Microsoft Windows Server System

Customer Solution Case Study

Turkish Bank with 437 Branches

Centralizes Windows Server System
Infrastructure Management

Overview “With Microsoft Operations Manager we are

Country or Region: Turkey
Industry: Financial Services
able to be proactive in ways that simply
weren’t possible before our deployment of
Customer Profile
Based in Istanbul, Turkey, Garanti is
MOM.”
one of the country’s largest private Ferda Bek, Unit Manager, Garanti Technology
banks, with international operations
and assets of U.S.$24.4 billion. One of the largest private banks in Turkey—with assets
Business Situation of U.S.$24.4 billion—Garanti has a large IT infrastructure
Garanti Technology, the technology that includes extensive use of the Microsoft® Windows
subsidiary of Garanti, needed a
centralized administration tool to Server™ 2003 operating system and Microsoft SQL
help IT staff monitor some 800 Server™ 2005 database. The company’s technology
servers, including more than 400 in
branch offices. subsidiary, Garanti Technology, uses Microsoft
Operations Manager (MOM) 2005 to provide event and
Solution
Garanti Technology deployed performance management, proactive monitoring,
Microsoft® Operations Manager alerting, and reporting on systems and applications.
2005 to manage servers in its data
center and all of its branch offices. MOM agents are installed on some 800 computers,
including most servers in the data center and all of the
Benefits
 Centralized management
computers serving the bank’s more than 400 branch
 Enterprise-level performance offices. Garanti is benefiting because MOM 2005
 Support for service level
agreements provides centralized management, enterprise-level
 Easy customization performance, support for service level agreements, and
ease of customization so that its internally developed
“When the free Situation (Garanti Technology). The bank’s
Since its founding in 1946 in Ankara, heterogeneous IT environment
space of the hard Turkey, Garanti Bank has grown into includes IBM mainframe systems
disk on a server one of that country’s largest private running the DB2 database, UNIX
banks, with assets of U.S.$24.4 servers running Oracle, and
drops below a billion. Owned by the Doğuş Group, a Microsoft® SQL Server™ running on
threshold value, large Turkish conglomerate, Garanti the Microsoft Windows Server™ 2003
Bank provides retail, commercial, operating system. Both SQL Server
MOM gives an alert. corporate, and private banking and Windows Server 2003 are part of
… Prior to MOM we services. The bank’s more than Microsoft Windows Server System™
10,000 employees serve some 5 integrated server software. For
often didn’t learn of million customers a day through a several years Garanti has been
such problems until network of 427 domestic branches, steadily increasing its use of SQL
five overseas branches and five Server and the Windows Server 2003
we received a phone international representative offices— operating system.
call or e-mail in Moscow, London, Düsseldorf, With a staff of 520, Garanti
Shanghai, and Geneva. Garanti Technology has helped the bank
announcing that expects to grow to some 600 reduce processing loads on its
something was branches by the end of 2006. mainframe by steadily improving
existing internal applications and
Garanti has long been a leader in designing its new applications to run
adopting new technology to enhance on Windows Server System, including
its product offerings and services, and Microsoft SQL Server 2005 running on
has earned numerous industry awards Microsoft Windows Server 2003
for its technological innovations, Enterprise Edition.
including being named “Turkey’s Best
Internet Bank” for five consecutive The IT solutions created by Garanti
years by Global Finance magazine. In Technology enable the bank to
2004, for the third year in a row, the improve its efficiency in serving its
magazine also awarded the bank’s customers and to provide them with a
Web site the Golden Spider Web better experience. The solutions are
Competition Grand Prize in the tightly integrated and developed
financial services category. Garanti entirely in-house by Garanti
was the first Turkish bank to receive Technology. These systems are used
