The Data Center's Packed!

1. The Data Center's Packed! How We 'Virtually' Panicked

2. Some things are universal… No matter how many times IT warns the firm about pending problems it’s not real until it actually happens!

3. Natixis – Global Operations When two of France’s largest banks merged their investment banking, asset management and financial services subsidiaries to create Natixis, our European parent became bigger and stronger. • Ultimate parent of Natixis North America (formerly IXIS North America) • 15th largest banking group in the euro zone2,with leadership positions in France and internationally • Among the top 15 companies on the Paris stock exchange in terms of market cap • Backed by two shareholders, Groupe Caisse d’Epargne and Groupe Banque Populaire, with combined equity of €40 billion • Business Lines Corporate & Investment Banking Asset Management Private Equity and Private Banking Financial Services Receivables Management • Financial Strength Net Banking Income: €7.3 billon3 Group Net Income: €2.1 billion3 Total Assets: €458.6 billion3 AA/Aa2/AA-rated (S&P, Moody’s, Fitch)1 • Global Reach 23,000 employees in 68 countries 1. Ratings affirmed by Standard & Poor’s (07/13/07), by Moody’s (06/19/07) and by Fitch (01/24/07); 2. The Banker, July 2006. 3. Proforma data as of December 31, 2006.

4. Based in New York, with additional offices in New Jersey, Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, Miami, Houston and Tulsa Approximately $900 million in revenues in 2006 Approximately 850 employees in North America Products and services include: Natixis – North American Corporate & Investment Banking Operations • Principal Finance & Securitization • Real Estate Finance & Securitization • Structured Credit Products • Hybrid Structured Products • Municipal Products • Stable Value Funds Products • Structured Capital Products • Structured Fund Products • Capital Markets • International Business • Research • Global Trading • Institutional Sales • U.S. Equity Capital Markets • Global Brokerage Services • Equity Derivatives • Interest Rate Derivatives • Foreign Exchange • Corporate Solutions • Alternative Investments • Structured & Commercial Finance • Leveraged, Media and Sponsored • Finance • Financial Institutions • Project Finance • Energy Finance • Entertainment Finance • Commodities Finance • Multinational Corporate • Syndications • Proprietary Trading • RMBS Arbitrage • Structured Finance

5. Information Systems Group - What’s Our Story • We manage a constantly changing environment(More changes than you’d think!) • Information is our business • Our other challenges(Problems beyond just core technology issues) • IT isn’t just about “running the technology”, • Business expenses (i.e. technology) are expected to drop or stay level • Stabile technology is critical for smooth business operations • And we suffer from a bit of “technology schizophrenia”(From the FreeDictionary definition of this condition, “A situation or condition that results from the coexistence of disparate or antagonistic qualities, identities, or activities.”) • Small cohesive team with skills in: • Networking • SAN • Client/Server computing • Virtualization

6. Why Virtualize? • In 2004 our current Data Center… • Didn’t have room for growth and we needed to implement a solution so we could make it to the new Data Center. • Had electrical requirements and matching High Volume Air Conditioning (HVAC) that would be extremely expense to upgrade in the current building. Besides, where do we run while we’re upgrading? • Future Growth Projections are for us to double in 3-5 years. • Benefits of Virtualization • Faster deployment of servers • Better utilization of hardware (Higher %) which reduces unit cost • Better Disaster Recovery & Business Continuity program • Site to site migration without moving vans • Upgrades without complete systems shutdowns • Reduce labor cost in deploying new severs • Better centralized management of geographically dispersed hardware

7. Reactive or Proactive Data Center Management • We built a new Data Center 10 years ago. It was suppose to last a number of years. The first couple years went OK but the firm started to grow… • Year 3 – “Our primary Data Center is nearly at full capacity.” • Year 4 – “We have about 2 more years [at current growth] and we won’t be able to add any more servers.” • Year 5 – “Congratulations on the increased growth, we are at full capacity in the primary Data Center. We’re making plans to take over temporary space!” Can you sense the panic? • Growth continues despite directives for IT to manage “at constant levels”. The firm decides a new Data Center is really needed. • Year 7 – A replacement Data Center is built.

8. Challenges for the Natixis Technology Team • Cost control is a significant concern for the business • Annual Physical server deployment costs • Server hardware costs (number of servers * cost per server) • Network and SAN Infrastructure costs (number of ports * cost per port) • Labor costs (number of hours to provision new server * hourly rate) • Risk control is part of our work not after thought • Maintenance Downtime Impact • Hardware failures and upgrades • Patching and upgrades of OS and Application • Building mandated preventative maintenance • New York Production Datacenter Limitations • UPS • HVAC • Space constraints • Strategic planning is constant or the messages don’t get heard

9. What did we expect as we virtualized? • Naively, very few problems with the technology implementation • All of the solutions we planned to implement were General Availability (GA) for more than a year and were not first generation technologies. • Competing platforms for hardware and software gave us confidence that if one solution didn’t work another one would be readily available. • The vendors were very confident in our approach… • Internal to our technology group, ISG • No resistance to implementing new technology • Complete cooperation in working out minor stumbling blocks • Help in troubleshooting application problems and with vendor relations • From the business • Support for the hard work needed to address a serious business problem • Funding for the initial proof of concept project • Appreciation for the potential this technology could provide our firm • No increase in headcount, soon we weren’t going to need it! Ouch!

