The world of Financial Services has evolved considerably in recent years: changes in customer usage, installation of Digital Banking, intensification of regulations, geographic deployment, competition from new players …
In this ever-changing environment in which the players must differentiate themselves, the control and exploitation of data are key factors and require structuring technological choices, in particular to offer services in inaccessible areas.
In response to these changes, the BGFIBank Group has decided to upgrade its connectivity infrastructure. Indeed, the new network infrastructure now allows optimal management of the available bandwidth making it less difficult to use our tools and thus to ensure a sufficient level of security for the new requirements.
The redesign of this network infrastructure has been initiated to meet the 3 main issues imposed by these changes:
1. Improve productivity by upgrading network performance through bandwidth optimization
2. Simplify the management of critical applications by pooling their management and centralizing the information system;
3. Secure our connectivity solutions by redundant infrastructure with efficient and adapted automatic failover systems.
To carry out this overhaul, the BGFIBank Group has decided to entrust its SONEMA partner with the design, implementation and maintenance of a new network architecture. SONEMA has been supporting the BGFIBank Group for more than 15 years on its international and domestic connectivity projects.
After a phase of study and analysis of local components and needs, SONEMA has enabled the implementation of a Hybrid solution (Terrestrial and Satellite) and a two-phase implementation.
As a first step, it will be a question of centralizing the architecture on the two (2) zones CEMAC and UEMOA hosting the Datacenters of the Group. SONEMA has set up a dedicated satellite infrastructure, using only one satellite, at the sites of Libreville in Gabon and Abidjan in Côte d’Ivoire.
The implementation of this new architecture is accompanied by the activation of a dynamic management function of the Satellite bandwidth called “Vipersat”, allowing the creation of a pool of bandwidth dynamically allocated to the different agencies to enable them to temporarily increase the usable bandwidth when necessary.
At the end of this first phase, the two UMEOA and CEMAC zones will have optimum satellite connectivity, with dynamic bandwidth allocation and bandwidth sharing throughout the perimeter allowing for automatic toggling systems between subsidiaries and Datacenters.
“This infrastructure allows us to pool our services, business applications and secure replication of our data. At the end of the project, the BGFIBank Group will have a network of the latest generation, able to support the new challenges of our development. This secure and scalable infrastructure supports our positioning as a leading bank in Africa, enabling our employees to be more efficient and available to our customers, “said Henri Claude OYIMA, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the BGFIBank Group.
