Successfully Implementing Oracle Databases in the Central Bank of Iraq
Guardia Systems successfully reduces the Central Bank of Iraq’s TCO and operational costs by 40% and improves decision-making with high performance and maximum availability.
Guardia Systems, as a trusted Oracle partner, worked shoulder to shoulder with the Central Bank of Iraq to ensure that the country has domestic price stability and a competitive market-based financial system. To facilitate daily operations, the CBI manages numerous Oracle Databases that support its banking systems, including Core Banking, Human Resources, Payroll, Real Time Gross Settlements, Retail Payments, Automated Clearing House, and the National Financial Switch, as well as various specialized databases for in-house programs.
Oracle Private Cloud Appliance Oracle Database In-Memory
Business Challenges
- Improve business continuity and efficiency through higher availability of banking systems, helping CBI ensure price stability and support the country’s financial services sector.
- Reduce total cost of ownership (TCO) for operating core banking and other financial applications based on Oracle Database by consolidating multiple servers and eliminating silos of information.
- Increase storage capacity for core banking and other financial applications growing year-over-year to support Iraq’s strong economic development.
Results
- Reduced reporting time by 50% through faster query processing and automated load balancing of the Oracle Exadata Database Machine, enhancing decision-making capabilities.
- Achieved a 40% reduction in hardware and software costs by consolidating databases and workloads onto the Oracle Exadata Database Machine, replacing 14 HP rackmount servers and significantly lowering database license fees.
- Attained a 40% reduction in ongoing operational expenses by using the built-in management server of the Oracle Exadata Database Machine, which continuously monitors the health of both hardware and software components, leading to simplified database maintenance.
- Developed a Maximum Availability Architecture (MAA) with seamless replication between production and disaster recovery sites, using Oracle Advanced Security and Oracle Active Data Guard, thereby empowering 200 internal users of critical banking applications.
- Used the capabilities of the Oracle Exadata Database Machine to enhance the banking infrastructure for 80 customers—both Iraqi and international commercial banks—thereby optimizing the daily exchange of electronic payments and other financial transactions.
- Successfully implemented automatic data replication using the Oracle Exadata Database Machine (Eighth Rack) and Oracle Real Application Clusters from the production site to the disaster recovery site, which is located 300 miles from Baghdad. This upgrade replaced the IBM backup servers that were previously hosting the core banking module, enhancing data security and availability.
- Liberated database, system, network, and storage management personnel to work on more value-add tasks by consolidating multiple admin roles with Oracle Enterprise Manager.
- Transitioned banking systems, along with human resources, accounting, and finance applications, to the Oracle Exadata Database Machine, enhancing both organizational and business efficiency.
- Resolved storage issues related to projected data growth from 1 GB to 30 GB by planning an upgrade from Oracle Exadata Database Machine X7-2 Eighth Rack to Quarter Rack Upgrade without acquiring new hardware.
- Highlighted the Central Bank’s solid regulations for respecting intellectual property and requiring the Iraqi banking sector to adopt and use only licensed systems, ensuring compliance with these rules.
Oracle Database In-Memory
Why did the Central Bank of Iraq choose Guardia, Oracle’s Partner?
“Guardia Systems worked shoulder to shoulder with us. We enjoyed the collaboration, their local presence, and the quality of their engineers. They are a certified Oracle partner in Iraq and well versed in the financial services sector.”
“Most of our systems are Oracle based since we’ve relied on Oracle Database since forever. When the Central Bank suffered from a fire in 2008, the Oracle equipment survived. Now with Oracle Exadata Database Machine, we get hardware and software engineered to work together, which increases our performance while reducing costs. Oracle is the only vendor to offer such engineered systems, and we are extremely satisfied with the result.”
—Adnan Asaad, CIO, Central Bank of Iraq (CBI)
Products List
- Oracle Exadata Database Machine
- Oracle Enterprise Manager
- Oracle Database
- Oracle Advanced Security
- Oracle Active Data Guard
- Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC)
- Customer Success Services
- Oracle Exadata Database Machine X7-2 Eighth Rack to Quarter Rack Upgrade
- Oracle Exadata Database Machine X7-2 Eighth Rack
- Engineered Systems
Oracle Sun Servers
In Conclusion
This project is a testament to our and CBI’s strategic plan for 2016 to 2020 and the vision set by His Excellency Mr. Ali Mohsen Ismail, its Governor, for developing and embracing the latest technologies and innovations in the Iraqi banking industry.
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