Ganart specializes in providing cloud processing for financial information and transactions in the consumer banking sector. When it first began to develop its banking software and systems, Ganart built a data center based on the Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating system. Today Ganart runs its critical financial transaction cloud data center on Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization and Red Hat Enterprise Linux. 

“We wanted to put something in the data center that was secure, responsive, high-performing and reliable, so Red Hat was the default choice,” said Chris Glover, vice president of software development at Ganart Technologies. “We use Red Hat Enterprise Linux-based servers for everything in our data center from basic testing and development services to quality assurance and production.” 

As Ganart looked to scale out its business and expanded its data center, the company sought ways to drive different networks to be PCI-compliant and required many full networks for quality assurance, staging and production. Challenged by a limited IT budget, Ganart evaluated the virtualization solutions between Red Hat and VMware. 

Red Hat vs. VMware

"When it came to VMware, one of the issues was cost," Glover said. "For the types of things we wanted to do, the VMware solution was more expensive compared to the investment we were making in our data center. With Red Hat, we realized we would get not just the cost benefit, but also benefits in performance, scalability and security."

He added: “Since our servers were already running Red Hat Enterprise Linux, using Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization was a natural addition. To have both our operating system and virtualization technology from Red Hat, the synergies made a lot of sense."

Today, Ganart maintains a full Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization stack with seven Dell R7 10s with 64GB of RAM. Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization forms the base of five different networks, made up of over 40 Red Hat Enterprise Linux-based servers that are all PCI-compliant. Ganart uses Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization to manage the virtual machines themselves and the actual physical clusters.

The company also uses the complementary Red Hat Network Satellite systems management solution to keep its Red Hat Enterprise Linux systems up-to-date with patch management and the deployment of new systems. It also utilizes Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop for its ATM machines. 

Transactions-as-a-Service

Ganart's data center is organized as a cloud that allows it to deliver its services as transactions-as-a-service, which enables its distribution partners to pay only for the transactions that they use.

With its financial transaction cloud, Ganart's partners can offer services ranging from money transfers to cashing checks with no complex set-up fees or processes. Ganart hooks providers of these services into its ATM network to offer multi-function kiosks to customers and distribution partners that enable “unbanked” customers to reduce the cost and time spent completing banking-related activities. 

“When we talk about the cloud, we are talking about delivering more services, cheaper, to allow our partners and customers to pay only for what they need and use. Where Red Hat fits in is that with the combination of Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization and Red Hat Enterprise Linux, we can dynamically move capacity around as needed to fit the needs of our customers,” said Glover.

With Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization and Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Ganart is able to affordably scale with business growth. It has achieved expanded scalability, performance, flexibility and security while reducing costs by 60%.