RB makes the national real-time payment system resilient, with Cohesity

Overview

Imagine being unable to purchase gas or baby formula because bank payment systems are down. Disruptions to bank payment systems can cause widespread inconvenience and uncertainty, affecting daily life and business activity across society. In Iceland, responsibility for safeguarding and operating these core bank payment systems rests with Reiknistofa bankanna (RB), a non-profit cooperative. As part of an overall IT modernization program, RB replaced its legacy data protection system with Cohesity solutions. Immutable backups and 50% faster restores make payment systems more resilient, upgrades no longer require downtime, and the ease of managing the Cohesity solution lowers management costs.

The Challenge

RB develops and operates the core financial systems that Iceland’s banks rely on for deposits and payments, interbank settlements, and payment clearing. “Security and reliability are the heart of our business because everybody needs to trust that payments will go through, 24/7,” says Ragnhildur Geirsdóttir, CEO. 

RB’s legacy data protection solutions fell short of modern standards for performance, security, and resilience. Notably, RB had to take down its backup solutions for upgrades, failovers took too long, and backups were vulnerable to cyberattack. “If a payments database goes down and can’t be restored quickly, it may cause serious disruption to how people pay for goods and services across Iceland, affecting daily life and business activity,” says Einar Bjarni Eyþórsson, System Administrator. The IT team also wanted to automate as many processes as possible, including annual tests to confirm that backups can be restored, mandated by the EU’s Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA).

The Solution

RB adopted Cohesity in 2018, joining all of the world’s top-10 financial institutions and 85% of Fortune 100 companies. “In the proof of concept, we saw that Cohesity meets our requirements for immutable backups, support for multiple workloads, instant mass restores of databases to any point in time, and fast backups and restores,” says Eyþórsson. “Cohesity backup and recovery times for databases were up to 50% faster than our legacy system. When RB later started using Nutanix infrastructure for Kubernetes workloads, Cohesity began backing up Kubernetes workloads as well.”

Today, Cohesity backs up data in two data centers. Every week an automated process tests backups and restores of every database, giving RB and its financial institution customers confidence that normal operations can resume quickly after a cyberattack or natural disaster like the volcanic eruptions that occur every several years. Now RB is conducting another proof of concept, using Cohesity FortKnox cyber vault, deployed on-premises. The idea is to create an off-site vault that Icelandic banks can use to increase the resilience of their own systems.

“We’re always thinking about how to be prepared for events like cyberattacks and disasters,” says Geirsdóttir. “Security, reliability, and resilience are the core of our culture, so having Cohesity and Nutanix as partners helps me sleep better.”

The Result

With Cohesity Data Cloud, RB complies with DORA and Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) requirements for encryption, immutable backups, two-factor authentication, and role-based access control. “With DORA, it’s not enough to just say you have cyber resilience,” says Þorsteinn Björnsson, VP Technical Operations. “At least once a year we need to prove that after a cyber event we can get back on our feet within four hours. With Cohesity and Nutanix we’ve been able to automate testing, making DORA compliance much simpler. The collaboration between Cohesity and Nutanix for automating restores and other activities is outstanding.”

Backups and recovery are much faster than before. “With Cohesity, the time to restore a 30-40 TB Oracle database decreased from days to <8 hours,” says Sverrir Jón Gylfason, Team Leader for RB’s Infrastructure Group. Software and firmware upgrades no longer require downtime, so they’re performed without delay. “With the legacy backup system, I had to schedule maintenance at night,” Eyþórsson says. “With Cohesity and Nutanix I can do upgrades during normal working hours without disrupting the national payment system.” 

RB is saving the cost of an outside contractor to manage data protection. “We manage Cohesity internally,” says Gylfason. “Only one person on our team had the skills to run the old system. Cohesity’s management console is so easy to use that three or four people know how to do everything. Cohesity and Nutanix meet with us regularly to show us new features and provide support if we need it.”

As CEO, Geirsdóttir values the relationship with Cohesity and Nutanix. “When we first started thinking about modernizing our technology, we knew we wanted partners, not just vendors,” she says. “Cohesity and Nutanix have been good partners to us throughout the journey—from initial implementation to issue resolution. They respond very quickly. We’re confident that Cohesity and Nutanix will help us stay relevant as our bank customers move more operations to the cloud.”

 Björnsson agrees. “Decades ago, Gartner advised me that if I was going to modernize IT, to choose a partner committed to the success of companies the same size as mine—a partner who would support us if something happened,” he says. “Cohesity and Nutanix have proved that advice to be correct. I can make one call, to either Cohesity or Nutanix, knowing that they’ll coordinate with the other to keep our business running smoothly. As an example, when we had challenges expanding our database environment, Cohesity and Nutanix sent specialists to work onsite for two weeks.” Impressed with RB’s experience, Iceland’s larger banks are also implementing Cohesity Data Cloud and Nutanix.

Key Benefits

• Up to 50% faster backups 
• Up to 50% faster recovery 
• <8 hours to restore 30-40 TB Oracle database from last incremental backup 
• Simplified DORA and PCI DSS compliance 

About Reiknistofa bankanna 

Reiknistofa bankanna (RB) is an IT service provider for Icelandic financial institutions. RB developed the clearing and settlement system in Iceland and the core banking solutions used by all Icelandic banks. RB also operates an e-invoicing and e-payment system for corporations and consumers. RB is jointly owned by Icelandic banks, saving banks, the Icelandic Savings Bank Association, and the country’s main payment card processors.