an International Organization for heavily across all delivery channels
Standardization ISO 9001:2000 and at all levels of Garanti.
Quality Certificate covering all its
banking departments and functions. Any organization with the processing
needs of a bank and hundreds of
To best achieve its business branch offices faces major challenges
objectives, Garanti has organized its with operations management. Garanti
IT functions within a wholly owned manages six Active Directory® service
subsidiary, Garanti Teknoloji A.S. forests, seven Active Directory
domains, 450 servers running Garanti deployed MOM 2005 onto four
Microsoft Exchange Server 2003, 475 servers:
SQL Server 2005 and SQL Server
 Two computers are configured as
2000 servers with almost 600
MOM Management Servers, which
databases, and some 50 Internet
coordinate communication with
Information Services (IIS) applications
MOM agents installed on monitored
hosted on almost 50 servers.
computers. They also support the
MOM Administrator Console, which
Garanti tried several third-party
provides rules for editing and
management applications but didn’t
component configuration, and, for
find one that met its enterprise-level
monitoring, the Web console and
needs. The bank needed a solution
MOM Operator Console. The two
that would provide:
MOM Management Servers are
 Centralized management, including configured so one acts as the
that of its more than 400 branch primary resource, and the other
offices. takes over should the first server
 Enterprise-level performance that become unavailable.
could keep up with its rapid growth.  One computer is configured as the
 Support for service level MOM database, which is used to
agreements (SLAs). store operational data.
 Support for SLA documentation.  The fourth MOM computer is
 Ease of customization to facilitate dedicated to data warehouse
monitoring internally developed archiving.
applications from the MOM
consoles. The four MOM servers are located in
Garanti’s main data center, with MOM
This need escalated with the growth
agents installed on some 800
of the company.
computers, including most servers in
Solution the data center and all of the
After evaluating other solutions, computers serving branch offices.
Garanti deployed Microsoft Generally, one computer is used for
Operations Manager (MOM) 2000 in each branch office, hosting SQL
2001. In late 2005 it upgraded to Server, Exchange Server, and other
MOM 2005, which provides essential services and applications.
comprehensive event and
performance management, proactive MOM Architecture
monitoring and alerting, reporting and The MOM architecture has three
trend analysis, as well as specific layers. The presentation layer
knowledge and tasks to improve the includes:
manageability of Microsoft Windows®
 The MOM Web Console, hosted by
based servers and applications.
IIS, provides monitoring capabilities.
“The MOM  The MOM Administrator Console Operations Database for use in
provides rules for editing and long-term reporting and trend
Management Packs, component configuration analysis. The MOM Reporting
including the ones capabilities. Console uses SQL Server 2000
 The MOM Operator Console Reporting Services to generate
for SQL Server, provides monitoring capabilities. reports from the Reporting
Active Directory,  The MOM Reporting Console uses Database. Data in the Reporting
SQL Server 2000 Reporting Services Database can be used to create
and Exchange to generate reports on the data in custom reports and applications.
[Server], have been the MOM Reporting Database. Users
can modify existing reports and
extremely helpful to create new reports.
our operations.”
The business logic layer includes:
Kenan Ağyel, Team Manager, Garanti
Technology  Management Servers, which collect
data and events from managed
computers and then pass data to
the Data Access Service.
 Data Access Service, which
processes database requests.
 Agent Managers, which can
automatically install agents as well
as install and collect attributes on
monitored computers.
 Agents, which collect data and
events, apply rules, and respond to
alerts and events. Agents also send
data and events to Management
Servers.

