United Overseas Bank Spends US$1.1m On Network Migration

SINGAPORE -- Singapore-headquartered United Overseas Bank (UOB) has chosen Datacraft Asia to migrate its Token Ring network to a high-speed switched Gigabit Ethernet solution.

The more than US$1.1 million network migration project will help UOB meet increased traffic and bandwidth requirements as it rolls out new applications and a wider range of financial services for e-commerce and customer care. The bank has a network of 65 branches in Singapore and 212 international offices.

"Upgrading and migrating a mission-critical network involves more than acquiring the latest technology," said Susan Hwee, UOB's executive vice-president of IT. "It requires excellent project management services and technical expertise to ensure that the network is up and running smoothly within a tight deadline."

The new Gigabit Ethernet network will replace ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) and Token Ring technology; Datacraft Singapore will deploy Cisco's family of Catalyst switches and routers to form the core of the upgraded enterprise-wide network.

Said John Kan, Datacraft Asia's regional director for South Asia, "The project clearly demonstrates Datacraft's ability to provide our customers with turnkey end-to-end solutions by leveraging leading edge technology and our capabilities in integration and project management."

Singapore Mainboard-listed Datacraft boasts an extensive network of 62 offices throughout Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, China, India, Taiwan, Indonesia, Thailand, New Zealand, Vietnam, Philippines, Japan and Korea. Its customers in the financial industry include ABN AMRO, AMEX, Asian Development Bank, Chase Manhattan, Citibank, DBS Bank, Deutsche Bank, Merrill Lynch and HSBC.