Berenberg bank case study - Colt Data Centre Services

Case study
Securing Berenberg’s
business: Providing business
continuity with Colt
Customer
Berenberg
Industry
Financial services
Business activity
International bank for private
customers, investment
banking, corporate banking
and asset management
Challenge
To develop a high standard
dual strategy colocation
and network offering
between primary and
secondary data centres
Products
Colocation, High Speed
Services, Internet Access
High-availability concepts
in finance
In order to guarantee that its data is
secure, Berenberg, Germany’s oldest
private bank, relies on the data centre
and network infrastructure from Colt.
Both the operation of the secondary data
centre and the high-availability network,
which enables the data centres to be
connected and mirrored in real time, have
been implemented by Colt for Berenberg.
In addition, connections to the individual
office locations, with a fully redundant
Internet Access service have also been
employed to meet financial market
regulations concerning the minimum
distance between the office and data
centre environments.
Berenberg was founded in 1590, and
today, it is one of Europe’s leading private
financial institutions, with its private
banking, investment banking, asset
management and corporate banking
divisions. The bank, which is based in
Hamburg, is managed by personally liable
partners, has a strong presence in the
financial centres of London, Zurich and
Frankfurt and has a total of 17 sites in
Europe, America and Asia. With great links
to its traditions, more than 1,150 employees
contribute towards Berenberg’s business
success.
Any international bank operating at such a
high level in the market expects an equally
high standard from its IT partners.
“Financial transactions are a matter of
trust, and this trust, which our customers
place in us on a daily basis, cannot be
compromised when it comes to securing
business continuity,” explains Dietmar
Bethke, Associate Director of the
Infrastructure Department at Berenberg.
// During the selection of our colocation
partner, Colt convinced us by meeting
our high security and disaster recovery
requirements, providing us competent
advice and a secure data centre
environment, the required technical
services and availability in conjunction
with the network structures. //
Dietmar Bethke, Associate Director
of the Infrastructure Department
at Berenberg
Operating the back-up data centre
to ensure continuity
Colt’s solution is responsible for a
significant proportion of the risk mitigation
and security strategy at Berenberg,
providing colocation services at the
secondary data centre, as well as fully
redundant network connections with
high bandwidths for linking up the data
centres and providing permanent real-time
data mirroring. In Bethke’s own words,
// The level of security knowledge, particularly for the financial markets, as well
as the high standard of technical equipment and personnel required for the
data centre, in conjunction with the available internal and external network
structures, all pointed towards a solution with Colt. //
Dietmar Bethke
Associate Director of the Infrastructure
Department at Berenberg
“Colt helps us ensure the ongoing availability of our IT
infrastructure within a secure environment to enable our
Berenberg customers 24 hours a day/7 days a week access
to our services.
Prior to this, Berenberg had run both its data centres itself.
However the decision was made to redesign the previous
data centre infrastructure in line with current financial
market regulations and to transfer the secondary data
centre to another location.
“The level of security knowledge, particularly for the
financial markets, as well as the high standard of technical
equipment and personnel required for the data centre,
in conjunction with the available internal and external
network structures, all pointed towards a solution with
Colt”, says Bethke, explaining his reasoning behind the
decision in favour of this service partner.
Further optimisation of security
The secondary data centre enables Berenberg to operate
the entire bank’s IT infrastructure from this data centre,
whenever needed. “With the support of Colt, overall
security and business continuity was increased even
further, which represented a particularly important
company target for Berenberg,” Bethke emphasises. “After
five years of a close and partnership-based cooperation
with Colt, we can safely say that all the points agreed
when we concluded the contract have been implemented
to our full satisfaction. The same applies for the highspeed connections between the two data centres.
Subsequent enhancements and upgrades have also been
carried out professionally.”
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Ref: CT-0155
201408-01-01-DE