Application of cloud computing in Australian banking industry and its revelation

The second largest commercial Bank of Australia (Westpacbankinggroup), the world's 44th-ranked brand, brand rating (A +) higher than Citibank (A). May 16, 2011 West Bank and Fujitsu Australia (Fujitsuaustralia) reached a cooperation agreement to service outsourcing, the use of cloud computing integration, improve West Bank's internal management system. The project has attracted extensive attention from the financial and IT services industry since its publication and has become the focus of discussion and research in the industry because of its unprecedented scale and strength. When most people are still arguing about the exact definition of cloud computing, whether the cloud security measures are safe and effective, and when the cost benefits of cloud applications are lower, West Bank has given its own answers to the above questions in its actual actions. So what is the bank's application for the banking industry based on its considerations? This article will briefly introduce the case of West Bank's cloud computing application, and explore its enlightenment to China's financial industry, especially the Chinese banking industry, for reference.

Australian banking attitude to cloud computing

Cloud computing is a reliance on the data center, transforming centrally managed, scaled IT resources into services, delivering the management and business models that customers use in a flexible, on-demand and pay-as-you-go manner, essentially a more automated and flexible outsourcing approach, in comparison to the traditional outsourcing model, from flexibility, implementation cycles, The cost aspect has the traditional outsourcing way incomparable superiority.

As a result, the Australian banking industry has been particularly active in the application of cloud computing, even in many ways ahead of government and other industries. The Australian Federal Bank, for example, has set up a dedicated cloud computing unit to drive traditional computing into cloud computing, the paper classifies the internal computing tasks in the bank, and divides the workload into several categories: one is the work load that can only run in the traditional IT architecture; One is a dedicated cloud that can be run in a third party data center in the country; one is a dedicated cloud of Third-party data centers that can run in a foreign country; there is a class that can run in the national public cloud, and the last class can run in a foreign Gang Yun workload. They actively promote private cloud construction and the use of Third-party dedicated cloud, Gang Yun. The federal bank has even been actively involved in cloud computing standards, proposing cloud computing standards from an enterprise user perspective.

On the other hand, West Bank from a practical point of view, from the most suitable for the application of cloud computing, starting from the end of 2009 to test the development of testing cloud, in the cloud has accumulated a lot of experience. They then began to plan for a complete transformation of some IT systems that were unable to meet business needs and that plagued business for many years. The Australian government has taken a cautious and positive attitude in contrast to the banking sector's positive attitude towards cloud computing. On the one hand, the Australian government began to study the cloud computing industry in 2009, on the other hand, to promote nationwide high-speed broadband network construction. Up to now, high-speed broadband network construction has been basically completed, a series of cloud computing technology research, government supervision and development guidelines for the introduction of the document. Recently, the Information Management office of the Department of Finance and Deregulation in Australia has published the White Paper on cloud computing strategy, which has made clear publicity on the application of cloud computing in Australia and the progress of government work. The Australian government has made it clear that government agencies and their agencies can use cloud-based services when demonstrating investment value and ensuring security.

According to the Australian government to advance the cloud computing process, has completed the cloud information community formation, the Australian Government Information Management Office public website to the private cloud migration and the data in the public cloud hosting. It is expected that by the end of 2011, there will also be a cloud computing development framework and Government cloud computing services procurement model documents.

In this context, West Bank has accelerated the pace of transition to cloud computing.

Background of West Bank cloud service Outsourcing

West Bank acquired Btfinancialservicegroup in 2002, and in early 2008 acquired the Bank of South Australia (BankSA) and rams housing Loan company, and in December 2008 acquired the fifth largest commercial bank in Australia-St. George's (Stgeorgebank) And will restart the Bank of Melbourne (Bankofmelbourne) in August 2011.

A series of intensive large-scale acquisitions, mergers and acquisitions and expansion, not only to the West Bank has brought the number of business, asset size and the number of customers increased, but also brought different corporate culture integration, business integration, IT system integration and other management aspects of the great challenges. How to integrate all the resources and improve effective communication in a short time is a top priority for the bank management to solve.

e-mail not only as an important part of the Bank Office system, and with the electronic transaction law, such as the implementation of a series of Australian federal law, e-Mail has become the agreement, transaction confirmation of the important legal basis. The efficient and stable operation of e-mail and work collaboration system is one of the important guarantees for the normal operation of the banking business. West Bank's original e-mail system is IBM's Lotus, and St. George's Bank, Novell's Groupwise,btfinancialservice company, uses Microsoft's Exchange. These three systems are managed by different departments, and these different vendors provide poor system compatibility, resulting in inefficient e-mail transmission, collaboration across the system is difficult to achieve, electronic document management confusion, cross-mail system meeting scheduled support is poor, mail delays, loss of the situation occurs. The bank's earnings per share fell by 39.17% in 2009, and the cash yield fell by 7.37%, and the resulting business delays and loss of competitiveness were more difficult to estimate. Faced with these thorny and severe problems, the senior management of West Bank realizes that if the change of the existing mail system to a unified version will lead to huge cost input and a long system integration debugging period, and the use of service outsourcing model, using cloud computing technology for centralized management, It can solve the problem that the existing dispersed mail system is difficult to integrate, and can realize the migration to the use of new mail and cooperative service at a low cost in a short time.