The data layer includes:

 The MOM Operations Database,

which holds all configuration data
and operations data, and is hosted
on SQL Server. The configuration
data includes rules and overrides,
computer group hierarchy, scripts,
views, server configuration, agent
configuration, and discovery
schema.
 The MOM Reporting Database,
which holds data from the MOM
“We now use MOM Garanti Deployment Features Console, Web Console, Reporting
At its branch locations, which Console, Instance-Aware Monitoring,
2005 for all of our generally are each served by a single Cluster-Aware Monitoring, 64-bit
SLA management of server, Garanti uses MOM to monitor Agent Support, and Report
systems and applications including Customization.
the Intel platforms. domain controller, Microsoft Exchange
MOM makes it easy Server 2003, SQL Server, Microsoft Using MOM to Manage SQL Server
Systems Management Server (SMS) With some 480 instances of SQL
to report on SLA 2003, fax and file server, print server, Server and about 500 databases, SQL
performance, which and EDM (a Garanti Bank software Server plays a critically important role
distribution application for core throughout Garanti Bank operations.
is important to us banking). To help ensure the continual
because SLAs are availability of SQL Server in the data
At its data center, Garanti uses MOM center and throughout the branch
used throughout to monitor systems and applications offices, Garanti Technology uses SQL
Garanti.” including domain controllers, SQL Server Management Pack for MOM to
Server clusters, Exchange Server monitor the performance and
Ferda Bek, Unit Manager, Garanti clusters, print server clusters, file availability of components and
Technology server clusters, fax servers, the functions such as the SQL Server
terminal server farm, Web servers, Agent, database health and free
domain controllers, EDM servers, space, SQL Server clustering and
SMS, Microsoft Host Integration named instances, security, and SQL
Server 2000, and antivirus solutions. Server Replication.

Garanti makes good use of MOM The SQL Server Management Pack
Management Packs. “We use 15 MOM provides both proactive and reactive
Management Packs, including those monitoring of SQL Server 2000 and
for Windows Server, Exchange Server, 2005 across the Garanti enterprise
SQL Server, ISA [Internet Security and environment. Availability and
Acceleration] Server, and Active configuration monitoring,
Directory,” says Kenan Ağyel, Team performance data collection, and
Manager at Garanti Technology. default thresholds are built for
“Garanti application developers have enterprise-level monitoring. Both local
created some 25 custom and remote connectivity checks help
management packs to bring MOM ensure database availability.
monitoring to internally developed
and third-party line of business With the expertise built into the SQL
applications.” Server Management Pack, Garanti can
manage SQL Server to identify issues
The company takes advantage of the before they become critical. The
rich feature set, using more than 20 management pack increases the
MOM features, including: security, availability, and performance
Administrator Console, Operator
“Before MOM we for the entire SQL Server the operations team now resolves
infrastructure. about 90 percent of MOM alerts.
didn’t have a
centralized tool.” The company is in the process of MOM gives Garanti the centralized
upgrading its SQL Server point of management it needed to
Hakan Acu, Systems Support Management Pack. “We’re very happy better monitor and manage its
Specialist, Garanti Technology with the additional information and operations. “With Microsoft
reports we have found in the SQL Operations Manager we are able to be
Server Management Pack for MOM proactive in ways that simply weren’t
2005,” says Umut Nazlica, Specialist, possible before our deployment of
System Management, Garanti MOM,” says Ferda Bek, Unit Manager
Technology. “One of the first things at Garanti Technology. “We have
we’ll use it for is to verify completion configured MOM to send e-mail and
of backups at the branch locations. SMS [Short Message Service]
This is something we used to do with messages to alert us when predefined
scripts. Doing it with MOM makes it thresholds have been reached so we
easier to execute and manage.” can address issues before they
become problems.”
Benefits
Using MOM 2005 for health and Metin Kiliç, Systems Support
performance monitoring, service Specialist at Garanti Technology,
monitoring, disk space monitoring, provides an example of how
security auditing, reporting, capacity important these alerts can be. “When
planning, and other functions has the free space of the hard disk on a
given the company the operational server drops below a threshold value,
data it has long needed. The MOM gives an alert. This allows us to
deployment has generated several take necessary action before the lack
benefits for Garanti, including of space becomes a problem. Prior to
centralized management, enterprise- MOM we often didn’t learn of such
level performance, support for service problems until we received a phone
level agreements, and easy call or e-mail announcing that
customization. something was wrong.”
Centralized Management
