How Saraswat Infotech relied on Xpress VPN solution from Tata Teleservices to offer remote branch connectivity to Saraswat Bank
Saraswat Infotech Limited (SIL) is a wholly owned subsidiary of Saraswat Co-operative Bank Ltd, one of the largest co-operative banks in Asia. It provides IT solutions to the banking and financial services industry through a range of products and customised service offerings.
One of Saraswat Infotech’s most popular solutions is core banking as a service, a managed service wherein co-operative banks can access Swift Core, its core banking application, hosted at its data centre in Navi Mumbai.
One of Saraswat Infotech’s managed service customers is its own parent, Saraswat Bank. The bank has about 200 branches spread across six states?aharashtra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Goa and Delhi. Such a managed connectivity service for co-operative banks makes sense as the number of users and volume of business is not very high in these cases. In some cases, there are at the most 500 to 1000 transactions per day at the branch level, explains Devdatta Chandgadkar, Chief Domain Officer, Saraswat Infotech.
According to him, traditionally, most co-operative banks have used leased line connectivity from solution providers like Tulip Telecom and Reliance Communications. However, a leased line requires elaborate processes of taking permissions and clearances for laying cables. That makes setting up the system a very long and time consuming process.
Saraswat Infotech needed a solution that could be easily deployed and integrated with the current network architecture and at the same time, it had to be cost-effective. They began evaluating various service providers that could provide a secured VPN connectivity solution with assured QoS and SLA for their co-operative bank locations.
Saraswat Infotech faced some specific challenges while offering the solution to its cooperative bank customers to access core banking applications from SIL? data centre. The solution required to not only offer continuous connectivity, but also needed to be a secured network as it would be carrying sensitive data of the banks.
Moreover, the biggest roadblock faced by such services is the task of providing terrestrial WAN connectivity to the customers due to geographical distance of their branch locations, Chandgadkar reasons. Chandgadkar says backup connectivity was another key requirement, especially in case of critical and high revenue branches. ?o, we needed to work with a service provider that could offer seamless and secure connectivity across geographical locations,he adds.
The Xpress way
Saraswat Infotech decided to go with Tata Telservices’ Xpress VPN solution, which Vishal Rally, Regional Chief Operating Officer – Corporate Business at Tata Teleservices Ltd explains is a secure wireless connectivity solution that is ideal for quick deployment at new or remote locations like branches with few employees.
Rally elaborates that the solution is an ideal match for applications that have low bandwidth requirement and are latency tolerant. Enabled with security features suitable even for banking applications, the Xpress VPN solution seamlessly integrates with corporate MPLS networks.
What makes the Xpress VPN a good option for branch locations is the kind of flexibility it offers to the customer at the end point.
“It is a kind of hybrid MPLS solution where connectivity over MPLS is done on a mesh model, while connectivity on the end point could be on any media wireless or wireline, this is good for remote location where fibre or copper penetration is low. In fact, it is a good option for VSAT replacement,Rally elucidates, adding that it is an end to end managed connectivity service that allows customers to focus more on their core business and have minimal engagement in building and managing their telecom network.
Since the connectivity on the end point can be on any media, Chandgadkar says, it helps connect mobile ATM vans of the co-operative bank in Raigadh district. “This has revolutionised connectivity for cooperative banking as it offers flexibility and does not require a high cost modem. In fact, CDMA routers have been used at some branches to terminate Ethernet WAN link and Data-card (Photon Plus) connectivity,adds Rally of Tata Teleservices. Talking of security, Rally explains, it is a secure ecosystem based on CAVE (Cellular Authentication and Voice Encryption) algorithm for data transaction on packet switched CDMA network. CAVE is one-way authentication mechanism, that always involves the network authenticating the mobile station. It is an end-to-end secure solution based on standard tunnelling protocols.
He explains, using the solution, rollouts can happen in a week’s time. ?efore the solution was deployed, extensive testing activities were conducted in Mumbai and remote sites to make sure the core banking application worked seamlessly over the network. Small modifications were required, which were made at the bank’s end.”
Chandgadkar says that earlier the bank was using 64 kbps; however, it has scaled it up to 256 kbps bandwidth due to increased usage. ?e are at present using this solution mainly for the core banking application, but we are still exploring how to further build on this,he signs off.
heena.jhingan@expressindia.com