Case Study

Banco Votorantim and NETSCOUT Team up to Deploy Solution to Improve IT Services

Banco Votorantim

Highlights

Business Challenge
  • Complex enterprise network supporting voice and data application services in Brazilian and international locations
  • Committed to high-quality customer experience
  • Lacking the visibility needed in all banking services from online banking to branch applications
  • Ensure total service availability to clients and neutralize DDoS attacks
NETSCOUT Solution
  • nGeniusONE® Service Assurance platform with multiple InfiniStream® appliances for monitoring in data centers
  • nGenius® Packet Flow Switch for access and visibility to network traffic
  • OptiView® XG, TruView™ Live, nGeniusPulse to support branch offices
  • Arbor APS and Arbor Cloud
Businss Value
  • Improved quality of the services provided by IT to their customers
  • Reduced time in identifying issues involving network and applications
  • Proactive measures to prevent downtime affecting service delivery
  • Network always available to employees and customers

"We have selected NETSCOUT’s nGeniusONE platform for monitoring our Data Centers. . . .This is drastically reducing the time spent in identifying problems involving network and applications, enabling us to quickly solve incidents before they become a risk for the Bank’s business continuity."
– Marcelo Maylinch, Head of IT Infrastructure

"In a diverse and critical Data Center environment of a multiple services bank like Banco Votorantim, quickly finding a deficiency or failure that significantly affects the user experience is crucial for IT staff."
– Marcelo Maylinch, Head of IT Infrastructure

Customer Profile

Founded in 1991, Banco Votorantim is one of the largest privately held banks in Brazil. It is headquartered in São Paulo and its approximately 4,000 employees deliver wholesale banking, wealth management and consumer finance services from offices located in major cities across Brazil. BV, the retail brand of Banco Votorantim, is one of the leading consumer finance companies, leading the used car market, as well as offering products such as payroll loans, student financing and solar panels, as well as credit cards and insurance.

Business Challenge

As a major commercial bank, Banco Votorantim operates a complex enterprise network to support their locations in Brazil and internationally. Customers interact with the Bank at branch locations, electronically with web services, and on the phone with their call centers. Relationship with their customers is of great importance to the Bank and they strive to deliver the highest quality experience for any interaction, either on-line or in person at a branch. The IT department had implemented a tool to help troubleshoot network problems several years before, but as Banco Votorantim had continued to grow their customer base and added more Brazilian and international locations, it needed more than their actual installed systems could provide.

In evaluating their requirements, the IT Management determined they needed more visibility into their voice and data application services across the network for in-depth, real-time analysis, views and reports that could be used by any of the members of their IT team.

Moreover, in a dynamic industry such as consumer finance, there is no room for delays or unavailability at the time, for instance, of loan approval, and Votorantim was looking for an anti-DDoS provider that could protect them on premises and from the cloud.

NETSCOUT Solution

To address its requirements, Banco Votorantim turned to NETSCOUT® to provide visibility and service assurance in its data centers and branch offices. The nGenius Packet Flow Switch was selected to feed vital network traffic from the data centers through to several InfiniStream appliances for analysis by the nGeniusONE Service Assurance platform. The nGeniusONE platform was chosen to monitor the bank’s applications including those for customer and revenue impacting services, such as on-line banking, credit card management and authorization, automobile loans, and wealth management, as well as all applications used by associates in the branches. To support the branch office demands, the IT staff deployed OptiView XG, TruView Live and nGeniusPulse.

To keep the network free from denial of service attacks and always available to its employees and customers, Votorantim chose Arbor APS, a sophisticated DDoS attack detection and mitigation technology, designed for automatic threat neutralization.

The integration between APS, installed on premises, and the Arbor Cloud service provided a decisive edge over the competition, since cloud-based protection is essential against large volumetric attacks, while local protection is directed primarily against complex TCP exhaustion attacks and attacks to the application layer.

NETSCOUT Solution in Action

NETSCOUT’s Adaptive Service Intelligence™ (ASI) technology provides metrics and features the bank has deemed essential for rapid detection and diagnosis of issues. The bank relies on key nGeniusONE features and subsequent use cases, such as web services response time analysis to troubleshoot slowdowns. If there is a delay in a potential customer receiving an online auto loan proposal, the prospect will just go to another bank’s web site. Members of the IT department are collaborating to quickly find the source of slowdowns to reduce poor customer experience and avoid impacting the bank’s revenue. As the Bank’s Head of IT Infrastructure, Marcelo Maylinch pointed out, “In a diverse and critical Data Center environment of a multiple services bank like Banco Votorantim, quickly finding a deficiency or failure that significantly affects the user experience is crucial for IT staff. We need to be ahead of problems and avoid downtime that affects services provided for all the business units."

Banco Votorantim leverages the capabilities provided by the OptiView XG, TruView Live and nGeniusPulse solutions. The IT department is performing network performance testing, remote site Voice over IP (VoIP) analysis, and WiFi troubleshooting to improve quality user experience from their branch locations.

To ensure network availability and security against different types of DDoS threats, the protection offered by the combination of the Arbor APS and Arbor Cloud provides a complete view of the network’s activities, enabling rapid and automatic threat blocking before it can affect applications and services. Votorantim has adopted Arbor Cloud since their IT staff would prefer to count on an independent provider, rather than on ISPs. Realizing that large volumetric attacks can interrupt ISP services, the bank staff opted for a provider with a global presence and the ability to clear attacks closer to their source.

Business Value

In Banco Votorantim, the NETSCOUT solution is addressing problems quickly to avoid issues impacting customers or business units. “We have selected NETSCOUT’s nGeniusONE platform for monitoring our Data Centers. By showing the traffic and behavior of applications in the environment, in a non-intrusive and uncomplicated way, it is possible to monitor the actual user experience and the quality of the services provided by IT. This is drastically reducing the time spent in identifying problems involving network and applications, enabling us to quickly solve incidents before they become a risk for the Bank’s business continuity,” added Mr. Maylinch, Head of IT Infrastructure.

Top-of-mind for the IT department at Banco Votorantim was delivering high-quality experience for its customers, regardless of how they chose to do business with the Bank, either online or at their branch locations throughout Brazil and internationally. Adding OptiView XG, TruView Live and nGeniusPulse for testing services is critical in ensuring an excellent customer experience in their branch locations.

Banco Votorantim has achieved full network availability with the combination of Arbor APS and Arbor Cloud, which protects its network from the different types of DDoS attacks and keeps its applications and services always available to employees and customers.