Protecting data security while supporting a rapidly expanding infrastructure
Shenyin and Wanguo Securities Co. Ltd. (“Shenyin Wanguo”) is one of the largest stock trading companies in China. They have over 137 business offices and 8 stock trading service offices in 17 provinces and 45 of the largest cities in the country. As a pioneer and leader in the China stock market, Shenyin Wanguo has a proven track record and ranks as the top trading company in China. Shenyin Wanguo has consistently applied new technologies to maintain their leadership position in the market.
Challenge
Shenyin Wanguo is deploying new community and branch locations throughout China to provide account and trading services directly to their customers. Employees at each branch location need to access internal applications for performing account management and trading tasks for customers. . They needed an IT solution that could protect their data security, support quick expansion, and control costs for a rapidly expanding infrastructure
Requirements
Deliver Agile Deployment. The growth of their community branch program is driven by market demand. It is difficult to predict the future IT needs in advance. They needed a solution that could be quickly deployed and expanded, while limiting the up-front investment cost.
Ensure Data Security. Shenyin Wanguo needed a solution that could protect and control access to sensitive data and internal systems, and to prevent unauthorized data disclosure or theft. They also needed a solution which could provide reasonable guarantees about the authenticity of the data collected from customers, especially identifying documents and forms from customers.
Control IT Costs. With traditional systems, branch office locations create added burden for the IT. It is impractical and costly to have full-time IT staff at each branch office location, so IT staff often have to travel to various locations to provide services on-site that cannot be managed centrally. Shenyin Wanguo needed a solution that could provide IT services for branch office locations without incurring large extra costs or extra burden on the existing IT staff.
Quick Response. Since the systems are being used to service customer requests, it is essential that the systems are operational at all times. If there is a problem, the issue must be resolved quickly. Shenyin Wanguo was looking for a total solution that could provide a way to quickly notify, identify and resolve issues that might occur at each branch office location.
Complex Networking. The community branch office locations are spread out throughout China, even in tier 2 and tier 3 cities. Each region, and each office represents unique challenges around network configuration, reliability and speed. They needed a single solution that could work well in all of the different environments.
HD Pictures. One of the primary tasks for the branch locations is to sign up new customers and to perform trades on behalf of customers. Government regulations require strict standards for recording identity documents and personal information in order to provide these services. Shenyin Wanguo needed a solution that could provide high-definition picture recording from real-time video recording devices in order to satisfy the government requirements.
Solution
Shenyin Wanguo evaluated different solutions and technology vendors and ultimately chose Owtware iCONN as their preferred solution. The Owtware iCONN solution helped them to satisfy all of their requirements. The solution involved centrally managed hosted virtual desktops running in their main datacenters throughout China. Branch office locations used thin client devices to remotely connect to the hosted virtual desktops and access the internal account management applications.
Linear Scale. Owtware iCONN Server is built on a modern converged architecture. This converged architecture leverages compute, storage and networking resources on individual servers, and pools these resources together into a centrally managed pool. These pooled resources are then used to provision, execute and connect virtual machines at any scale. The software-driven design uses advanced intelligence to deliver a reliable and scalable service, without the complexity and costs of other architectures.
Plug-and-Play. Owtware iCONN Server comes with a complete software-defined virtual infrastructure management stack that delivers an instant private cloud simply by switching on the system. Combined with the linear scale and converged architecture, the system is able to auto-discover, and self-manage any number of server instances together in a single cluster, all from a single management console. Enterprise-grade features such as replication, failover, backup, alerts and reporting are automatically configured and enabled, letting the system administrator rest assured that the system is always available.
Network Screen Protocol. The Owtware iCONN Server uses a network screen protocol (NSP) to allow remote clients to access their hosted virtual desktops. The protocol and supporting systems allow the administrator to have complete control over the information that passes through the protocol, for example file transfers can be disabled or made read-only, USB devices can be enabled or disabled by class or instance, and clipboard access can be limited or disabled entirely. This allows the administrator allow the clients to show the applications that access sensitive data, but prevents the data itself from being transferred or stored on the client devices, attached peripherals, or local network.
Remote Access. Owtware iCONN Server offers a unique one-port/one-protocol design that allows the system management interface to be remotely accessed and administered with little effort. This allows the servers to be deployed in remote datacenters, while offering the central office IT staff to remotely access the system to monitor, and to resolve issues when they happen. As well, since the local branch offices are using only locked-down thin clients, these devices offer longer life, greater reliability, and almost zero-maintenance when compared to a typical PC. Since there is no application software running on the thin client device, this reduces the potential for problems on the thin client devices, thus nearly eliminating the need for IT staff to resolve issues in the branch locations. Instead, issues can be quickly and easily resolved simply by accessing the hosted virtual desktop instances through the management system.
HD Video Capture and Streaming. The Owtware iCONN Server comes with built-in support for capturing and streaming HD video content between the client device and the hosted virtual desktop. The video data is compressed and streamed, thus limiting the amount of data sent over the network. The system also supports video still-captures, which sends a single still image from the realtime video capture device thus allowing even lower bandwidth requirements for even the most demanding networking environments.
Benefits
Predictable Cost Structure. Because of Owtware iCONN Server’s linear scale and plug-and-play architecture, Shenyin Wanguo can now easily predict and control the IT costs for each new branch office location.
Quick Deployment. Shenyin Wanguo is able to deploy the IT infrastructure for a new branch office location in minutes, instead of weeks; resulting in over 95% reduced time and complexity compared to other solutions. Server capacity expansion can be completed in less than a day, a more than 60% reduction compared to other solutions.
Reduced Cost. Because of the all-in-one architecture, and software-defined system built on commodity hardware, the total cost of the Owtware iCONN System was over 50% less compared to other solutions.
Conclusion
By leveraging advanced technology and Owtware iCONN Server’s unique features, Shenyin Wanguo was able to deliver on their business objectives to quickly deploy and expand their community branch office programs, ensuring absolute data security, effectively controlling costs and offering simplified management and quick response times for their IT solutions.