Runbook reduced
from 94 to 4 pages
Disk space
saving of 5TB
Ten hours
less per refresh
Rabobank is an international financial services provider operating on the basis of co-operative principles. It offers retail banking, wholesale banking, private banking, leasing and real estate services. Serving approximately 8.7 million clients around the world, Rabobank puts customers’ interests first.
Rabobank Group is comprised of Coöperatieve Rabobank U.A. (Rabobank) and its consolidated subsidiaries in the Netherlands and abroad. It is committed to making a substantial contribution to welfare and prosperity in the Netherlands, and to feeding the world sustainably.
The banking industry has some of the strictest regulations for data security. To reinforce this, the Dutch Banking Authority – De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB) – has rules and regulations on how data should be stored to protect its consumers. One of these regulations requires that all data outside an organisation’s production environment must be scrambled.
All companies need data for their testing and development environments, and with strict rules set up by the banking authority, this can be problematic. In other industries, an alternative is to create data manually, but this is also not permitted by the Banking Authority.
Banks then need to weigh up the risk and cost of non-compliance (which could result in them losing their banking licence), asking for specific leniency, or finding other ways to create scramble test data for their non-production environments.
At Rabobank, the team created a 94-page Runbook, setting out in detail how to create SAP system refreshes to comply with the regulations. The process was lengthy, cumbersome and resource-intensive. This meant that they didn’t refresh data as often as they would have liked to, which impacted the ability to test thoroughly for projects and business-as-usual activities.
In addition to the key scrambling requirement, using Data Sync Manager has resulted in a disk space saving of 5TB in total, and we also save more than ten hours per refresh. We certainly don’t need full copies of production data in our non-production environments. Also, using DSM Client Sync, we don’t have downtime on our production system any more – which is an invaluable benefit.
Jan Huizinga, Technical consultant, Rabobank
After extensive research within the SAP test data market, Rabobank invested in the Data Sync Manager (DSM) suite of products from EPI-USE Labs, specifically Client Sync and Data Secure solutions for their SAP ECC and SRM environments. Client Sync is now used to copy a reduced slice of SAP production data, while Data Secure is used to scramble the data in tandem with the new client being built. Rabobank first pre-designed the rules for the most important datasets to be scrambled, which was then configured into Data Secure as a policy.
Scrambling data was a time-consuming manual exercise which didn’t give us enough guarantees that sensitive data was securely scrambled. We wanted to be 100% confident that all sensitive data was masked. We needed a product that would remove the manual effort, allow us to schedule jobs and enable us to comply with regulations. That product proved to be Data Secure.
Jan Huizinga, Technical consultant, Rabobank
The lengthy Runbook is now dramatically reduced from the original length of 94 pages to only four pages, testament to the automation built into DSM addressing the complexity of the data refresh and scrambling process. Rabobank now has a clear method to create test data in their non-production environments, while complying with the Banking Authority’s regulations.
Rabobank also chose to be one of the development partners for EPI-USE Labs on the latest version of Data Secure. A key requirement for Rabobank was to consistently scramble data between the SRM and ERP systems in one single process.
Data Secure 3 enables organisations to set up a data security policy that covers the entire SAP landscape. It was implemented at Rabobank in a Controlled Availability programme.
Benefits of using Data Secure 3 for Rabobank include:
Data Sync Manager delivered as promised. Initial installation was done within two weeks without major delays. The support desk has also been outstanding – we get quick reaction times, and the consultant that was involved in our project was flexible and very talented!
Jan Huizinga, Technical consultant, Rabobank
As an international financial services provider based in the Netherlands, Rabobank faces strict regulations from the Dutch Banking Authority including the requirement to scramble all data outside the production environment. The Rabobank team had created a 94-page Runbook explaining how to create SAP system refreshes to comply with the regulations, but this process was lengthy, cumbersome and resource-intensive.
Rabobank invested in the Data Sync Manager™ (DSM) suite of products from EPI-USE Labs, specifically Client Sync and the Data Secure 3 solution for their SAP ECC and SRM environments. This enabled them to dramatically reduce their Runbook to only four pages, thanks to automation built into DSM to simplify the data refresh and scrambling process. Rabobank now has a clear method to create test data in their non-production environments, while complying with the Banking Authority’s regulations.
© 2024 EPI-USE Labs
Trafford House, 11th Floor, Chester Road, Stretford, Manchester, United Kingdom, M32 0RS •Other Office Locations