Bank Active Data Centre
Active-Active Data Centers for Always-On Banking
Industry
Banking / Financial Services
Region
GCC
Solution Category
Data Centre Architecture / Enterprise Storage / Data Protection
Engagement Type
Active-Active Data Centre Transformation
Client Name
Active-Active Data Centre Transformation
Deployment Footprint
Two active-active data centers
Executive Overview
A leading commercial bank in the GCC partnered with Diyar United Company to move from fragmented, site-dependent infrastructure to an active-active data centre architecture. The transformation established stretched compute and storage across two sites for the bank’s mission-critical workloads, delivering high availability, data redundancy and resiliency, and providing the foundation for continued digital transformation and growth.
Client Profile
The client is a leading commercial bank in the GCC, serving retail, corporate and international customers across a large branch network and extensive digital channels.
Its services run continuously, and its infrastructure is expected to sustain 24/7 mission-critical operation without dependence on any single site.
Business Challenge
The bank needed to remove downtime risk and operational complexity from its infrastructure:
- Fragmented, site-dependent infrastructure created downtime exposure for services that must operate around the clock.
- Mission-critical workloads across multiple platforms required an architecture delivering true high availability rather than conventional failover.
- Data resiliency and recoverability had to be strengthened while supporting long-term digital transformation and organic growth
Diyar’s Solution
Diyar United delivered an enterprise solution built on Dell, Microsoft and Oracle technologies, centered on an active-active environment between the bank’s data centers.
Active-Active Storage Foundation
The solution combined Dell VPLEX storage virtualization with Dell PowerMax all-flash enterprise storage, creating an active-active storage layer spanning both sites.
Stretched Clusters for Mission-Critical Workloads
Stretched clusters were established for Microsoft and Oracle workloads, comprising Hyper-V stretched clustering on Dell PowerEdge servers, Oracle stretched RAC on Oracle SPARC servers, and an Oracle Solaris OVM cluster with stretched networking, covering the bank’s Hyper-V, Oracle and AIX mission-critical services.
Workload Migration and Consolidation
Existing storage and server workloads distributed across different data centers were migrated and consolidated onto the new active-active setup, removing legacy fragmentation.
Enterprise Data Protection
A Dell data protection solution was deployed across both sites, providing comprehensive backup and recovery, continuous replication for point-in-time recovery, and application-consistent protection with governance and oversight.
Platform for Growth
With the foundation in place, the environment was extended with additional Dell PowerEdge compute resources to support the bank’s continued growth and digital transformation programme.
Results & Business Impact
The transformation delivered continuity and capacity for growth:
True Site Independence
Active-active architecture removes dependency on any single data center.
High Availability for Critical Workloads
Stretched clusters keep Hyper-V, Oracle and AIX services available across both sites.
Comprehensive Data Protection
Continuous replication and application-consistent backup support point-in-time recovery with governance.
Foundation for Growth
An agile platform absorbs new compute resources as digital transformation continues.
Strategic Value Delivered
Active-active is the demanding end of data centre architecture: it requires stretched clusters, synchronized storage and consistent protection to work together across sites without introducing new failure modes. Delivering it for a bank’s mission-critical estate, across Microsoft, Oracle and AIX workloads, gave the client a genuinely always-on foundation and an infrastructure agile enough to carry its digital transformation forward rather than constrain it.