Case Studies Accelerating Mobile Apps with In-Memory Technologies

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	Accelerating Mobile Apps with In-Memory Technologies

Accelerating Mobile Apps with In-Memory Technologies

Technology Category	Analytics & Modeling - Real Time Analytics Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) - Private Cloud Platform as a Service (PaaS) - Data Management Platforms
Applicable Industries	Finance & Insurance
Applicable Functions	Business Operation Quality Assurance
Use Cases	Predictive Maintenance Remote Asset Management
Services	Cloud Planning, Design & Implementation Services Software Design & Engineering Services System Integration
Challenge	As Swedbank's application development teams were building more solutions, the Tech Stream team faced significant overhead in setting up the supporting backend systems. They used a traditional relational database management system (RDBMS) for data storage, but creating a schema for every use case became cumbersome. This inhibited their ability to move quickly for any new solution the market demanded. Additionally, they discovered that their RDBMS was overkill for their needs, as data storage was being handled entirely in memory. They sought a lighter weight solution that would eliminate the time-consuming schema definition process while providing higher levels of performance. Reliability was also a major issue, as their RDBMS was a single point of failure. Security was another pivotal concern, given the sensitive data they maintained. Read More
About Customer	Swedbank is a large banking group based in Stockholm, offering retail banking, asset management, and other services. With nearly 15,000 employees worldwide, the bank focuses on Sweden and the Baltic countries. It serves over 7 million private customers, 5 million of whom are digitally active, and over 600,000 corporate customers. The Digital Banking organization at Swedbank, particularly the Tech Stream team, is responsible for the backend systems that drive online channels such as Internet banking and mobile banking. The team, mostly composed of software engineers, also includes an enterprise architect and CI/CD engineers. They provide the infrastructure to deliver data used by customers and bank clerks, working closely with application developers and the core banking team to ensure performance, scalability, reliability, and agility. Read More
Solution	Swedbank's Tech Stream team researched and evaluated several in-memory technologies, ultimately selecting Hazelcast IMDG. Hazelcast was chosen for its strong track record, performance benchmarks, and built-in security and business continuity capabilities. The native Java API made it easy for their Java software engineers to use, and the ability to store data in object form provided flexibility. The team started with the open-source version of Hazelcast and quickly integrated it into their first application. They later transitioned to Hazelcast IMDG Enterprise for its advanced features like WAN Replication and 24/7 support. Their initial use cases included storing single sign-on (SSO) security tokens and a security token cache for open banking systems. Hazelcast's distributed system capabilities ensured high availability and business continuity, with data replication across multiple clusters in different data centers. Swedbank also implemented a disaster recovery topology using Hazelcast's WAN Replication feature, ensuring data availability even in case of site-wide failures. Read More Log in to view content
Contents

Technology Category

Analytics & Modeling - Real Time Analytics

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) - Private Cloud

Platform as a Service (PaaS) - Data Management Platforms

Applicable Industries

Finance & Insurance

Applicable Functions

Business Operation

Quality Assurance

Use Cases

Predictive Maintenance

Remote Asset Management

Services

Cloud Planning, Design & Implementation Services

Software Design & Engineering Services

System Integration

Challenge

As Swedbank's application development teams were building more solutions, the Tech Stream team faced significant overhead in setting up the supporting backend systems. They used a traditional relational database management system (RDBMS) for data storage, but creating a schema for every use case became cumbersome. This inhibited their ability to move quickly for any new solution the market demanded. Additionally, they discovered that their RDBMS was overkill for their needs, as data storage was being handled entirely in memory. They sought a lighter weight solution that would eliminate the time-consuming schema definition process while providing higher levels of performance. Reliability was also a major issue, as their RDBMS was a single point of failure. Security was another pivotal concern, given the sensitive data they maintained.

About Customer

Swedbank is a large banking group based in Stockholm, offering retail banking, asset management, and other services. With nearly 15,000 employees worldwide, the bank focuses on Sweden and the Baltic countries. It serves over 7 million private customers, 5 million of whom are digitally active, and over 600,000 corporate customers. The Digital Banking organization at Swedbank, particularly the Tech Stream team, is responsible for the backend systems that drive online channels such as Internet banking and mobile banking. The team, mostly composed of software engineers, also includes an enterprise architect and CI/CD engineers. They provide the infrastructure to deliver data used by customers and bank clerks, working closely with application developers and the core banking team to ensure performance, scalability, reliability, and agility.

Solution

Swedbank's Tech Stream team researched and evaluated several in-memory technologies, ultimately selecting Hazelcast IMDG. Hazelcast was chosen for its strong track record, performance benchmarks, and built-in security and business continuity capabilities. The native Java API made it easy for their Java software engineers to use, and the ability to store data in object form provided flexibility. The team started with the open-source version of Hazelcast and quickly integrated it into their first application. They later transitioned to Hazelcast IMDG Enterprise for its advanced features like WAN Replication and 24/7 support. Their initial use cases included storing single sign-on (SSO) security tokens and a security token cache for open banking systems. Hazelcast's distributed system capabilities ensured high availability and business continuity, with data replication across multiple clusters in different data centers. Swedbank also implemented a disaster recovery topology using Hazelcast's WAN Replication feature, ensuring data availability even in case of site-wide failures.

Impact #1	Swedbank's key concerns were fully addressed with the Hazelcast implementation, which is now used in their biggest app hosting Internet and mobile banking systems.
Impact #2	Reliability issues were resolved, with no problems reported in the two years since Hazelcast has been running, except for a hardware switch failure unrelated to Hazelcast.
Impact #3	The successful production deployment of Hazelcast validated their choice of technology, providing a lightweight solution that fits their environment.

Impact #1

Swedbank's key concerns were fully addressed with the Hazelcast implementation, which is now used in their biggest app hosting Internet and mobile banking systems.

Impact #2

Reliability issues were resolved, with no problems reported in the two years since Hazelcast has been running, except for a hardware switch failure unrelated to Hazelcast.

Impact #3

The successful production deployment of Hazelcast validated their choice of technology, providing a lightweight solution that fits their environment.

Benefit #1	Swedbank serves over 7 million private customers and 600,000 corporate customers.
Benefit #2	5 million of Swedbank's private customers are digitally active.
Benefit #3	Swedbank's Tech Stream team includes nearly 15,000 employees worldwide.

Benefit #1

Swedbank serves over 7 million private customers and 600,000 corporate customers.

Benefit #2

5 million of Swedbank's private customers are digitally active.

Benefit #3

Swedbank's Tech Stream team includes nearly 15,000 employees worldwide.

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Overview

Accelerating Mobile Apps with In-Memory Technologies

Operational Impact

Quantitative Benefit