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19 Core Banking with Microsoft Technology 19

and by leading software and solution providers in support of Itanium-based
solutions.
15

Microsoft is a member of the Itanium Solutions Alliance.
In 2006, IDC reported on the availability of scalable servers running the Windows operation
system:
The process of IT transformation built on a new generation of hardware and software
products will result in both scale-up and scale-out server deployments. In some cases,
customers will choose to link multiple servers with clustering or grid software to
support a given workload. In others, the processing power of larger, scalable servers
will be needed to support large single system image (SSI) databases or to ensure the
highest levels of availability and manageability for mission-critical applications.
IDC worldwide server data shows that servers using Windows generated about U.S.$16
billion in customer revenue in 2004. Based on IDC‘s latest annual forecast, the
Windows-based server segment is expected to grow to $23 billion in 2009 and to
become the largest single operating system–defined segment of the worldwide server
market. Windows technology now runs on servers across all three categories of the
worldwide server market, as follows:
 Millions of units are sold annually in the volume server market, which comprises
servers priced at less than $25,000. Most of these units are 1-way or 2-way
systems.
 Tens of thousands of units are sold annually in the midrange and enterprise server
market, which comprises servers priced from $25,000 to $499,999. Most of these
units are 2-way to 8-way servers.
 Many hundreds of units are sold in the high-end enterprise server market, which
comprises servers priced at $500,000 or more. Most of these units are larger than
8-way servers.
With the entire computing ecosystem in the worldwide server market moving to 64-bit


and multi-core processor technologies, the capabilities of underlying server hardware
based on new processor technology to support mission-critical enterprise workloads
have improved, and this improvement in turn has brought Windows workloads to a
new level of capability within the enterprise data center. As a result, servers running
Windows are now available to take on enterprise workloads that traditionally have
been assigned to midrange and high-end servers based on RISC and CISC architectures
and running a variety of operating systems other than Microsoft Windows.
16

Mainframe Migration Alliance
The Mainframe Migration Alliance (MMA) is a group of companies that are working together
to help customers migrate workloads from the mainframe and to the Windows platform. The
MMA represents a group of companies that have their interests aligned in making mainframe
migrations easier and more efficient for customers.

15
―The End of the Proprietary Era: Itanium 2–Based Solutions Are Changing the Economics of Business-Critical Computing,‖ Intel. April
2006, p. 11.
16
Bozman, Jean S. and Matthew Eastwood. ―Scalable Windows Servers for the Datacenter.‖ IDC. March 2006.
(
20 Core Banking with Microsoft Technology 20















21 Core Banking with Microsoft Technology 21












Figure 9. Members of the Mainframe Migration Alliance
Mission Critical Program
In recognition of the growing adoption of Microsoft software for truly mission-critical
applications such as core banking, Microsoft Services has created the Mission Critical Program.
Its mission is outlined as follows:
The Microsoft Mission Critical Program (MCP) is a set of premium enterprise, solution-
level service and support offerings that address enterprise customer needs for high
availability, performance, and supportability for their Microsoft-based mission-critical
applications. Delivered with qualified MCP partners, the MCP helps ensure that
22 Core Banking with Microsoft Technology 22


mission-critical applications that are based on Windows are architected, designed,
developed, implemented, operated, and supported to increase the quality and
maintainability of the solution for the life of the solution. The MCP delivers the
confidence that data center class systems will achieve target levels of availability and
performance based on Microsoft and industry best practices. The MCP is a shared
commitment and contribution to customer success from Microsoft for mission-critical
IT systems.
17

MCP engagements are available on a case-by-case basis, depending on requirements, and the
service is custom priced. Engagements are designed for continuity across the development life
cycle.

Figure 10. MCP covers the complete solution life cycle of mission-critical projects.
Source: “Mission Critical Program: Introduction and Overview.” October 17, 2007.

