Case Study Banking and Audit-proof Archiving fully automatic WORM solution for Sparkasse Karlsruhe

Every company is obliged to do audit-proof archiving of data. Banks in particular have to archive their data in line with compliance, legal regulations and specific industry standards. Of course, the Sparkasse Karlsruhe is no exception.

With its 82 subsidiary stores and almost 1,500 employees, it ranks amongst the biggest Sparkassen in Germany and accordingly demands high standards of their archiving: Fast, secure and fully automatic was what they were looking for. Only well-engineered and reliable software was in line. That is why they decided to go with the FileLock software by GRAU DATA with WORM protection.

Back to the beginnings: What did the IT system of the Sparkasse Karlsruhe look like? Besides IT operations that are being processed in the central computing center of all Sparkassen, the computational finance, the Sparkasse Karlsruhe operates its own IT infrastructure consisting of server, storage and network. Data accumulates here as well, and this data has to be stored after processing and what’s more, archived reliably and within the law. After the virtualization of Microsoft servers, which has been implemented on the basis of Microsoft HyperV, the previous archiving solution – a WORM-capable Blue Ray Jukebox, became outdated once and for all. The search for a new archiving system began.

Thomas Marcadal, systems integrator and software developer for IT services of Sparkasse Karlsruhe, started his search at the turn of the year 2015/2016. He had very detailed ideas and demanded high standards of the future WORM solution: A software-based solution supporting virtualized environments and, above all, be lean, simple to install and easy to maintain. Find out why he settled for FileLock by GRAU DATA:

Hardware-independent and installed quickly

As soon as the decision for FileLock is made, the software can be installed immediately. Integration is quick and easy and does not require any adjustment of the existing IT system. FileLock operates completely hardware-independently and fits in seamlessly with the existing IT structure. This allows the Sparkasse Karlsruhe to choose the hardware they use flexibly and without limitations. This way, it is possible to purchase the license at the beginning of 2016 and have FileLock installed, configured, tested and ready to use by March 2016.

“This software is incredibly lean and offers all the functions we need. The test installation and configuration happened within 20 minutes, completely trouble-free and without needing any help from the GRAU DATA service. Another nice advantage of FileLock is that it is not dependent on hardware. We were able to choose the storage platform that best suits our needs. This is exactly how I imagined the new archiving solution, “ said Thomas Marcadal to describe his first experiences with FileLock.

Audit-proof and confirmed by KPMG

To make sure that all data archiving is audit-proof, internal revision at Sparkasse Karlsruhe demands certain standards and appropriate attestation. This is also covered by FileLock – the electronic data archiving is certified by KPMG according to legal regulations.

“It is imperative for us as Sparkasse to obtain independent certification from accredited inspection authorities.

Even for that, GRAU DATA had a simple solution: I could download a detailed report from their website, including attestation from the auditing company KPMG that rated FileLock to be verified and secure,” explained Thomas Marcadal.

Individually scalable

When installation of FileLock started in the beginning of 2016, the challenge was to archive around 1,5 terabytes of data in WORM formatting. Judging from experiences of the past years, growth of data volume is assumed to range around two gigabytes per month.

For the highly scalable FileLock this does not pose a problem – not even in the long run.

Fully automated distribution and replication between save locations

When it comes to physical storage, the Sparkasse relies on two NAS systems, each having 4 TB capacity. The NAS storage devices can be configured with up to 8 disks, using only 4 slots each in the first step. This ensures long term scalability of the storage capacity. The NAS solution is installed at different sites to additionally guarantee location-independent security.

FileLock writes WORM data on both NAS systems, using a very useful additional feature of FileLock: Besides the WORM functionality, the software can not only operate various storage pools but also fully automatically replicate these. It only took a few clicks to activate this function as well.

Reliable with minimal administration effort

„We are very happy with the new WORM solution. It is lean, was extremely easy to install in our environment and the configuration was absolutely uncomplicated with minimal effort. The best thing about FileLock though is its reliability. The WORM archiving system has been running for three quarters of a year now and there is no administrative work needed, except from a quick glance at the admin panel every month.

That is notably less effort than required with our previous JukeBox. This is how I picture a fully automated solution,” said Thomas Marcadal with delight about the installation of FileLock by GRAU DATA GmbH.

Do you want to find out more about easy audit-proof archiving with FileLock? Read more about the software here or contact us directly for individual advice.