Case Study

BlueShore Financial: nimble, innovative—thanks to IT

Objective Credit union creates financial services market Pioneer and dominate a new financial market niche to become world’s first with HPE technology and services premium credit union

Approach Leverage technology and services with HPE Data Protector 8, HPE StoreOnce, and HPE Exstream; automate DR replication

IT Matters • Maintained 100% uptime of core banking system since implementation • Automated IT solutions eliminate hardware constraints to architecture decisions • Lowered WAN capital costs around 27% • Supported effective management of IT management and security and software

Business Matters • Enabled aggressive business transformation, resulting increase in assets from $600 million to $3 billion • Reduced risk of business disruption from Faced with a crowded, highly competitive competition. True, some of the financial issues affecting DR or production financial services market, BlueShore Financial institutions that call Vancouver home—such • Improved ability to respond to audit pioneered a new financial services market as the city’s many commercial banks and requests successfully with minimal category, positioning itself as the world’s check-cashing companies—occupy market disruption first premium credit union and transforming niches that BlueShore Financial doesn’t serve. its business to attract and serve affluent But Vancouver residents can also choose clients. The transformation was extremely from around a half dozen other credit unions, successful, allowing BlueShore Financial to and, needless to say, every one bills itself as increase its on- and off-the-books assets from friendly and low-key. $600 million to $3 billion—and it wouldn’t have been possible without BlueShore’s It makes for a crowded market. partnership with HPE. So around a dozen years ago, BlueShore Credit unions typically succeed by offering decided that maintaining the status quo a friendlier, low-key alternative to large, wasn’t a viable long-term business strategy. commercial banks. Instead, the credit union embarked on a journey of business transformation, leveraging But for BlueShore Financial, a credit union HPE’s Converged Infrastructure solutions based in Vancouver, British Columbia, that and managed hosting services to realize a isn’t enough. There’s simply too much corporate vision as unique as it is successful. Case study Industry Page 2 BlueShore Financial Banking

“You can’t separate business from technology. So once we had our business strategy in place, we made sure we had the right technology—HPE Converged Infrastructure technology—to enable that strategy.” – Peter Chau, Director of IT, BlueShore Financial

HPE partnership extends And while the changes BlueShore Financial made in its operations and marketing were technology capabilities critical to its transformation, the credit “Financial products, today, are commodity union views technology innovation as products,” notes Fred Cook, CIO, BlueShore equally important. In fact, Cook refers to its Financial, distilling BlueShore Financial’s technology vendors as “The Twelfth Man,” business challenge down to its central issue. the metaphor used by sports franchises to “For our credit union to succeed, we have to highlight the role avid fans play in a team’s bundle financial services in ways that deliver success. new value.” “Partnering with HPE extends our technology So BlueShore Financial pioneered a new capabilities,” Cook notes. “We’re able to better financial services market category, positioning understand how innovation and technology itself as the world’s first premium credit union go hand-in-hand. We’re less likely to hit and implementing a number of changes in bumps in the technology roadmap.” how it presents itself to the public. Instead of HPE’s role in BlueShore Financial’s calling its customers “members,” BlueShore transformation is multi-faceted. One Financial considers them “clients.” The credit component is a managed services union also refurbished its branch offices, partnership, which allows BlueShore Financial turning them into “Financial Spas™” that evoke to adopt a granular approach in how it a genteel, high-end atmosphere with elegant allocates its IT resources and budget. The decorative elements, soothing lighting, and company owns its hardware, for example, but inviting furniture. And the credit union began it outsources its infrastructure management focusing on attracting affluent clients, creating to HPE. And within that managed services financial products tailored to the needs of that framework, HPE is responsible for the demographic. “We moved up the value chain credit union’s IT up to its operating system, and started offering financial advisory and while BlueShore Financial manages its wealth management services,” Cook says. applications, which comprise its banking The results are impressive, to say the least. systems, TEMENOS T24/SQL Model Bank for A dozen years ago, BlueShore Financial had Canada, and business software like Microsoft® 40,000 members and managed around $600 Exchange. million in on- and off-the-books assets. Today, the credit union still serves 40,000 clients— but it has over $3 billion in assets. Case study Industry Page 3 BlueShore Financial Banking

