COUNTRY FOCUS: JORDAN
Cairo Amman Bank adopts
Aruba technology to enhance
performance and security
Cairo Amman Bank adopts
Aruba technology to
enhance performance and
security of all digital services
including Internet and
mobile banking.
Cairo Amman Bank (CAB) is a
public limited company located in
Jordan, Palestine and Bahrain. Ever
since its establishment in 1960, the bank
has been providing an inclusive range of
services and successful banking solutions
to fulfil the needs of its customers.
CAB has deployed state-of-the-art
networking technology from Aruba, a
Hewlett Packard Enterprise company. The
solutions have improved performance,
reliability and security of all digital
services including Internet and mobile
banking and have resulted in three times
lower TCO than the previous network
switching infrastructure.
CAB seeks to invest in technological
advancements and innovative solutions,
which makes it a leader in modern
technology. CAB was the first bank in
the world to introduce iris recognition
in its ATM as a means of identification,
allowing customers to access their bank
accounts without the need of using
cards and inserting their PINs. With two
data centres and a vast network of 91
branches and over 190 Automated Teller
Machines (ATMs) located strategically,
secure high-speed connectivity is key to
the bank’s operations. All digital services,
whether internal or external, depend on
the underlying network.
In collaboration with Neogenesis, CAB
replaced the switches across its entire
network with the latest Aruba Campus
Cairo Amman Bank
Switching Architecture including Aruba-8400
series Core Switches, Aruba-8320 series
Server Access Switches, Aruba-8320 series
Aggregation Switches and Aruba-2930 POE+
enabled Edge Switches. This resulted in an
immediate increase in the speed of the uplinks
from 1G to 40G, enabling the enhancement
of the bank’s digital services in the long run.
“All digital systems and services are
dependent on the underlying network.
Efficiency of the bank relies highly on online
and mobile banking as well as the vast
availability of ATM machines in remote
locations,” said Ahmad Bilbeisi, CIO at
Cairo Amman Bank. “An example of the
key performance improvement is that the
processing of over 400,000 salary transfer
transactions, which previously took eight
hours is now completed successfully within
only 30 minutes. The time required to back
up the bank’s CCTV data has been slashed
by over 75%, while the previous issues
relating to skips and jitter is eliminated.”
As a financial institution, maintaining
the highest level of security is essential
to CAB’s operations. The bank therefore
utilises the inbuilt MAC authentication
feature on Aruba’s switches as a form of
network access control which exclusively
ensures only authenticated and authorised
devices are able to access the network. The
implementation of Aruba-2930F Campus
Edge Switches has empowered the bank to
take advantage of their support for PoE+
which has reduced cost and complexity
of cabling for systems such as physical
access control, Wireless Access Points (APs)
and CCTV cameras. This has enabled the
introduction of new conveniences such as an
IP telephony system.
The bank deployed Aruba Airwave Network
Management which greatly assisted in
the implementation and enabled central
configuration and management as well as
the scheduling of updates such that these
could be carried out outside of business hours
without any inconvenience to customers.
Analysing the capital and operational
expenses for CAB’s network infrastructure
results have shown over a five-year period,
the total cost of ownership (TCO) for Aruba’s
solution will prove three times less than
what was previously deployed. Impressed
by benefits that exceed the initial objectives
of the project, CAB may be expanding its
relationship with Aruba and NeoGenesis.
The bank is keen to further enhance the
security of its network with Aruba ClearPass
which will give the IT department granular
visibility, monitoring and control. The bank
is on track to deploy this solution within the
next 12 months and also expects to deploy
Aruba’s SD-WAN and SD-Branch, Wi-Fi and
location-based marketing solutions in the
same timeframe. •
50 INTELLIGENTCIO
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