When even Nilekani and Ellison couldn't help...

Priya Padmanabhan






BANGALORE: "If your business continuity plan is not in place, then technology
deployment is a failure," said KS Bajwa, CIO, Punjab National Bank (PNB),

speaking at a Banking conclave organized by TVS Electronics in Bangalore

recently.






He should know better since the bank experienced a slowdown and failure of
systems for a period of 15 days in March this year. "It was miserable. The

system would slow down starting 11 a.m. (peak time) and we didn't know why."






He called up industry honchos like Nandan Nilekani and Oracle chief Larry
Ellison for help, but even they couldn't figure out whether the glitch lay in

databases, applications, networking or hardware.

During

this crucial time, PNB's call centers proved to be a boon. The call center

handled roughly two lakh callers during the period and though the call center

employees were at the receiving end of irate customers, they handled the whole

issue coolly, informing customers that they would notify them when the systems

were up and running, added Bajwa.






The bank then brought together its IT vendors like Oracle and Infosys (Finacle)
to brainstorm on the issue. “They said that the problem was due to a combination

of various factors and suggested some effective improvement measures to resolve

the problem. This led to the gradual improvement of the system.”






PNB has been proactive in IT deployment, being the first nationalized bank to
adopt a core banking product (Finacle). The bank, which is the second largest

bank in India, has spent more than Rs 400 crore in technology deployment in the

last four years. Its Core Banking System acts as a single data bank, and is a

backbone to 800 branches spread across 180 cities. PNB's deployment is also the

largest core banking system in Asia.






It has also pioneered the Cheque Truncation System in India.





Synchronous data center





This incident has strengthened the Bank's decision to plan for a comprehensive
business continuity program. In the last one-year, PNB is trying to devise a

foolproof system that can guarantee up-time. "We are working on implementing an

alternate synchronous data center that can handle large volumes," Bajwa said.






A synchronous data center is a near-line data center that is connected through
fiber to the central location. Depending on the bandwidth, the processes would

be replicated at the data center simultaneously with no lag time.






No bank in the world has ever attempted an installation of a synchronous data
center before. Bajwa, who is one of the most proactive CIOs in India examined

synchronous data centers at the Chicago Tribune and a securities trading

company.






Yet, he says, that the bank is slightly hesitant about the plan since there is
no reference point elsewhere in the world and also the cost of implementation.








“The volume of transactions is around 1.5 million a day. So the latency of the
network is important here and we expect it to be five milliseconds. We have

spoken to network providers like Reliance and BSNL who are confident of

providing this,” he said.






Prefers in-house IT







Bajwa said that although economies of scale favor outsourcing of IT services and
maintenance, PNB prefers to do this in-house. “Though having an in-house team is

more expensive, and outsourcing is cheaper, we felt it is better to deal with

the systems ourselves.” PNB has an IT team numbering 250 people in Delhi and

Mumbai.






Stressing the importance of business continuity, he said, "Business continuity
is a business issue, not a technology issue." Citing an example he said that it

would serve an organization's need if a bank decided to bring up only the core

banking servers at an alternate location.






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