10. A portfolio of technology strategies is developed Readiness for Change Protecting the Company Applications Operations & Management Infrastructure Services Core Infrastructure Security

11. …and everything is interlinked! • Competition for the #1 priority is relentless • Our virtualization project began as one of many projects in our technology portfolio. Security Voice Communications LAN/WAN 21 Thin Client & Free Seating 8 15 20 1 Standardized Desktop & Applications Server Consolidation and Virtualization Remote Access 16 20 7 14 1 22 19 23 24 x 7 Operations 18 17 Outsourcing 9 Security Security 29 Keeping Technology Current 13 3 34 24 Sophis & Summit Grid Computing 2 10 25 Enterprise Messaging Monitoring 33 12 26 5 11 31 27 30 28 4 Digitization Corporate Growth Build vs. Buy SAN & Data Lifecycle 6 32 Security

12. Exploring Solutions Optimal solution achieved by combining the virtual operating system solution and blade server hardware

13. Proof of Concept (POC) Project • Compiled a well defined scope for the POC • Validation of the virtual OS solution and a management platform • Validation of the blade server hardware platform • Collaboration with Natixis IT Management • Reviewed the scope of the project and alignment with business drivers • Determine the first deliverables • Collaboration with external vendors • Reviewed the scope of the POC and business drivers for the project • Formed a focused team with the necessary technology skills • Networking (LAN & WAN) • Storage Area Networks (SAN) • Client/Server computing • Application support experience

14. Proof of Concept and Project Approval • Citrix Infrastructure (Secure Gateway, Secure Ticket Authority and 4 x Citrix servers)

15. Proof of Concept Report Card

16. Virtual Infrastructure Physical Deployment

17. Virtual Infrastructure Deployment - Power • Each Power Supply Unit from a chassis connects to a separate Power Distribution Unit • This provides protection against 30 Amp electrical circuit failures

18. Virtual Infrastructure Deployment - Network • Network Overview • Two Gigabit network switches per chassis • Two Trunks per Gigabit network switch • One Trunk per Gigabit network switch connected to the alternate network switch, providing protection against: • Gigabit network switch, trunk or port failures within the blade server Chassis • Network switch Core, trunk or port failure • Port Groups configured for virtual OS console monitoring for management of the virtual machines

19. Virtual Infrastructure Deployment - SAN • Storage Overview • Two SAN switches per blade server chassis • Two Inter Switch Links (ISLs) per SAN switch • Each blade server switch is mapped directly to a single SAN switch, providing protection against: • Blade server SAN switch, ISL or port failures within the blade server chassis • SAN switch, ISL or port failure • Virtual machine hosts mapped to a VMFS LUN • Virtual Machine moves possible: • Within a chassis • Across a chassis

21. Lessons We Learned • Architect your virtual infrastructure carefully • Network and SAN are key components of the implementation • Construct a roadmap, 3 years out if possible • Technical Account Manager programs adds value • Single point of contact • Internal champion at your vendor • Not all workloads should be virtualized • Users and workloads differ by environment, • Not every application is ready to be virtualized • Spread the Virtualization story internally (to IT!) • Virtualization for most is still a new and unknown technology

22. Technology decisions are critical business decisions! • A second data center has been built! • Infrastructure requirements drove our physical decisions. • Virtualization is helping us avoid the previous growth problems.

23. Virtualization Now • Virtual Infrastructure 3 Deployment • Some of the services currently virtualized • Domain Controllers, Print Services, IIS, Avocent DSView, CAVA, Citrix, Documentum, Data Synapse engines, Tradeweb, SLX, KVS, SQL, Oracle • Workloads / services not yet virtualized • Compute Intensive (PolyPaths) and MS Exchange

24. Future Virtualization at Natixis • Enhanced Disaster Recovery Solutions • Replication of individual virtual machines or VM file systems between sites • Manual / Auto restart of replicated virtual machines at time of test / disaster • Centralized management of the distributed virtual infrastructure • Enhanced VDI Solutions • Leverage distributed replicated infrastructure for VDI at time of test or disaster • Support for multi video head virtual desktops • Enhanced Application GRID • Geographically dispersed application GRID

25. Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) • Starting VDI • Small POC underway • Initial POC users do not require dual head video display • Benefits of moving to VDI • Cost reductions in desktop hardware • Improved provisioning of desktop and applications • User desktop services hosted on a fault tolerant infrastructure • Enhanced Disaster Recovery

26. Future thoughts… • All data processing is moving out of Manhattan. More moves are in our future to unknown locations. (Area 51) We have the capacity to handle the changes! • Business revenues, activity, technology use and hopefully will double. • Technology headcount doesn’t increase (significantly) Working smarter is the only answer. • Look at all of the technologies available. Understand the potential of each piece. • Whatever the business needs is a priority! The faster we can react the better.

27. Final Summary • Good news – Don’t panic, it all works! (With a good team and focused effort) • Bad news – It takes more effort than we expected • Implement in phases and keep up with business growth, • Plan for the future and not just for the immediate needs, • Present solutions and get management approval in small chunks, • More good news! • It really is scalable; • It works reliably and provides business stability (So we can work on things we didn’t plan for!) • It’s allows us to maintain our sanity (As we are going back and forth between “keeping everything” and keeping “what we need for a profitable future”) • What made us successful • Over Communicating – With the business and vendors • Being Persistence – It eventually pays off! Don’t give up on the vision! • Staying Committed – To our team; to managing priorities; and completing tasks • Understanding the business reason for what we were proposing and implementing

28. The End (With apologies to Scott Adams and Dilbert) Questions?