Euronet Deploys Cisco Unified Computing System and Cloud Infrastructure

Significantly Less Time Taken for Implementation and Provisioning, While Power, Cooling and Space Needs Drop

BUDAPEST, Hungary, April 28, 2011 – Cisco today announced that Euronet Worldwide, an industry leader and provider of highly secure electronic financial transaction solutions, has deployed the Cisco Unified Computing System^TM at its central data center in Budapest.

The  solution’s cloud architecture helps enable Euronet to provide hybrid cloud services, serving both its internal information technology (IT) department as well as customers, including banks and other financial institutions, in a flexible pay-per-usage model, scaling the capacity to demand.

Euronet was established in 1994 in Budapest as the first independent ATM network in Central and Eastern Europe. In 2009, Euronet Worldwide processed approximately $50 billion in ATM transactions, payments for prepaid services, and money transfers for more than 115 financial institutions, 200 mobile operators, approximately 320,000 retailer and agent locations, and millions of individual consumers in 46 countries. The central data center in Hungary provides the IT infrastructure for transaction processing for Euronet subsidiaries in 26 countries in Central and Eastern Europe.

Key Facts / Highlights

• Euronet’s legacy system posed several challenges for the company, including a lack of physical space, extensive cabling, high power and cooling requirements, and an infrastructure that was too complex to operate in an efficient way. The silo architecture — one server per application — meant a huge amount of unused capacity.
• Euronet’s key business goals were reducing costs and risks, responding faster to customers’ needs, making more efficient usage of resources, and sustaining consistent service-level agreements. With the new Cisco Unified Computing System, the time needed for virtual server implementation and provisioning has decreased by up to 95 percent from the legacy infrastructure. Additionally, the implementation has resulted in decreased power consumption, cooling and needed rack space.
• The new data center is based on the Cisco Unified Computing System, tightly integrated with VMware’s vCenter, which provides automated workflows and a scalable, extensible platform, and the existing NetApp systems. The result is easily manageable, cost-efficient automation, analysis and storage control.
• The Cisco Unified Computing System unites network, computing, storage access and virtualization resources in a single energy-efficient system that can reduce the costs and complexity of the IT infrastructure, help extend capital assets, and improve business agility well into the future.
• Euronet’s new data center contains four Cisco Unified Computing System 5100 Series Blade Server Chassis unified by redundant Cisco UCS 6100 Series Fabric Interconnects. The computing power is provided by 22 blades in the main data center and 11 blades in the disaster-recovery data center. The existing four NetApp FAS3040 storage systems are connected with Fibre Channel and network file system protocols to the Cisco Unified Computing System. On the server virtualization layer, the deployed VMware vSphere 4 Enterprise-plus edition works with a Cisco Nexus® 1000V Switch and provides extended functionality.
• The new architecture provides a flexible platform for both private and public cloud applications. With the cloud infrastructure, the IT department is able to put more focus on strategic initiatives rather than having to focus on daily maintenance and deployment problems. With the faster development and provisioning of new applications, more revenue can be generated without increasing costs, and tripling the project transaction capacity means significant additional business opportunities for Euronet based on the cloud solution.
• S&T Consulting Hungary, a Cisco Data Center Unified Computing Authorized Technology Provider Partner, designed and implemented the project, including installation of the new servers and integration with the existing storage components and services.

Supporting Quotes

• Milan Glavaski, IT director, Euronet EFT Europe

“The joint Cisco, NetApp and VMware solution — which was implemented by S&T Consulting Hungary — gives us the ability to make quicker responses to our constantly changing business needs. This deeply integrated solution gives us a lower total cost of ownership, a better return on investment, and a much more agile business infrastructure that can easily address each and every business-related task.”

Tags, Keywords:

Euronet, Cisco, Cisco Unified Computing System, Cloud

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Supporting Resources:

• Cisco website
• Read more about Cisco Data Center and Virtualization solutions

About Euronet WorldWide

Euronet Worldwide is an industry leader in processing secure electronic financial transactions. The Company offers payment and transaction processing solutions to financial institutions, retailers, service providers and individual consumers. These services include comprehensive ATM, POS and card outsourcing services, card issuing and merchant acquiring services, software solutions, consumer money transfer and bill payment services, and electronic distribution for prepaid mobile phone time and other prepaid products. Euronet operates and processes transactions from more than 50 countries.

With corporate headquarters in Leawood, Kansas, USA, and 43 worldwide offices, Euronet serves clients in approximately 150 countries. For more information, please visit the Company’s website at www.euronetworldwide.com

About S&T Consulting Hungary

S&T Consulting Hungary Ltd. offers for large and mid-sized companies, government institutions customized standard solutions and tailor-made developments, from networking, IT security or storage systems to enterprise resource planning solutions and product lifecycle management systems. The company, with its predecessors, has been present in the international and local markets for more than fifteen years with great success.

About Cisco

Cisco, (NASDAQ:CSCO, news, filings), is the worldwide leader in networking that transforms how people connect, communicate and collaborate. Information about Cisco can be found at http://www.cisco.com. For ongoing news, please go to http://newsroom.cisco.com. Cisco equipment in Europe is provided by Cisco Systems International B.V. and Cisco International Limited, wholly owned subsidiaries of Cisco Systems, Inc.

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