Introduction to West Bank Cloud outsourcing Project

The West Bank Cloud Application project is an integration of its internal messaging and collaborative systems, leveraging the Cloud Computing SaaS (Softwareasaservice) provided by Fujitsu's Australian company, based on dedicated network infrastructure and dedicated servers and storage facilities, For the West Bank and the financial institutions of the 40000 users to provide unified e-mail and collaborative services, e-mail services up to 52,000 electronic mail, the charges according to the actual use of the calculation. The agreements signed by the two sides come into effect from May 2011 and expire by November 2015.

The implementation of the project from the date of contract signing in May 2011, the gradual completion of the design and construction of Maas (Managementasaservice, management, namely services), CaaS (Communicationasaservice, communication as Service), UCaaS ( Unifiedcommunicationasaservice, unified communications, such as services, and other services, system switching and coordination, relevance testing and application, and ultimately realize the integration of e-mail and collaborative Systems management.

Through the cloud outsourcing of e-mail and collaborative systems, West Bank is expected to achieve rapid and secure electronic information delivery, secure electronic documents and quick inquiries, while employees can efficiently and conveniently communicate and share knowledge through collaborative services, while the cost of managing operations and maintenance is significantly lower than in the past.

Benefits of West Bank operation

The use of cloud computing in the West Bank to merge internal mail and collaborative systems, at a lower cost, higher efficiency for the solution of business-plagued mail and interoperability issues for the compatibility of the issue of a permanent solution, while improving the internal management level.

Using the cloud computing model, West Bank has laid a forward-looking foundation for further expansion and mergers in the future, or for the sale of subsidiaries and the downsizing of companies. West Bank leverages the real-time scalability and rapid deployment features of cloud computing, not only to reduce it cost input, reduce IT system energy consumption, improve resource utilization, but also to achieve in the business can attack, retreat, with the economic cycle and market changes flexibly allocate resources strategic development intention.

Summary

Through the case of the West Bank cloud computing application, it can be seen that the promotion of cloud computing can not be like gong, can not be deterred because of security problems. Security threats and defenses are a pair of contradictions in development, and there is no absolute security system in the world. Too much emphasis on potential security issues can lead to missed opportunities for development. The problem of cloud computing information security and privacy protection, which is widely concerned, can be restricted, managed and controlled by the present security technology, plus the security regulations and legal channels. In contrast, the key technologies, business models and management systems of cloud computing are more important as the commanding heights of the cloud computing industry, and should be more concerned and supported by business leaders.

Service outsourcing has gradually become a general solution in the financial industry. Many years ago, the call Center (Callcenter) service module of Commercial Bank has already started to use outsourcing service; Today, cloud computing service providers of PAAs and SaaS services, can achieve a higher level of cloud outsourcing, more automated outsourcing, in the commercial banks to optimize resource allocation, Play an indispensable role in improving the management process.

Inspiration and significance of the case to cloud computing application in China's banking industry

First of all, the domestic commercial Bank's business, resources and management integration needs increasingly urgent. With the rapid development of China's banking industry in recent years, frequent system upgrades and expansion of more and more overseas, facing many problems similar to the West Bank, the traditional extensive marketing and management model can not meet the needs of banking management, The importance of integrated management of each business module and each level organization has been widely concerned. The West Bank's cloud computing application case provides a useful example.

Next, cloud computing should follow the localization of the service provider priority strategy. In the planning phase of the West Bank cloud computing project, many companies outside Australia are carrying many products to offer them solutions, such as Microsoft's Businessproductivityonlinesuite (BPOS), Office365, and so on. West Bank finally chose Fujitsu Australia because of the regulatory layer for data security considerations, the cloud background to the local construction. At present, China's cloud background data center Construction has made great strides, such as CICC data company, such as the construction of radiation nationwide high-level data center can fully meet for commercial banks to provide cloud computing background service capabilities for the cloud computing in the financial industry to provide a strong support and protection.

In addition, the Commercial Bank cloud computing application steps, from the periphery business gradually to the core business close, local conditions, step-by-step implementation, timely discovery and summary, to ensure the smooth and smooth cloud computing landing.

Finally, the financial Services Cloud outsourcing service model is beneficial to optimize the social resources, and guide the industry to transform into a saving and low-carbon way. As the largest buyer of IT services, the financial industry occupies more than One-fourth of the entire IT services market share, and more than 40% of the annual increase in speed. The provision of cloud outsourcing services is conducive to avoiding duplication of construction and investment, speeding up the application of green information technology and promoting the transformation of the development model to a resource-conserving and environment-friendly type.

(Responsible editor: admin)