“HPE handles the tactical aspects of our The other factor is the technology itself. technology operations,” Cook explains. “That “The HPE Converged Infrastructure that frees us to leverage people who are analytical we’ve selected supports a highly virtualized and strategic to create new solutions for our environment,” says Burgess. “It is our private business.” cloud, which means we have the flexibility to tailor it in ways that best serve our business.” Innovative disaster recovery architecture Flexibility, automation, and systems that are smart The managed services partnership also enables BlueShore Financial to drive BlueShore Financial first embraced HPE technology innovation in ways that better Converged Infrastructure (CI) a number serve the business. Take its Disaster Recovery of years ago, when it adopted VMware (DR) and Business Continuity strategy, for virtualization technology running on HPE CI example. Instead of locating its DR systems hardware such as HPE BladeSystem c7000 remotely and its production hardware Enclosures and HPE Virtual Connect Flex-10 locally—the most common way to architect technology. “Virtual Connect provides a layer DR systems—as part of a recent technology of abstraction between our physical hardware refresh, BlueShore Financial decided to move and our high-level configuration,” Burgess its main production systems to an HPE data notes. “Along with our HPE server blades, it center in Calgary (in Canada’s Midwest) and eliminates constraints that might otherwise locate its DR systems in-house in Vancouver. restrict our ability to be flexible and adaptive.” BlueShore Financial also uses HPE ProLiant It’s a framework that makes sense for DL380p Gen8 Servers. HPE Networking BlueShore Financial—and not only because routers and switches complement the servers Vancouver is located in a seismically active with fully integrated network components. region. “Because we manage and test our DR systems ourselves, we’re confident that For storage, BlueShore Financial recently we can run the business from Vancouver, on upgraded to HPE 3PAR StoreServ systems, our DR platform, if we have to,” explains Ryan further enhancing the value of the HPE Burgess, Infrastructure Architect, BlueShore CI framework. “HPE 3PAR is very easy to Financial. “And if there’s a disruption here manage,” Burgess says. “The hardware just in Vancouver, our production systems will runs, and it lets us be automated in ways continue to run normally—even if our IT staff that other systems don’t, like automatically is unable to get to work.” reclaiming space if applications don’t need it anymore.” This innovative DR architecture wouldn’t be possible if it weren’t for two factors. First, BlueShore Financial also leverages HPE BlueShore Financial trusts HPE implicitly. “We backup solutions, including HPE Data are comfortable allowing HPE to manage Protector 8 and HPE StoreOnce Backup with our production environment without having StoreOnce Catalyst. “HPE StoreOnce gives to visit them periodically to check on them,” us fully automated replication between our Burgess notes. production and DR sites,” says Burgess. “And the replication is real-time, which is critical to banking systems.” Equally important, Burgess “HPE understands our adds, “HPE StoreOnce operates with very low bandwidth, so we didn’t have to invest business. And they share our as much in our wide area network.” Burgess spirit of exploration estimates that, without the HPE StoreOnce solution, BlueShore Financial would have and entrepreneurship.” had to spend around 27% more on WAN – Fred Cook, CIO, BlueShore Financial connectivity. Case study Industry Page 4 BlueShore Financial Banking

