About JS Bank
JS Bank is a commercial bank offering a range of consumer, corporate, and other banking services. It is a majority-owned subsidiary of Jahangir Siddiqui & Co. Ltd., Headquartered in Karachi. JS Bank has a network of 323 branches in 161 cities, including an international branch in Manama, Bahrain.
JS Bank's IT Requirements
JS Bank needed to replace traditional desktop PCs with virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) in two scenarios. One was for the SWIFT department and the other was for normal office users. In total, they had over 5,000 desktop PCs.
The SWIFT department needed high availability (HA) for desktop operations and protection of sensitive data from data loss or leakage. Normal office users needed to use Linux with simple applications to reduce the cost of Windows OS licenses and have easier management and stronger data protection.
Sangfor's VDI Solution for JS Bank
JS Bank chose Sangfor VDI to meet its various IT requirements. In phase one of the project, JS Bank deployed two nodes of Sangfor HCI (Hyperconverged Infrastructure) to to run virtual desktops with high availability for 60 users. The HCI server cluster is placed in PTCL and fiber is used for connecting with HQ. XUbuntu OS is used for virtual desktops. In phase two, an extra HCI node was added to support a total of 120 users. In the next phase, desktop PCs of branches will also be replaced with virtual desktops using Sangfor VDI.
JS Bank's Benefits after Deploying Sangfor VDI
- All data is kept on the server end, and policies can be configured to control users’ network connections as well as USB read and write functions to prevent data leakage.
- The HCI infrastructure for the VDI solution provides high availability for data, and built-in VM backup can help prevent data loss. No Windows software licenses are needed for Linux virtual desktops, saving costs.
- Central management of virtual desktops using two simple consoles: the virtual management platform (VMP) for server-end management and the virtual desktop controller (VDC) for user-end management.
- A single platform solution (the HCI servers, hypervisor, and VDI controllers are all from Sangfor) for seamless compatibility and convenient support services.
