users as possible, the OS/2 workstations were initially converted to thin client-like operation using Citrix ICA Client software. “After appropriate employee training, all users were using exclusively the ICA connection to the Sparkasse’s Citrix server farm. The subsequent introduction of the thin clients thus represented a mere physical change for the employees. In only four weeks, Detlef Hohaus and just three additional DV employees installed 513 IGEL thin clients in the Sparkasse Osnabrück’s 60 branches. “The biggest challenge was to eliminate the cable spaghetti which had accumulated under the desks over a period of time,” Detlef Hohaus jokes, and describes the implementation sequence: “With the help of the management software we first of all created profiles for all users and devices and assigned them, together with the DNS information, to the terminal devices. After physical connection, the IGEL thin clients retrieved the corresponding user and location information automatically via DHCP server. The actual time taken to convert from a PC to a thin client workstation was thus a mere five minutes.” After the branches, the departments at the head office were converted. “We converted the counter hall on one day before the start
of work; currently we are modernising the staff department.”

The challenge Replacement solution for PCs with OS/2 and Windows NT Minimization of update times High up-times but small investment costs

Sustained relief
The introduction of the thin client environment has simplified not only the administration of the user profiles, but also the updating of the workstation environment. “In the past, we carried out a so-called CX4 release twice a year in order to update all of the branch workstations. That took up to three weeks each time. Today, the applications are rented from FinanzIT, so these costs have been eliminated. thin client updates take place at night.” The IGEL management software’s so-called Buddy-Update function makes this possible. An arbitrary thin client from a workgroup thereby functions as an automatic update server for all identical models in the network. To the relief of administrators, no images must be saved on an FTP server and the amount of data generated during an update is drastically reduced.
“In order to update the firmware of all thin clients, we only need two nights now instead of four,” Hohaus reports.
The Sparkasse Osnabrück reports a comparatively large reduction in the network bandwidth utilisation during both firmware updates and daily operation alike. The bandwidths of at least 2 MBit/s which were designed for the previous utilisation levels are over-dimensioned for the new server-based computing architecture, because terminal devices and terminal server only exchange screen and control data most of the time. This reduced exchange of data led in particular in the case of Lotus Notes to a significant gain in performance. “Notwithstanding that, we have the prospect to reduce the bandwidth.”

Added value through Digital Services
Further savings were made as a result of the up to 80 percent  lower power consumption (compared to a PC) of the thin clients, which have neither fans nor drives, as well as troubleshooting time. “Following a loss of power, an OS/2 workstation needed between 15 and 30 minutes for the execution of the Checkdisk program before it was ready for use again. The IGEL thin clients are ready for operation in a maximum of one minute. We simply replace defective appliances. Today, I can guarantee our users that a replacement device will be installed within four hours at any location in out branch network.”

All in all the administration costs at the Sparkasse Osnabrück have been reduced by around 50 percent. Added value services, so-called Digital Services, strengthen the savings effect: For example, each IGEL thin client also offers an integrated print server function as an alternative to procuring a new print server. Detlef Hohaus uses this feature to make locally-connected printers within the thin client pool available. A further example of such an additional service is the integrated PowerTerm emulation software: In the event of a longer interruption of the connection to the Sparkasse Osnabrück server farm, the terminal emulation allows the bank employees to directly access the IBM 3270 mainframe computer hosted in Hanover and thus
to work using the core applications which are running on it.

The solution 700 IGEL thin clients (rapid roll-out) Buddy Update reduces update times Appliance consolidation via print server function

Expansion of the thin client infrastructure
Detlef Hohaus has taken around 700 thin clients into operation so far. A few PCs remain for specific applications which cannot be imaged at the server farm. In the long term, the Sparkasse Osnabrück is looking to reduce this number to about one hundred PCs. The current IGEL-3210 LX Compact model generation is intended to contribute to this: “The processor performance of the new devices is around 25 percent higher, supporting our efforts to make more and more applications available via thin client. In addition to that, FinanzIT is also constantly offering more applications in a terminal server version. Thus a migration of the cash desk applications to thin clients is now possible. The same applies to the credit consultancy in the back-office area. “As soon as the PCs there have been written off we will be converting. In the case of expensive repairs even sooner,” Detlef Hohaus reports. “The IGEL solution has become a competition advantage for us, because ultimately our customers benefit from the high uptime of our workstations.”