Central Pacific Bank boosts virtualization, storage

Running out of storage space and facing growing security and compliance challenges, Central Pacific Bank engaged local tech firm Pacxa to deploy 1,000 virtual desktops, roll out Windows 10 Enterprise and Microsoft Office 365 company wide, and move to Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) for its edge-to-cloud platform-as-a-service offerings.

The result, the company says, is a secure, compliant, and seamless solution for their remote employees across their 35 branches.

“We look for reliability, scalability, cost, performance, security and compliance when deciding on a new technology vendor,” said Adrienne Chee, Senior Vice President of Technology Operations, Central Pacific Bank. “We made a substantial investment in HPE because we believe in the technology and are positioning ourselves for long-term growth and adaptation.”

Central Pacific Bank implemented “Nimble Storage,” HPE’s disaggregated hyperconverged infrastructure (dHCI), which it says offers greater performance, efficiency and cost savings for its virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI).

The move allowed CPB to provide its remote workforce with the tools needed to continue working effectively, and helped give the bank a competitive edge when the shelter in place guidelines were enacted due to COVID-19. The consolidation of data and computing also led to an overall decrease in infrastructure spending, and the IT department now has centralized control and can more easily deploy technology updates and onboard new employees.

CPB was also able to remain Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC) and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) compliant, even as the bank moved quickly to service the high volume of Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan activity in the early days of the pandemic.

“HPE Nimble Storage dHCI is elegant and simple, yet high performing and designed for a virtualized environment,” continued Chee. “It met our security, compliance, and budget needs.”

Central Pacific Bank replaced its aging hardware with HPE ProLiant DL360 servers and HPE Nimble Storage dHCI, which it says increases flexibility for faster performance, higher availability, and a lower total cost of ownership for business-critical applications and mixed-workloads. The new technology helped CPB reduce the number of tickets and complaints for IT staff.

“Pacxa is Hawaii’s premier full-service provider of IT solutions, so we only work with leading-edge technologies we are confident will provide our clients the best solutions,” said Kelly Ueoka, President, Pacxa. “Thanks to our partnership with HPE, we are able to take on large scale projects because we know that we can lean on HPE to supplement our team’s resources and capabilities.

“When we needed an infrastructure designer to help us produce the architecture for Central Pacific Bank, HPE provided the resources to guide our equipment purchasing and planning, which was absolutely critical to a successful implementation,” Ueoka added.

The HPE system includes HPE InfoSight, an advanced AI for infrastructure and for predictive analytics that diagnose and resolve issues. The analytics provided by HPE InfoSight gives company leaders insights into utilization, and makes implementation recommendations. The new upgraded infrastructure allows the bank to work faster and much more efficiently than before, delivering productivity and efficiency benefits for a transformative new VDI environment.

“Throughout the process we were able to keep pace with our customers and never miss a beat in terms of meeting their needs,” said Chee. “Thanks to HPE and Pacxa, we can now communicate, collaborate, and work remotely and securely… and we know that everyday our employees are going to have a positive experience.”

About Hewlett Packard Enterprise

Hewlett Packard Enterprise is the global edge-to-cloud platform-as-a-service company that helps organizations accelerate outcomes by unlocking value from all of their data, everywhere. Built on decades of reimagining the future and innovating to advance the way we live and work, HPE delivers unique, open and intelligent technology solutions, with a consistent experience across all clouds and edges, to help customers develop new business models, engage in new ways, and increase operational performance. For more information, visit: www.hpe.com.