The MCP Components are:
 Solution Management
o Continuity throughout the solution life cycle and Microsoft accountability for
system success
 Architecture Services
o Architectural and design guidance and validation by Microsoft solution and
product group experts
 Operations Services
o Help ensure the system is operated using industry best practices to meet or
exceed required service levels
 Proactive Support
o A regimen of guidance, testing, and change management, designed to
prevent downtime


17
Mission Critical Program: Introduction and Overview.‖ Microsoft. October 17, 2007, p. 1.
23 Core Banking with Microsoft Technology 23

 Incident Management
o 24-hours-a-day, 7-days-a-week solution-level support and optimized
escalation process into the product groups

Windows Server and SQL Server
The growing market acceptance of Microsoft technology for mission-critical operations such as
core banking is based on the very substantial investments made by Microsoft in server
operating system, database, and systems management technologies.
The long-awaited launch of Windows Server 2008 (formerly code-named ―Longhorn‖) will take
place in 2008.
The following from the Windows Server 2008 Web site provides a preview of how the new
releases of Windows Server and SQL Server will build on what has been achieved with previous
versions.
Windows Server 2008 is the most advanced Windows Server operating system yet,
designed to power the next-generation of networks, applications, and Web services.
With Windows Server 2008, the IT team can develop, deliver, and manage rich user
experiences and applications, provide a secure network infrastructure, and increase
technological efficiency and value within the organization.
Windows Server 2008 builds on the success and strengths of its Windows Server
predecessors while delivering valuable new functionality and powerful improvements
to the base operating system. New Web tools, virtualization technologies, security
enhancements, and management utilities help save time, reduce costs, and provide a
solid foundation for the organization‘s information technology (IT) infrastructure.
Windows Server 2008 is the most secure Windows Server yet. The operating system
has been hardened to protect against failure and several new technologies help
prevent unauthorized connections to networks, servers, data, and user accounts.

Network Access Protection (NAP) helps ensure that computers that try to connect to
the organization‘s network comply with its security policy. Technology integration and
several enhancements make the Active Directory® service a potent, unified, and
integrated Identify and Access (IDA) solution.
Windows Server 2008 provides a solid foundation for all server workload and
application requirements while being easy to deploy and manage. The all-new Server
Manager provides a unified management console that simplifies and streamlines server
setup, configuration, and ongoing management. Windows PowerShell™, is a new
command-line interface that administrators can use to automate routine system
administration tasks across multiple servers. Windows Deployment Services provides a
simplified, secure means of rapidly deploying the operating system via network-based
installations. And Windows Server 2008 Failover Clustering wizards, and full IPv6
support plus consolidated management of Network Load Balancing, make high
availability easy to implement, even by IT generalists. Finally, the new Server Core
installation option of Windows Server 2008 allows for installation of server roles with
only the necessary components and subsystems without a graphical user interface.
Fewer roles and features means minimizing disk and service footprints while reducing
24 Core Banking with Microsoft Technology 24

attack surfaces. It also enables IT staff to specialize according to the server roles they
need to support.
Core banking is a typical mission-critical environment that combines the need for highly
scalable, Online Transaction Processing (OLTP) capabilities with an important element of large-
volume batch processing and transaction history warehousing, within an overall context of 24-
hours-a-day, 7-days-a-week availability.
In terms of mission-critical OLTP support, SQL Server 2008 builds on the momentum of SQL
Server 2005:
Microsoft SQL Server 2008 provides a database platform that is optimized for today‘s
applications and that can scale for any size of business. It drives cost-efficiencies by
dramatically reducing downtime and enabling dynamic and proactive management

that significantly reduces administrative overhead. Finally, SQL Server 2008 provides a
highly secure platform that you can trust with your organization‘s sensitive, business-
critical data.
SQL Server 2008 focuses on four key areas to meet today‘s OLTP database needs:
 Scale and Performance. SQL Server 2008 enables companies to build a database
solution with the performance and scalability capabilities that are required by
today‘s applications.
 High Availability. SQL Server 2008 provides a database application with always-
on capabilities, while minimizing the management and performance overhead of
high-availability solutions.
 Security. SQL Server 2008 provides an enhanced, secure data platform by
encrypting valuable data, auditing changes to data and metadata, incorporating
external cryptographic keys, and encrypting and signing data in backup files.
 Manageability. SQL Server 2008 helps companies to reduce the time and cost of
managing their data infrastructure by providing innovative and automated policy-
based administration and improved tools for performance monitoring,
troubleshooting, and tuning.
18

Service-Oriented Architecture
It is clear from an analysis of market trends that many large banks see SOA as the correct
architectural approach to modernizing and replacing legacy core systems in a gradual way.
Microsoft advocates a ―real-world‖ approach to SOA, which aligns well with the desire of larger
banks to approach the migration away from legacy core systems in this way.
This real-world approach stands in stark contrast to a potentially disruptive ―rip and replace‖
approach associated with the implementation of a complete core banking solution, and it is
likely to be more appropriate for larger banks.
On the other hand, a real-world approach also tries to avoid a pure top-down approach that
does not take into account the existing IT infrastructure. As a result, it can take a very long time
to be implemented, by which time business requirements are likely to have changed.


