"Our tests showed that SQL Server 2012 will give us much higher availability, and we will definitely decrease downtime for our customer applications. This improvement will positively affect our customers."

Wilson Yoshio Okamoto, IT Manager, Banco Bradesco

One of Brazil’s largest banks, Banco Bradesco, has more than 65 million customers throughout the country. Many of these customers depend on the bank’s online banking and customer service applications. To make sure these mission-critical applications are available around the clock, the bank is implementing a Microsoft high-availability and disaster-recovery solution based on Microsoft SQL Server 2012. With that high availability ensured, the bank can provide better customer service. The solution will also help support the bank’s growth, and it improves performance by up to 30 percent.

Business NeedsBanco Bradesco, founded in 1943, is the second-largest private bank in Brazil, with more than 4,060 branches and 50,000 automatic teller machines across the country. Bradesco offers a range of financial services, including online banking, insurance, pension plans, annuities, credit card services, savings bonds, and personal and commercial loans.

The organization needs to maintain high availability for several mission-critical customer-facing applications, including a customer service portal based on Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010. “This application is our main customer service channel, and it is a key point of interaction with our customers,” says Wilson Yoshio Okamoto, IT Manager, Bradesco Bank. “Also critical is our online banking site, which handles thousands of customer transactions every day. If these applications go down, the bank’s business stops.”

Other critical systems—based on Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 data management software—include internal applications used by the bank’s legal and insurance

departments. “High availability is a priority for all of these applications,” Okamoto says.

If there is downtime for any of these systems, the bank’s reputation can be damaged. “Uptime is critical for our image,” says Okamoto. “We recently discovered that the bank has the highest brand name evaluation in Brazil. So we are always working to improve our service products and keep them available to our customers.”

Availability has been challenging because Banco Bradesco lacked an effective high-availability and disaster-recovery solution. The firm used several third-party high-availability solutions and wanted to better integrate its availability infrastructure with its existing Microsoft infrastructure.

The bank decided to search for a new solution in May 2010.

SolutionIn July 2010, Banco Bradesco chose to upgrade to Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Enterprise. “We have Microsoft technology in place throughout our organization, and

Customer: Banco BradescoWebsite: www.bradesco.com.brCustomer Size: 105,100 employeesCountry or Region: BrazilIndustry: Financial services—Banking

Customer ProfileBased in Osasco, Brazil, Banco Bradesco is the country’s second-largest financial institution. The bank’s assets are worth U.S.$428 billion.

Solution Spotlight Ensures high availability for mission-

critical applications, positively affecting banking customers.

Provides reliable technology infrastructure that will help the bank increase its business.

Improves user performance by up to 30 percent.

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Microsoft SQL ServerCustomer Solution Case Study

Bank Ensures High Availability, Promotes Business Growth, and Boosts Performance with New Database Solution

all of these technologies have been very reliable for us,” says Okamoto.

SQL Server 2012 also includes high-availability features the bank knew it could benefit from. For instance, SQL Server 2012 AlwaysOn gives enterprises the ability to query data in replicas and handle backup from the replica databases. The feature also contains availability groups, which provide failover for sets of user databases.

The bank conducted internal testing, during which it migrated its SharePoint Server 2010 databases to SQL Server 2012. The bank also conducted failover tests at a contingency site. Also during testing, Banco Bradesco implemented a four-node database cluster, with two nodes located at the company’s main data center and two additional nodes in the contingency site. In total, 20 databases containing 10 gigabytes of customer data were migrated to SQL Server 2012.

In early 2011, Banco Bradesco officially implemented its SharePoint Server application on SQL Server 2012. The application—used internally by 150 employees in the bank’s customer contracts department—handles up to 50 customer transactions per second.

A wider SQL Server 2012 rollout is planned for late 2012.

BenefitsBanco Bradesco now has a solution that ensures high availability for its critical applications. In addition, the new Microsoft solution has improved the bank’s customer service and boosted performance by 30 percent. The bank also expects the solution to lead to increased business.

Ensures High Uptime for Critical Customer-Facing ApplicationsWith SQL Server 2012, Banco Bradesco can provide high availability for its critical customer-facing SharePoint Server portal. “Our tests showed that SQL Server 2012 will give us much higher availability, and we will definitely decrease downtime for our customer applications,” says Okamato. “This improvement will positively affect our customers, because they rely on our applications to always be available to them.”

Once the solution is fully implemented, Banco Bradesco will no longer have to use its previous disaster-recovery solution. “Because SQL Server 2012 AlwaysOn provides replica database backup and automatic failover capabilities that we didn’t have before, we are confident about the solution’s high availability,” Okamoto says. “Also, the new contingency setup will help us provide database maintenance without affecting our users during their day-to-day operations.”

Will Help Bank Achieve Business GrowthGaining higher uptime for its mission-critical applications will help Banco Bradesco give better customer service, helping the bank to increase its business. “With our new technology solution, based on SQL Server 2012, we will be able to achieve even more growth for the bank,” says Okamato. “The alignment of our business with our customer-facing applications is important, and this solution helps us stay on the leading edge in both business and technology.”

Boosts Performance by up to 30 Percent The bank’s SQL Server 2012 testing also demonstrated a performance increase for users of its SharePoint portal. “We have received feedback from our users, who have already seen a 20 to 30 percent improvement in performance with SQL Server 2012 compared with our previous environment,” says Okamato.

As Banco Bradesco looks ahead, it expects to continue working closely with Microsoft on its IT infrastructure “The new SQL Server 2012 solution, along with other Microsoft technologies in our IT environment, will only help improve our bank,” says Okamoto. “We will always maintain confidence in our partnership with Microsoft.”

This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.

Document published June 2012

Software and Services Microsoft Server Product Portfolio− Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Enterprise