"The advantages for introducing RFID technology into financial industry are apparent, which include improvement of management and work efficiency, reducing dependency on manpower and ability to identify any potential errors at early stages”, according Mr James Shen, Senior VP of Sales from RCG Beijing, when speaking to Computer Business Information (CBI), a leading IT magazine in PRC.

Targeting at different business requirements in financial industry, RCG offers three different solutions for financial industry by integrating unique features of biometrics and RFID, namely RFID asset monitoring solution (or RFID data centre management solution), high-value asset management solution and VIP service solution. The RFID data centre management solution will be the first solution to implement RIFD technology into bank data centre to handle IT asset management.  

RFID technology integrated into new generation data centre

At a leading commercial bank’s data centre, technical manager Mr Ji was sitting in front of a main control monitor, drinking a cup of coffee, and checking the status of each system in the control room. Everything was running properly, he sat back and relaxed.

According to Mr Ji, when compared to the conventional manual system, the new RFID data centre management solution has brought improvements in overall efficiency and accuracy throughout the bank’s daily operation. The demand for manpower to run the operation has also been significantly reduced since the solution installed and implemented.

The number of IT equipment in the major commercial bank’s data centre where Mr Ji works has doubled with the skyrocketing demand in recent years for funds, credit loans and other financial instruments. But similar to other large local banks, Mr Ji’s bank spends considerable labor costs on recording on paper the equipment inspection for its data centre’s IT asset management.

“The shortcoming for such inspection recording forms is not only an increase in manpower: the key issue is that we cannot achieve real-time surveillance, so our workers need to be on alert all the time,” says Mr Ji.

Figure 1. Data Centre in Financial Industry includes a series of servers and IT equpiments which conventional management involves intensive manpower

The banking industry has a higher level of sensitivity towards data security than other industries. It's commonly known that the assets in a bank’s data centre are not your typical IT assets – even any minor mistake can result in immeasurable damage. To tackle this problem, some data centres have attempted in recent years to use barcodes in their daily management of IT assets, but barcodes have many disadvantages: they are easily torn or become dirty, can be duplicated, need accuracy to pinpoint, and so on. Such drawbacks result in barcode users having to allocate greater labor resources to manually complete IT asset management. Since the barcode method cannot provide actual real-time tracking and surveillance, fundamentally it cannot release managers from the original binding nature of IT asset management in data centres.

After Mr Ji found out Hewlett-Packard (HP) have introduced RFID technology into the next-generation data centre solution, he finally chose an RFID data centre management solution which was suitable for them to use in their data centre.

"The system uses RFID technology and integrates with an existing network and software platform which makes the daily management of important business assets such as servers and storage equipment more convenient, more detailed and more accurate. Moreover, the system can provide real-time monitoring, real-time positioning, auto recording and auto stocktaking. It also can reduce potential security risks," Mr Ji explained.

  
Figure 2. RFID found its place as effective track and trace tools in data centre management

System automatically updates management

As a strategic partner of HP in next-generation data centres, RCG is a true solutions and service provider of RFID data centre management solutions. The bank where Mr Ji works is just one successful case of the practical use of such a solution in China’s financial industry.

“Through constant contact with our clients in the financial industry we have found that the basic conditions of data centres provide an excellent environment for the actual application of RFID technology and its popularization,” said James Shen, Senior Vice-President of RCG China Limited. According to Mr Shen, a majority of the data centres in the financial industry has a large concentration of highly expensive equipment limited to one area, so if the area maintains a good environment for these equipment such as stable temperature and precipitation, then this could help to lower the cost of RFID application and even increase efficiency.

“RFID data centre management solution consists mainly of RFID tags, readers, and a tracking server. Using the principle and features of RFID technology, RCG affix RFID tags to fixed assets such as server cabinets and other equipment in the data centres of banks, install RFID equipment at the entrance or exit ways of the server room and inside cabinets, and integrate an asset management platform that includes software to monitor the environment, an automatic alarm system, and access control system – we can completely monitor assets and upgrade information on a real-time basis,” said Mr Shen.

At the same time, through the statistical analyses and real-time monitoring of information such as the positioning of equipment inside data centres, their movement and actual condition, and based on the actual condition of the equipment in real-time, workers will apply the appropriate follow-up action, and workers in data centres can know anytime, anywhere the positioning of the hardware equipment and its working condition and can find out in advance problem areas and eliminate the need for potential repairs.

Figure 3. IT Equipments tagged with RFID

 
In this regard, Mr Ji has great experience: the RFID system has replaced managers in automatically recording operations within the server room. This has not only changed the way managers supervised and monitored other workers inside server rooms, but also boosted work efficiency and decreased the number of errors in manual operations.

Ascertaining customers’ real requirements

“As a solution provider, we are the closet link in the industry chain to the end user. Besides providing the customer with a suitable solution, we also must ensure its smooth implementation and application,” Mr Shen pointed out.

Take the above banking industry customer’s case as an example: the RFID readers and antennas installed inside the server cabinets were customized according to the bank data centre environment and server cabinet features.

“It seems easy to install an antenna into the cabinet to read data, but many factors influence the reading results. We have to consider the effect of the outside environment on the antenna, like temperature, humidity and cabinet material as well as interference from other equipment, and also must consider the proper condition of the antenna itself such as adequate ventilation and heat elimination as well as the antenna’s effect on other equipment. In this regard, project execution experience is absolutely crucial.”

Figure 4. RCG RFID Data Management Structure

In Mr Shen’s point-of-view, due to the industry’s constant need to maintain a high-level of confidentiality and security, customers from the financial industry choose solutions and partners with extreme care: every step must be audited, evaluated and tested by different departments before being confirmed acceptable. What’s more, customer requirements are at times not very clear. Thus it is necessary for the solution provider to guide the customer to better understand their situation, and from there find out the customer’s true requirements

Furthermore it takes time to cultivate a customer’s understanding. One the one hand, it is the lack of understanding of the technology – for many, RFID technology is a new concept and knowledge about this technology is limited, therefore time is needed to develop a level of acceptance. On the other hand, it is the lack of understanding of return-on-investment (ROI) – the solution provider should assist customers on calculating the ROI and make them see the future savings made with their initial investment.

“In short, before a solution provider gives a solution to a customer, they need to spend a great effort in fully understanding the respective applications of customers in the industry as well as their workflow and other areas, and work with the customer to find ways to solve problems. The solution provider should also look for areas that the customer may have ignored as well as potential requirements. Only by doing all this can the solution provided be closely matched to customer needs and become more useful,” Mr Shen emphasized.

RFID Data Centre Management System vs Conventional Data Centre Management System

Source: CBI Magazine (June 2009)