Oldenburgische Landesbank (regional bank)

The Oldenburgische Landesbank (OLB) is the leading regional bank in the Weser-Ems region. With around 170 branches and 2150 employees, the universal bank offers the entire range of services for private and commercial customers.

  • Management of a heterogeneous IT infrastructure consisting of Windows clients, Windows servers, terminal servers, Unix servers, and Oracle database servers.
  • Provision of a redundant virtualization infrastructure in the data center
  • Centralized authentication and user administration for employees at headquarters and at the around 170 branch offices
  • Central UCS domain for user management and authentication on various internal services
  • Decentralized UCS servers in the branches as print and file servers
  • UCS-KVM with UVMM in the data center as a virtualization platform
  • Top-down synchronization of the login data of a UCS domain into 4 additional, independent domains
  • Bidirectional synchronization of UCS and Active Directory Domain (AD Connector)
  • UCS as a platform for various web and software applications within the bank

Oldenburgische Landesbank – One of Our First Customers

The Oldenburgische Landesbank is one of the earliest and largest users of Univention Corporate Server. The infrastructure software plays several important roles in a heterogeneous IT landscape.

Remote Server Administration with Linux

When Univention was founded in 2002, it was not customary for a Linux system to allow remote administration of servers. With Debian, the foundation of Univention Corporate Server (UCS), it was possible, though. This feature and the support offered by Univention made the Oldenburgische Landesbank (OLB) in 2003 one of the first and to this day one of the largest customers of the Bremen-based software house. This is how OLB was able to incorporate the then 170 branches into its network.

Manage Heterogeneous IT Environment Centrally

OLB has a modern and heterogeneous IT environment. It is dominated by Unix and Windows servers, Oracle databases, Windows clients, and cash machines and statement printers by Diebold Wincor. All systems in the branches are centrally supplied with software.

You are in good hands with Univention, even if we needed assistance that goes beyond the usual support. This is exemplary.
Theodor Vehndel, IT Group Leader at OLB

OpenLDAP Takes Over Active Directory Functions

Firstly, UCS was the basis for decentralized file and print servers in the branches. Meanwhile, UCS’s identity management also covers the entire user administration on all systems. This also applies to the Microsoft environments for which Active Directory is not the core, but the in UCS integrated OpenLDAP. UCS is also the platform for web applications that the bank programmed itself.

Change of the Hypervisor Technology from Xen to KVM

UCS runs at the OLB on about 400 servers, which includes virtual machines. Also Windows servers are virtualized on UCS. Because UCS switched to KVM as of version 4, no longer supporting the hypervisor Xen, the bank has now migrated all virtual servers to the new hypervisor technology. For software allocation to Windows servers and clients, the bank uses the product opsi from the partner company uib.

Conclusion

It is important to quickly get support in case of doubt. ‘The support was always another, important argument for Univention,’ explains Theodor Vehndel, IT group leader at OLB. ‘You are in good hands with Univention, even if we needed assistance that goes beyond the usual support. This is exemplary.’