2006 InfoWorld 100 Awards: Financial Services

ABN Amro Sevrices (AASC) www.abnamro.com
eGain Implementation, Customer Service Initiative
Project Lead: Milton Santiago, Vice President, eBanking
Project Description: AASC integrated eGain customer interaction system with an array of existing customer data and transactional systems so that service requests can be processed intelligently, and a complete view of the customer, including multichannel interactions, were kept in one place for more efficient customer service. The rollout potentially affected 4,000 wholesale banking clients, many of them senior professionals managing billions of dollars of transactions.

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Austin Ventures www.austinventures.com
Server Virtualization
Project Lead: Dave Benton, Vice President of IT
Project Description: Set up servers with teamed network cards and trunked switch ports, combined with a Xiotech Magnitude 3D 3000 storage system. Austin Ventures had used an older Xiotech system since 2001 and was pleased with Xiotech's service and support, but it was time to upgrade to newer technology. The Magnitude 3D 3000 system provided more expandability and ease of use, in part by not requiring any server-side software. The company implemented the system using IBM's BladeCenter, VMware ESX Server, and VMware Server for virtualization over the network.

Capital One www.capitalone.com
Infrastructure Transformation
Project Lead: Rob Alexander, Executive Vice President, Program Helix
Project Description: Overhauled the hardware and software that controls billing, call center operations, and other core systems to reduce delivery time of new products and services. At the core of this project is a suite of integrated applications developed by Total Systems.

Cooke & Bieler www.cooke-bieler.com
Business Continuity and Data Protection
Project Lead: Asha Joshi, Information Technology Manager
Project Description: Launched a three-pronged business continuity plan with the help of Iron Mountain to assure the secure management and offsite storage of information. It selected Iron Mountain's LiveVault server backup and recovery solution. With LiveVault's two-tiered approach, data is first backed up onsite to NAS and then sent to Iron Mountains' server offsite. This saved bandwidth, making the backup activity transparent to users. The IT team also gained instant retrieval access to records.

Credit Suisse www.credit-suisse.com/us/en
Unified E-mail System with Chargeback Capability
Project Leads: Robert Ellis and Urs Käser, Information Technology Project Leads
Project Description: Credit Suisse created a standardized internal chargeback methodology for e-mail usage. It consolidated three business divisions onto two Exchange 2003 platforms. Then the bank created a detailed business-driven reporting structure that would support chargeback based on actual system usage by individual employees and departments. Credit Suisse then developed custom scripts to connect it with their HR system, allowing accurate and detailed system usage tracking and business modeling by business division, department, and location.

Finetre Corporation www.finetre.com
Agile Development as an ASP
Project Lead: Tom Christian, CIO
Project Description: To enable their agile development process, Finetre implemented VersionOne’s suite of applications, which allows all project stakeholders to work together in coordinating project plans, priorities, and progress.

First American www.firstam.com
IT Operations Consolidation
Project Lead: Evan Jafa, CTO
Project Description: Implemented ITIL-based processes that keep the focus on business outcome while streamlining operations. Mercury solutions were implemented to provide increased visibility into the infrastructure, including the following: Mercury testing solutions, to understand how changes and new applications will behave, function, and perform; Mercury monitoring services, which are critical when availability is the objective; and Mercury's IT Governance, used to provide visibility into IT processes.

FirstMerit www.firstmerit.com
Storage Consolidation and Virtualization
Project Lead: Dave Samic, Senior Network Analyst
Project Description: FirstMerit consolidated its server operations from branch offices to a centralized datacenter. To better manage its storage needs, it also deployed a SAN and IBM’s TotalStorage SAN Volume Controller virtualization solution, including IBM TotalStorage DS4400 storage systems and IBM eServer BladeCenters. Two full-time employees manage the center’s 250 to 300 virtualized servers. That’s allowed the staff of 20 to focus attention on application support and other vital areas. In the long term, moving to virtualization has also insulated FirstMerit from fast-rising operational costs such as electricity.

Goldsmith Agio Helm www.agio.com
Network Implementation and Comprehensive Communications System
Project Lead: Chris Ferski, Vice President, Information Technology
Project Description: Deployed Nortel Communication Server 1000 system in its Minneapolis headquarters, which delivers IP PBX services over the company’s IP LAN/WAN, such as four-digit dialing with no toll charges between sites. Nortel layer 3 switches and SRGs (Survivable Remote Gateways) in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles were also deployed to extend virtual office capabilities across the network. Furthermore, the Communication Server 1000 platform includes the support of an extensive range of calling and e-mail features.

HSBC Bank Brazil www.hsbc.com
Back-End Fraud Detection Initiative
Project Lead: Andre Damiano, Director of Fraud
Project Description: Implemented PhishingNet to aid in the security of account log-in and activity monitoring for online banking. Invisible to end-users, it requires no user registration nor the use of cookies, tags, or software downloads. PhishingNet by The 41st Parameter, a vendor, invisibly collects more than 41 parameters from devices visiting a Web site and uses them to differentiate and recognize individual machines regardless of past registration, credentials, or IP address.