The hardware component of the backup Transcending digital and print architecture is an HPE StoreEver MSL4048 tape backup system. Another HPE technology BlueShore Financial uses extensively is the HPE Exstream customer communication management “Partnering with HPE (CCM) solution. “HPE Exstream software lets extends our technology us extract data from our banking system and render it for our clients in ways that are capabilities. We’re able to more attractive and useful,” Chau says. By better harness technology to allowing BlueShore Financial to add material like financial advisory information to its drive innovation, and less statements, HPE Exstream gives BlueShore likely to hit bumps in our Financial another way to add value to its technology roadmap.” banking services—and catch clients’ attention. BlueShore Financial also appreciates HPE – Fred Cook, CIO, BlueShore Financial Exstream because it transcends the divide between the print and digital worlds: HPE Software solutions further enhance the credit union can use HPE Exstream the credit union’s infrastructure by adding to generate both print and electronic management capabilities: BlueShore Financial publications. This allows the credit union to uses HPE Insight Control to manage and satisfy regulatory requirements that mandate monitor its servers, and HPE Intelligent certain materials be distributed via print, as Infrastructure Analyzer Software to monitor well as support digital services such as its its network devices. online banking portal. And for security, BlueShore Financial Converged Infrastructure leverages HPE ArcSight Security Event enables stability, around- Management to monitor its network activity and perform tasks like event correlation the-clock uptime and compliance reporting. It uses HPE TippingPoint Intrusion Prevention System As a flexible, scalable, and well-integrated to detect and address anomalous behavior architecture, BlueShore Financial’s HPE that might represent attacks by malware or CI infrastructure delivers a broad array of hackers. “Technology like these HPE Software benefits. solutions allow us to leverage business rules At the IT level, HPE CI solutions enable an to solve critical issues like system security,” Information Technology Infrastructure Library explains Peter Chau, Director of IT, BlueShore (ITIL)-compliant data center that achieves Financial. “We don’t want our people to sit in impressive availability metrics: the HPE front of screens scanning reams of logs. Our systems have delivered 100 percent up-time HPE Software tools make our systems smart.” since BlueShore Financial implemented first The credit union’s infrastructure is backed its TEMENOS banking system several years by HPE support. BlueShore Financial uses ago. The performance of the production HPE Factory Express to perform tasks like environment is also highly stable, which pre-configuring and pre-integrating its CI allows BlueShore Financial to move workloads hardware components, which streamlines around without having to over-provision its system deployment. And through HPE hardware. Proactive Select, a dedicated team of HPE The CI infrastructure is efficient to manage, technicians responds to BlueShore Financial which allows BlueShore Financial to maintain support requests under a 6-hour call-to- a lean IT organization, which in turn lowers repair service level agreement. operational costs. Case study Industry Page 5 BlueShore Financial Banking

Customer at a glance Enabling nimble, responsive If BlueShore Financial business units or analysts need IT resources, for example, Hardware business services the IT team can respond within hours. • HPE ProLiant BL460c Gen8 Servers “Nobody has to wait weeks, any more, • HPE Virtual Connect Flex-10 HPE Converged Infrastructure solutions also deliver a number of business benefits. The while we purchase and provision physical • HPE BladeSystem c7000 Enclosure credit union’s DR architecture is one example: servers,” Burgess says. “Instead, we generally • HPE ProLiant DL380p Gen8 Servers because BlueShore Financial’s technology is pre-provision systems so that we’re ready in advance when our developers need IT • HPE 3PAR StoreServ 10400 and 7400 so flexible, the credit union can choose where systems.” Storage to locate its hardware based solely on its business needs. There are no IT constraints. • HPE Networking 5830 Switch Series Compressed provisioning cycles lead to what • HPE MSR3000 Router Series The credit union is able to accommodate the IT team calls a “snowball effect:” because • HPE MSM Access Point Series audit requests more easily, with less they have faster access to IT systems, BlueShore Financial’s programmers and QA • HPE MSM Controller Series disruption to the business or IT team. teams can develop and test products more • HPE StoreOnce Backup (B6200 and quickly, which allows the credit union to 4500) with StoreOnce Catalyst And then there are the strategic benefits. To respond more quickly to market opportunities. • HPE StoreEver MSL4048 Tape Library succeed as a boutique, high-touch financial – Utilizing LTO-6 services institution, BlueShore Financial must keep a close eye on its clients’ needs. On a macro scale, BlueShore Financial can Software Partnering with HPE, and leveraging HPE also quickly scale its entire production • Windows Server® 2008 R2 and 2012 R2 environment if the business needs it. Operating Systems Converged Infrastructure technology, helps ensure the credit union is poised, at all times, • HPE Data Protector 8 In fact, no matter what its needs, BlueShore to tailor new products that meet those needs. • HPE Intelligent Series Infrastructure Financial knows it can rely on HPE. “HPE’s technology and services offerings have • HPE Insight Control “We have to be nimble, we have to be proven themselves many times over, helping • HPE ArcSight Security Event creative,” Chau notes. “And HPE technology allows us to be both.” us drive business innovation and adapt Management dynamically to business opportunities,” Cook • HPE Exstream “There are three dimensions to building concludes. “And that’s the reason BlueShore HPE services business agility into a technology Financial’s IT shop is nothing but HPE.” • HPE Factory Express infrastructure,” adds Cook. “The first is time: • HPE Proactive Select how long change takes. The second is how • Continuity Services easy it is to make a change. And the third is range: how much change the architecture can • Enterprise Applications Hosting Services accommodate. HPE lets us maximize its agility • Server Management Services along all three of those dimensions.” • Storage Management Services

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