September 19, 2007

Quality and security tip scales in favor of IT service provider

Deutsche Zentral-Genossenschaftsbank AG (DZ BANK) and Lufthansa Systems have signed a contract for the operation of central enterprise applications for the financial services provider. With this agreement, DZ BANK hopes to significantly reduce the operating costs for its IT systems and applications. Furthermore, Lufthansa Systems is offering a service model with basic services and clearly defined service level agreements (SLA) which will enable DZ BANK to benefit from customized solutions and flexible operating costs.

"Lufthansa Systems is a partner who can offer us an attractive total package for hosting and applications. We'll receive a customized solution covering the entire range of IT services from consulting to the operation of our critical enterprise applications," said Burkhard Oppenberg, head of the Informatics/Organization unit at DZ BANK. "As a financial services provider, data security and high system availability are indispensable to us."

The contract covers the maintenance and operation of all SAP systems at DZ BANK. The "SAP for Banking" solution used at DZ BANK is the largest installation of its kind in the world. The outsourcing will entail the migration of the SAP systems from Sun Solaris to the HP-UX operating system and the corresponding HP high-performance servers. Lufthansa Systems is one of the first service providers to carry out a migration of this scale to HP-UX systems. Lufthansa Systems will also ensure the smooth operation of eight other bank-specific applications.

"We are very proud that we convinced DZ BANK with our professionalism and the scope and quality of our services," said Dr. Hannes Pfister, Senior Vice President Infrastructure Services at Lufthansa Systems, discussing DZ BANK's decision. "Thanks to our other projects with financial services providers, we're familiar with the high security demands of banks and the special processes and procedures in the financial industry. DZ BANK will also benefit from the experience we've gained in the airline industry in handling sensitive data and complex IT systems."

Note to editors:

Lufthansa Systems is one of the leading IT service providers for the airline and aviation industries worldwide. As a systems integrator, the wholly-owned subsidiary of the Lufthansa Group covers the entire range of IT services, including consulting, development, implementation and operation. Lufthansa Systems provides its IT infrastructure and operations services to a variety of industries. Headquartered in Kelsterbach near Frankfurt/Main, Germany, the company has branches in Germany and 17 other countries and employs about 3,320 people worldwide. In business year 2006, Lufthansa Systems recorded sales of EUR 652 million.

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