Merlin Securities www.merlinsecurities.com
High-Performance Computing Initiative
Project Lead: Amr Mohamed, CTO
Project Description: Outclassed competitors in the prime brokerage industry by providing next-generation attribution analysis and reporting technology to hedge fund managers. Incorporating various Brinson models and several multiple-period linking methodologies, the system provides single- or multiple-prime portfolio analysis. Merlin eliminated the typical overnight batch-production report-generation cycle, allowing its clients to access all reports dynamically the same day. Additional customization includes all standard classifications and user-defined customized bucketing. All trade data is taken in at the tax-lot level, and performance is calculated using the Daily Exact methodology.

Nationwide Insurance www.nationwide.com
Centralized Financial Master Data Management Initiative
Project Lead: Vikas Gopal, Assistant Vice President, Financial Operations
Project Description: Data management system transformed 240 ledger-related systems and the data stored in each into a single, enterprisewide ledger by leveraging master data management software from Kalido and ETL from Informatica. Standardized reports can be generated from several of the reporting options available in the Hyperion Reporting Suite.

PHH Mortgage www.phhmortgage.com
Joint Venture Warehouse
Project Lead: Dee Kazokas, Senior Project Leader
Project Description: Leveraged the company's existing loan warehouse system and infrastructure to develop a system allowing funding through the new JV Warehouse. (A funding warehouse provides temporary funding for mortgages while an investor is found.) PHH Home Loans has seven subsidiary mortgage companies. Each closes thousands of mortgages yearly and has its own system to manage origination and funding. The project integrates the activities of these companies and PHH Home Loans for the warehouse facility, including the daily intake of loan closing, sales to investors, and reporting back on net funding changes.

Rexam www.rexam.com
VoIP Rollout; Global DNS/DHCP Infrastructure Overhaul
Project Lead: Steve Bickmore, Manager, Global Directory Services and Security
Project Description: Implemented changeover in two phases. Rexam supports two principal internal domains: Rexam.net and a subordinate called Global.rexam.net. Internal DNS authority for Rexam.net was moved from Active Directory to the Infoblox appliances in Phase One, which included deployment of eight Infoblox-1000 appliances with the DNSone package, replacing the previous general-purpose server/operating system solutions. The appliances are deployed in four high-availability pairs across Rexam's regional datacenters, these being linked into an ID grid using the Infoblox Keystone upgrade on each device. This unified, gridwide management simplifies administration, while powerful features such as one-button, systemwide software upgrades lower operational expenses and increase uptime. Phase 2 will leverage the global grid further, with a phased deployment of appliances to manufacturing environments, managed service locations, and divisional HQs. The built-in IPAM (IP address Management) and DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) capabilities provide reporting and control over IP address utilization without the need for separate hardware or software. This enables Rexam to implement an identity-driven network that is an ideal unification platform for network access security and advanced IP applications, such as its Cisco-based wireless and VoIP implementations.

SunTrust Banks www.suntrust.com
Compliance Initiative
Project Lead: David Rowan, Senior Vice President and Director, Technology Risk Management Group
Project Description: Audit readiness with full-time staff dedicated to facilitating audits against a legion of regulations that affect SunTrust's business: Sarbanes-Oxley, Gramm-Leach-Bliley, the Anti-Money Laundering Act, the Bank Protection Act, audits from the Federal Reserve and Securities and Exchange Commission, and internal and third-party audit teams.

TrueCredit www.truecredit.com
SOA Initiative
Project Lead: Scott Metzger, Architect and CTO
Project Description: Built application management around an SOA to deliver real-time end-to-end service management. Integrating with application servers and databases so that the department could deal with spikes in Web traffic was also important, as was the monitoring of response time for transactions. The goal for this project was to better align the company's IT infrastructure to meet business needs, including stringent SLAs and efficient regulatory compliance. To accomplish this, TrueCredit refined its homegrown SOA (service-oriented architecture) with solutions from BEA WebLogic, OpTier, and ClearApp.

Wachovia www.wachovia.com
Application Virtualization
Project Lead: Tony Bishop, Senior Vice President and Director of Product Management
Project Description: The Wachovia Corporate and Investment Bank division partnered with DataSynapse. Wachovia implemented DataSynapse GridServer and FabricServer software to virtualize transaction-oriented applications across a shared infrastructure of data resources. Creating a run-time execution environment, Wachovia reallocated processing power among its multiple location datacenters. DataSynapse uses existing, underutilized computing resources to generate improved levels of application performance, scalability, and reliability. Wachovia can process trades of increasing volume and complexity. By moving transactional applications to a virtual infrastructure, Wachovia gained better report turnaround time and greater trading volume and simulation.

Wall Street On Demand www.wallst.com
Stream Processing Engine for Real-time Market Analysis
Project Lead: John Leslie, CTO
Project Description: Implemented StreamBase to better query, process, and analyze real-time and historical data -- at rates as fast as hundreds of thousands of messages per second. By leveraging StreamBase, WSOD was able to test a new alerting system within four or five days. Once testing was successful, WSOD then focused on maximizing the number of end-user portfolios it could run through StreamBase. WSOD runs entirely on Microsoft with two datacenters housing about 500 servers running a mix of Microsoft Windows 2000, Windows 2003 Server, and SQL Server.

2006 INFOWORLD 100 WINNERS
Top 10 Finalists
Computing/Tech                                          Distribution/Supply Chain
Education                                                      Financial Services
Government                                                  Health Care
Insurance                                                      Manufacturing
Media/Multimedia                                        Pharmaceuticals
Retail                                                              Services
Sports                                                             Telecommunications
Transportation                                              Unspecified