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Home >> Success Stories >> Aliant Bank Success Stories
FlashDisk Handles Customers' Check Images for Alabama Bank Organization Profile - www.aliantbank.com Chartered in 1900, Aliant Bank has grown steadily during the 20th century to have assets of approximately $600 million and to become Alabama's seventh largest independent bank. This closely held bank, based in Alexander City, Alabama, has a definite mission-provide superior service by proactively focusing on the individual needs of its customers. In the 1999 Chairman's Message, John Russell Thomas, CEO, said: “Technology is certainly helping us to improve efficiency, to reduce costs, and to serve our customer better than ever before.” FlashDisk Customer Profile As Told By Aliant Bank “Aliant Bank cut the cost of processing checks by moving to electronic check imaging and destroying the original checks after 90 days. We photograph each canceled check, store the check images on disks, and then provide each customer with a checking statement showing facsimile images of each of their canceled checks. We bought an OS/2 server with an external RAID storage system, which came from a third-party storage manufacturer. Unfortunately, the disk drives kept failing. We ran tests of the drives once a month to see which ones had to be replaced. Supporting the imaging application under OS/2 also became difficult. When Advanced Financial Solutions (AFS), the Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, developer of the imaging software upgraded from OS/2 to Windows NT, we completely overhauled our server and storage system. We selected a Dell 2300 PowerEdge, which would run Windows NT 4.0 and connect to a NT-based local area network. When it came to selecting storage, AFS offered to do a comparison test of the storage systems we selected. Winchester Systems shipped AFS a demonstration unit. AFS ran the same tests on Winchester Systems' FlashDisk storage system, along with units from several other vendors. Based purely on performance speed, FlashDisk proved to be comparable and, at times, faster than the other two storage systems. But the FlashDisk offered a tremendous savings in dollars as compared to the other two storage systems. We couldn't turn down the price performance offered by the FlashDisk. Why spend more when you can pay less for the same amount of storage! We bought a FlashDisk storage system to hold up to five months' worth of check images. A few months later, we added more disk drives to hold an additional three months' worth of check images. The total storage system offers us plenty of usable storage with the error-checking features offered by RAID level 5. After eight months, the check images get written to a CD-ROM for permanent archival. Since the check imaging system functions as a file and print server, the storage system has to run at top speed. When we're printing customers' statements, the application has to go through and retrieve those images. And those images aren't sequential because they're stored on whatever day the check has cleared. The storage system goes through a lot of hits. The FlashDisk handles this application at top speed with almost flawless reliability, including no disk drive failures. More Applications to Hit the FlashDisk The FlashDisk will be hit upon even harder next year when our Web-based homebanking service makes the check images available to customers. Customers will get a list of the checks that have cleared, and then they can click on a check's hyperlink and bring up an image of the canceled check.”
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