Garanti Technology has an operations Although some monitoring was done
team of about 25 dedicated to earlier with scripts, that solution was
providing round-the-clock monitoring, decentralized and provided only
using the MOM Operator Console. partial coverage. “Before MOM we
Information from the Operator didn’t have a centralized tool,” says
Console is so complete that the Hakan Acu, Systems Support
company has seen a significant Specialist at Garanti Technology. “We
reduction in the number of issues that created scripts to monitor some
are escalated to second-tier support; critical assets to test, for example,
that Active Directory was running. But
"The ability to this was only done for some of our running and getting results within two
systems, and just those in our data or three hours.”
integrate our center. And while this allowed us to
custom scripts with test availability of hardware, we didn’t Enterprise-level management is
have a way to verify whether enhanced because of the MOM
MOM helps us to applications were properly running.” Management Packs that help create a
keep management single point of integration. “The MOM
The ability to monitor application Management Packs, including the
centralized to the availability enhances customer ones for SQL Server, Active Directory,
MOM consoles, satisfaction. “We now can monitor and Exchange [Server], have been
and manage the entire network and extremely helpful to our operations,”
which is a great all of the servers from one location— says Ağyel. “Combined with the
help.” including applications,” says Acu. custom Management Packs we’ve
“Managing applications is important created for our internal applications
Metin Kiliç, Systems Support because so many of the bank’s using the MOM MP Software
Specialist, Garanti Technology applications are mission critical. If a Development Kit, they have allowed
line of business application isn’t us to manage a large collection of
working, people throughout the bank, applications and services from our
including those in more than 400 centralized MOM Administrator
branch offices, can’t be working and Console.”
helping their customers.”
Support for Service Level Agreements
Enterprise-Level Performance Service level agreements are
Garanti previously had tried other important tools for Garanti to use in
operations management tools but saw ensuring, and documenting, the
that they lacked enterprise-level availability of key services and
performance. “We found products on applications throughout the bank,
the market that could handle 100 including its branches. “We now use
servers or 200 servers, but they fell MOM 2005 for all of our SLA
apart when managing 1,000 or more management of the Intel platforms,”
servers,” says Nazlica. “We needed says Bek. “MOM makes it easy to
an enterprise-level solution, and that report on SLA performance, which is
is what we have gained with MOM.” important to us because SLAs are
used throughout Garanti.”
The company also found MOM easy to
deploy across the enterprise. “With The SLA reports generated with MOM
some third-party tools that we tried, can also be used in budgeting. MOM
we worked for two or three weeks to reports on network performance, for
get them up and running in our test example, can be used by a branch to
lab, and still couldn’t get the document the need for equipment
performance we needed,” says upgrades or for more wide area
Nazlica. “With MOM we were up and network bandwidth.
MOM makes it easy to generate SLA the MOM consoles, which is a great
reports for branch sites, which was help.”
particularly challenging before the
MOM deployment. “With MOM we can
provide exacting SLA commitments
and reporting for the branches, which
we couldn’t do before,” says Ağyel.
“SQL Server is essential to our
operations and is deployed at all of
our branches. With MOM we are now
guaranteeing SQL Server availability
of 99.96 percent, and using MOM we
can demonstrate that we are
consistently meeting this SLA. We
offer similar SLAs for Exchange and
other mission critical services and
applications.”

Ease of Customization
Garanti creates custom MOM
Management Packs to monitor its
many internal applications. Garanti
also extends the SQL Server MOM
Management Pack with custom scripts
created using Microsoft Visual Basic®.
“We can easily create management
scripts for our internal applications so
they can be monitored from MOM
consoles,” says Nazlica. “We also use
scripts to use MOM to monitor things
like index fragmentation details
across our 500 SQL Server
databases.”

MOM makes it easy to manage

whatever custom scripts are created.
“We use MOM to initiate the scripts
and to log the results,” says Kiliç. “We
also use it to trigger any alerts or
other actions based upon the results
of the scripts. The ability to integrate
our custom scripts with MOM helps us
to keep management centralized to
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 Microsoft Windows Server System Services version 6.0
− Microsoft Windows Server 2003 − Microsoft SQL Server 2000
Enterprise Edition Reporting Services
− Microsoft Operations Manager
2005 Hardware
− Microsoft SQL Server 2005  Intel-based servers
Enterprise Edition
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Document published February 2006.