18
―Online Transaction Processing in SQL Server 2008.‖ Microsoft. August 2007, summary and p. 1.
(
25 Core Banking with Microsoft Technology 25

At the same time, a real-world approach tries to avoid a pure bottom-up approach that leaves
the initiative entirely to developers to create small-scale services on an ad-hoc basis.
Working with the New “Middle-Out” Approach
Microsoft advocates a real-world, or ―middle-out,‖ approach in which SOA efforts are driven by
a combination of long-term strategic vision and short-term business needs and priorities. The
aim in this approach is to identify an iterative series of SOA projects, each of which is limited in
scope and delivers clear benefits in a relatively short period of time.


Figure 11. The Microsoft Middle-Out Approach to SOA

The middle-out approach is a successful hybrid of the top-down and bottom-up approaches.
Business drivers and strategic vision are first used to set clear direction and priorities. Based on
these, the organization takes multiple iterative steps to build out areas of end-to-end
capabilities, with each iteration delivering new, dynamic applications back to the business for
immediate benefit. Such a strategy results in a roadmap that can be deployed in incremental
steps.
Once the business drivers are defined, the process of implementing the technology can begin.
Based upon the clearly defined and prioritized vision, each implementation project is an
iterative one of creating (―exposing‖) new services, aggregating (―composing‖) these services
into larger processes, and making these services available for use (―consuming‖) ubiquitously.
Microsoft has successfully helped customers with their SOA efforts since 1999, when it first
announced its Web services model and followed up with the release of the Microsoft .NET
Framework together with a set of SOA tools and design approaches built into and supported

by its application platform.
Since then, Microsoft‘s real-world approach has helped organizations of all sizes optimize their
business processes and realize greater agility through the use of SOA design principles, best
practices, tools, and technologies.
Guidance for both customers and partners on how to build and implement an SOA roadmap is
available from a number of sources, including Microsoft Patterns and Practices, the Mission
Critical Program, and the Financial Services Industry team‘s initiatives such as the Banking
Integration Factory.
26 Core Banking with Microsoft Technology 26

Looking at an SOA Roadmap
In order to identify which ―banking enterprise services‖ to focus on, it is worth looking at a
typical banking SOA roadmap (Figure 12).
Historically, banks have built up a number of processing silos as new product lines were added
to the original core business. That means that most banks today are likely to have separate
systems to deal with deposits, loans and mortgages, and cards. They invariably have separate
systems when it comes to the areas of corporate and investment banking. In many cases they
also have externally provided products such as insurance, which are based on collaboration
with partners.
Over time, a number of distribution channels were added, some of which may initially have
been associated with a single business line, as was often the case with call centers and credit
cards. Then, gradually the bank‘s need to serve customers across all distribution channels
resulted in a multitude of cross-connections between these channels and the different product
silos.
Internal
Product Engines
Distribution Channels
The Journey to SOA in Banking
Loans
Cards

Mutual Funds
Pensions
Deposits
Insurance
ANO

Branch
Call
Centre
Internet Mobile Agent

General Ledger
BI – Risk – Profitability – Statutory Reporting
Middleware
S
e
r
v
i
c
e
B
u
s
Customer
Payment
Document
Fees
Limit


P
r
o
c
e
s
s
External
Insurance
Partner
Credit
Bureau
Clearing
House
Regulator
SWIFT


Figure 12. Microsoft SOA Roadmap for Banking


Often the first step on the SOA roadmap is to separate distribution from manufacturing by
introducing application programming interfaces (APIs) into the back-office systems and
making their functions available as services. These can then be connected to by distribution
systems through a variety of different types of ―middleware.‖ This is equivalent to the ―expose‖
part of the middle-out approach. This approach by itself can lead to a form of desktop
integration often referred to as ―composition.‖
Composite applications are a particular aspect of SOA that is an area of specific interest to
Microsoft, for the reason that composite applications are concerned with orchestrating services
at the level of the user interface. The user interface of Microsoft software is undoubtedly the

