#Warsaw #Poland #Hitachi Vantara #Red Hat #Alior Bank

Alior Bank's Significant Leap in Virtualization Through Strategic Partnership

In an ambitious move, Alior Bank, a leading Polish bank, has partnered with Hitachi Vantara and Red Hat to embark on a comprehensive modernization of its virtualization environment. This initiative, announced on May 12, aims to significantly achieve cost reductions and enhance operational efficiency, which is critical in today’s fast-paced banking sector.

The Shift to a Modernized Infrastructure

Alior Bank is transitioning crucial banking operations from its traditional virtualization platforms to a more streamlined model that integrates Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform One (VSP One) and Red Hat OpenShift. The bank anticipates that this migration will lead to a striking 60% reduction in virtualization costs. This is a notable milestone, especially considering the bank’s significant reliance on hundreds of virtual machines to support its essential banking functions.

The modernization journey does not end with just cost savings. By adopting an integrated technology platform featuring an active-active configuration, Alior Bank aims to minimize downtime, ensuring continuous operations while enhancing both efficiency and resilience. This strategic shift is aligned with the banking industry's trend towards improved digital services and increased reliance on AI technologies, which have, unfortunately, also brought about rising costs and operational complexities stemming from legacy systems.

Addressing Industry Challenges

Recent research highlights that 59% of banks, similar to Alior Bank, continue facing challenges stemming from outdated technologies and legacy IT systems. These systems hinder swift responses to evolving customer needs, leading to a critical reassessment of existing virtualization strategies. The need for a cohesive database infrastructure is paramount, as the separate management of virtual machines and containers exacerbates the complexities.

Recognizing this, Alior Bank has made it a priority to simplify its data infrastructure. The bank will transition numerous virtual machine workloads to Red Hat OpenShift while also consolidating workloads into a single integrated cloud-native platform based on Hitachi Vantara's data infrastructure. Alior Bank anticipates recouping its investments within two and a half years, underscoring its commitment to modernization.

Leadership Insight

Piotr Krzak, the Chief Technology Officer at Alior Bank, stated: “By collaborating with Hitachi Vantara and Red Hat, we drive a new approach to virtualization that balances operational efficiency with flexibility. By moving away from traditional virtualization platforms, we not only reduce costs but also build a more adaptable foundation that can support applications with greater agility. We believe that once the effectiveness of this model is demonstrated, many more companies will follow suit.”

Implementation for Continued Operations

To ensure seamless transition and performance, Alior Bank has incorporated Hitachi Global-Active Device technology. The setup features VSP One Block and additional VSP storage systems, deployed across multiple sites in an active-active configuration, which paves the way for ongoing operations without service interruptions. The existing setup incorporates Hitachi Vantara's Container Storage Interface (CSI) software, which directly integrates VSP One’s storage automation capabilities with Kubernetes distributions, including Red Hat OpenShift. This integration provides consistent volume management across both virtual machines and container workloads, maintaining high availability through distributed Hitachi Vantara storage architectures.

As Alior Bank proceeds with the technology shift, they expect several key operational benefits:

• - A 60% reduction in virtualization costs.
• - Investment recovery anticipated in two and a half years.
• - An operational model that minimizes downtime through an active-active configuration across multiple locations.
• - Simplified management of virtual machines and containerized workloads.
• - Unified handling of virtual machines and container workloads on a single platform.

Alior Bank has already finalized the storage system installations and is currently migrating hundreds of virtual machines to the new platform. This integration of workloads facilitates simpler application management and enhances overall data infrastructure efficiency.

Industry Perspectives

Adrian Johnson, Hitachi Vantara's Chief Revenue Officer, commented on the advancement: “Alior Bank simplifies the management of complex virtualization environments while maintaining the performance and availability needed for mission-critical systems. By integrating virtual machines and containers backed by Hitachi Vantara’s VSP One data platform and Red Hat OpenShift, we lighten operational burdens, strengthen resilience, and build a consistent foundation for continuous development.”

Moving forward, Alior Bank is working to ensure scalability and flexibility to support future business growth while also standardizing the application development and deployment processes across both virtual machines and containers.

Mike Barrett, Vice President and General Manager of Red Hat's Hybrid Cloud Platforms, noted, “Companies are looking for practical ways to transition from traditional virtualization models while minimizing impact on existing operations. Red Hat OpenShift, featuring OpenShift Virtualization, offers a leading hybrid cloud application platform powered by Kubernetes, allowing companies to run virtual machines and containers in a cohesive manner to simplify operations and support modern application strategies.”

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