27 Core Banking with Microsoft Technology 27

most widely used and familiar one in the world. As a result, it makes sense to consider how to
enable the integration of new services into an already familiar user interface. This is in effect
what Office Business Applications makes possible.
A good example of this approach comes from the world of enterprise resource planning (ERP)
and the collaboration between Microsoft and SAP that resulted in the delivery of Duet. Duet in
essence makes available common SAP enterprise services—such as booking a holiday—within
a familiar Microsoft Office user interface.
This approach was also the basis on which Microsoft added CRM capabilities to the existing,
familiar user interface of the Microsoft Office Outlook® messaging and collaboration client and
in turn the reason why Microsoft Dynamics CRM offers specialist or vertical financial services as
well as in-house developers the ability to add capabilities on top of a largely horizontal CRM
infrastructure.
Office Business Applications make available a range of capabilities within the Microsoft Office
environment so that additional services can be added, such as transactional ones. These
capabilities include:
 Business data catalog
 Extensible user interface
 Open XML file formats
 Workflow
 Search
If we apply this logic and approach to banking in general and core banking enterprise services
in particular, then it is easy to see that for those people in the bank who are already familiar
with and use the Microsoft Office user interface for the majority of their time, it makes sense to
consider adding the additional transactional services they require to this familiar user interface.
The case is most compelling for those people—such as advisors or salespeople—who deal with
customers on a day-to-day basis and use functions such as chat, e-mail, calendar, word
processing, and Microsoft Office Excel® spreadsheets for much of the time. This is especially the
case where these people have a mobile role, which means that they may be working

disconnected from the network from time to time.
This approach has also been used in other specialized areas such as the call center, where the
Microsoft Customer Care Framework enables a similar desktop integration capability aimed at
making it easier for call center agents to access information from a multitude of systems.
Unfortunately, the functionality available as ―services‖ from legacy core systems has several
associated issues. First of all, the resulting services may not be of the right granularity, making
it necessary to combine too many separate service calls to achieve a single step in a process. In
addition, many back-office systems duplicate common functions, resulting in the complex
issues of keeping different systems synchronized and inconsistencies as to what data or even
what format of data is required.
For this reason, SOA roadmaps are now starting to incorporate the extraction of these common
banking enterprise services from legacy core systems as an important next step.
In a way, this is nothing new. Banks have long been accustomed to accessing external services
from service providers, such as credit bureaus and clearing houses, or the providers of specialist
28 Core Banking with Microsoft Technology 28

real-time market data. The area that was often addressed first when it came to recognizing the
need for similar internal services was customer information.
It is relatively easy to make a business case for managing customer data in a more coordinated
way, and it is easy to deliver immediate business benefits from enriched customer information
and better processes for managing customer interactions (such as complaints or interactions
that result in sales leads). Many CRM initiatives resulted from this line of thinking.
In the same way, regulation—at least in Europe—is driving a similar approach for payments.
Putting in place a single payments infrastructure, or service, can be the basis for achieving
significant business benefits, such as reduced transaction costs through better automation and
fewer errors. It can also provide new capabilities such as more sophisticated cash flow
projections and the timing of the release of payments.
Meanwhile, specialist software vendors are gradually beginning to address many more such
enterprise services in areas such as relationship-based pricing, origination, customer document
production, or limit monitoring.

Business Process Management
The section on Market Trends earlier in this paper discussed the announcements by leading
vendors of the implementation of BPM initiatives to start making it possible to orchestrate
core-banking services.
Microsoft defines the scope of BPM technologies as broadly encompassing the following
capabilities and products:
 Technologies for defining and executing human workflows, which are processes that
connect people. Providing automated support for human-oriented processes is a
fundamental aspect of BPM, as are the graphical tools used to define those processes.
 Technologies for defining and executing system workflows, which are processes that
connect software. Supporting these automated interactions among applications is
another fundamental part of BPM, and it again includes graphical tools to define those
interactions. Integration technologies are often included here as well, such as adapters
for connecting to diverse systems and tools for defining data transformations. The
ability to combine human and system workflows is also important, since many business
processes involve both.
 Business rules engines (BREs). If decisions made by a business process can be expressed
as a set of rules, a BRE can frequently be used to make those decisions in software.
Doing this can help decision making be faster, cheaper, and more consistent.
 Business activity monitoring (BAM). The people who rely on a business process can
often benefit from visibility into currently running instances of that process. BAM
provides this visibility, exposing relevant information about running processes in terms
that are meaningful to the information workers who use it.
 Process description tools: Having a clear understanding of a business process
commonly starts with a picture of that process. Graphical tools for illustrating the
actions and relationships in a process are useful for creating this picture.
Microsoft‘s primary BPM technologies fit quite well into these five categories. Those
technologies are the following:

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